Okay, this is a very specific ‘best distro’ question, so hopefully I don’t get flamed or get a bunch of answers saying “it depends on the user.”
What I want to know is which distro is best at running virtual machines of Windows.
Some distros seem to be better at certain things and I can’t find any distro-specific information on this topic.
I want to find a distro that can run Win7 in either VMware or VirtualBox. I have a core i7 processors, 8GB of ddr3 ram, 256gb SSD, etc. My machine is well equipped, so now I just need to find a good distro for the job.
I need this so I can run adobe programs and a CAD program while using Linux.
So can anyone share their wisdom on this subject?
Purely from a virtualization standpoint, which is the best distro?
Which is the best way to get get near native WIN7 performance without going with native WIN7?
Where VBox is concerned, any modern distro will do. Since all you want is to run VBox, the features of the host OS are mostly irrelevant. All you need is that it run VBox, the kernel is reasonably up to date, the filesystem is efficient, you have a windowing system, and the distro sends out regular security updates. Quite a lot of distros qualify. Since you have 8GB RAM you would want to run a 64-bit host.
I don’t know about VMware but I suspect the requirements are not that different.
As for running W7 virtualised you probably want to check for any compatibility issues with the virtualisation software at their respective forums first.
What ken_yap said. I’ve used Ubuntu LTS, Centos 5, and Opensuse 11.1 as hosts for VirtualBox, all with reasonable results. Ubuntu had other issues that I hated, so I dropped it; CentOS had some strange issues with the guest additions, so I dropped that; I’m left running Windows XP (on those rare occasions that I need Windows) under VirtualBox on Opensuse and it works fine.
since most any released in the last year will do the VM running fine
(whether Win7 can ever run fine is an unknown) the ‘best’ distro to
satisify the OP’s need depends on which one s/he is most comfortable
with…
if not comfortable/proficient in any Linux distro then openSUSE is as
good a place as any to begin…and, probably a LOT better than Slack
or straight Debian or . . .
Currently I am using a Dell Vostro A860 with a dual core 2 processor, 2 gig of ram running OpenSuse 11.2 64 bit natively; I have VMware 7.01 installed on this laptop and it installed as easily as the windows version of VMware 7.01 installed on a Win 7. system. laptop I also own from Dell. On the Vostro I am running Win. 7 Ultimate 32 bit as a virtual system and it is wonderful. If this Vostro had VT technology (but what could I expect from a 399 buck laptop?) I could run the 64 bit Windows instead! Thus, I think you should stay with Opensuse 11.2 for VMware.
I use a Dell Studio 1537 laptop with a P8400 dual core 2 processor, 4GB RAM, also running a 64-bit openSUSE-11.2 natively with KDE-4.3.5 (and ATI Radeon HD3450 graphics with proprietary ATI graphic driver) - and in my case I have winXP running in Virtual Box session on this laptop under the host openSUSE-11.2.
I use this laptop extensively for business trips, so stability is a key important factor for me. I often have my laptop display projected on the BIG SCREEN in the confernce room, with one to two dozen senior people looking on. Virtual Box works fine in this laptop and I’m able to confidently switch back and forth between Virtual Box (with WinXP running inside) and openSUSE in the meeting, with no embarassing hiccups. It simply works well and I think more than a couple of the attendee’s at these meetings have now started giving a few thoughts about using Linux instead of “only MS-Windows” as a result of business meetings with my presentations/display of minute writing, etc …