[dba-Tech] FW: Your Blueprint: Optimizing Your Desktop Using VirtualBox

 In theory I'd say you are right, but the problem is probably that there has to be some sort of reasonably proficient OS to run the thing on top of as *something* has to provide the underlying services: you know dull stuff like disk access, screen updates, port management etc.

So I guess it boils down to which base OS has smallest footprint: Windows, OS X, Linux, or Solaris which are the major OS platforms that VirtualBox will run on (though there are no guest additions for OS X).


Lambert

-----Original Message-----
From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Arthur Fuller
Sent: Friday, September 25, 2009 11:38 AM
To: Discussion of Hardware and Software issues
Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] FW: Your Blueprint: Optimizing Your Desktop Using VirtualBox

Although I have made everything work satisfactorily, I still am mystified and concerned that things are inverted. It seems that I must run a basic OS, whether Ubuntu or XP or Windows Server, and then run VirtualBox inside this OS. This seems to be fundamentally backwards: the first thing that boots ought to be a minimal OS + VirtualBox or any similar VM manager: the lowest level ought to be just that -- no applications at all, save the VM manager, thus preserving the max RAM for the VMs. Given such a layout, I could then create a dozen VMs and stuff only the apps of interest into each of them, e.g. Vista in one, XP in another, Ubuntu in another, etc.
This is pretty much what I do anyway, despite the overhead of the first OS, but I currently live with it (and also with my impecuniousness -- would love to cram 8GB in this sucker!). Ah well, another day....