Guru meditation installing Debian 7 on Windows 7

[Luigi]

Hi everybody.

I'm here to report a guru meditation whenever I try to install Debian 7.1 x64 on my Windows 7 x64 machine.
CPU Intel Core2 Duo P8600 (has VT-X)
GPU Ati Radeon 4570 512Mb (laptop graphics)

I also:
- checked the SHA256 sums of the iso, and they match.
- tried the testing iso of XFCE and LXDE, same problem

I can't attach my Logs file because forum says it's too big.
Any idea?

[Perryg]

Post the vbox.log and compress if you need to. (as an attachment)

[Luigi]

Ok, here it is. Compressing did the trick.

[mpack]

00:00:05.086117 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
00:00:05.086120 !!
00:00:05.086120 !! Guru Meditation -1618 (VERR_PGM_PHYS_PAGE_RESERVED)
00:00:05.086145 !!

I'm not exactly sure what that error means, but I usually see it when somehow has done what you did, i.e. :-

00:00:01.798078 Name <string> = "Debian 7 x64" (cb=13)
...
00:00:01.798086 RamSize <integer> = 0x0000000020000000 (536 870 912, 512 MB)

512MB seems a tad optimistic for running a 64bit OS. You can afford to double that to 1GB, maybe 1.5GB. IMHO your real problem is that you are trying to run a 64bit host plus a 64bit guest both inside the same 4GB RAM. Lots of people have problems when they try that. 16GB is the smallest amount of host RAM I'd be comfortable with before I tried that.

[Perryg]

File system of 'C:\Users\Agostino\Downloads\Linux e VM\debian-7.1.0-ia64-lxde-CD-1.iso' (DVD) is ntfs

Actually the problem is the wrong install media. You are using the IA64 (Intel Itanium) but need the AMD-64

Note: Your memory settings will work unless you start to do heavy lifting which will force swapping, but for general use 512 is enough with most Linux OSes.

[Luigi]

File system of 'C:\Users\Agostino\Downloads\Linux e VM\debian-7.1.0-ia64-lxde-CD-1.iso' (DVD) is ntfs

Actually the problem is the wrong install media. You are using the IA64 (Intel Itanium) but need the AMD-64

Note: Your memory settings will work unless you start to do heavy lifting which will force swapping, but for general use 512 is enough with most Linux OSes.

Yup, true, I read 64 and forgot to check the rest...

Thanks!

BTW I'm searching for a really light weight distro that has a GUI and works well in Virtual Box.
Maybe Debian is overkill, I just need to ssh and do some Shell/terminal work.
I tried Puppy Linux, but it has some resolution problems popping up, not to mention saving to a partition...

[Perryg]

The right Debian lxde should serve you just fine. Especially if you do an expert install and leave out the bloat.

[Luigi]

The right Debian lxde should serve you just fine. Especially if you do an expert install and leave out the bloat.

Fair enough.
Does it come with a graphical update manager?
XFCE didn't have one. Any suggestion on the right package?

[Perryg]

Does it come with a graphical update manager?

Sure if you select to install it.

Any suggestion on the right package

https://wiki.debian.org/LXDE
Might want to take note of the Debian Wiki help section.