Has anyone tried VirtualBox on a netbook?

[sling-shot]

How is the experience of running an OS inside VirtualBox on an Intel Atom netbook?
-SS.

[menotu]

How much ram does the netbook have - is it limited to 1GB?

And of course, it would also depend on what OS you are planning on running.

Edit - this chap is running VBox on an Acer Aspire netbook

https://geekylinuxblog.wordpress.com/2009/05/21/setting-up-virtualbox-on-a-netbook/

He says near the end:

On my Acer Aspire One, it actually takes only 50% of my CPU, which is good considering how weak it is.  As long as you stay with either Windows XP and lower, an OS with a lightweight desktop environment, or no GUI at all, everything should run just fine in VirtualBox. 

[sling-shot]

I run HP Mini 110 with
- Intel Atom N455
- 1 GB RAM

I intend to run PCLinuxOS, mostly test installations.
-SS.

[AS]

I run HP Mini 110 with
- Intel Atom N455
- 1 GB RAM

I intend to run PCLinuxOS, mostly test installations.
-SS.

Considering the limited amount of RAM memory, and the lack of VT-X support from that CPU, I would suggest a separate partition and a dual boot setup. You can even test a 64 bit OS on a dual boot setup.

my 2 cents 

AS

[menotu]

And 2 pennies from moi.

I think you'd be able to run them but I'd imagine they could be quite sluggish in actual use.

If it was to quickly try out whether you liked a certain app I suppose that may work, but again it may not give you a true feel for what that app is capable of........

Virtualbox is easy to uninstall (and remove VDI's if necessary) so you could give it a whirl and try OpenBox or lxde etc.......

But the advice AS gave is very much worth considering.

[sling-shot]

I run HP Mini 110 with
- Intel Atom N455
- 1 GB RAM

I intend to run PCLinuxOS, mostly test installations.
-SS.

Considering the limited amount of RAM memory, and the lack of VT-X support from that CPU, I would suggest a separate partition and a dual boot setup. You can even test a 64 bit OS on a dual boot setup.

my 2 cents 

AS

Your advice on dual-boot is moot as I already have 4 OSs on 4 different partitions there already!!

I guess overall, it will be a fruitless exercise

-SS.

[T6]

i have tested windows xp, other livecd distros, vista and win 7(with weird results) under pclinux

i also have used it on win xp to virtualize trixbox(a linux distro to create virtual ip phone lines) and to virtualize xp and other linux distros in livecd

this is a atom 455 at 1.66 ghz(hiperthreading, 2 fake cores) and with 1 gb of ddr2 ram

remember that a atom is nothing different to a normal cpu but using a lot less power

it is basically the same as my amd semprom 2600, you can compare it to a old pentium 4 at 1800

while running xp on the virtual machines i found it usable, the distros i tested if didn't asked for much ram, were usable

the host os on xp remained usable considering the conditions of use, two word processors, some pdfs, two web browsers and inside the virtual machine other stuff

this will heat the machine so put it on a table, not on your lap or it will overheat, i know this is a atom but i have managed to get it to 52º C. on windows and in linux to 55º C.

i am considering to change the 1 gb module and put a 2gb module in it, the biggest limitation is ram, remember that the ram slot will only accept a 2 gb module and it only has one ram slot

i would run pclinux and virtualize xp giving it 368 mbs of ram, maybe 512, if you have 2 gbs of ram give it 768mbs to the virtual machine

kde4 inside a virtual machine without 1 gb of ram, won't be useful if it works

about xp or windows 7, remember that the oem license that comes with the machine cannot be used for virtualization, you won't be able to activate it, you will need to use a retail version of those os so you can activate

i am dualbooting this netbook with xp oem home ulpc and pclinux with kde4