Archived thread 1005903 from Virtualisation. Markdown source: Virtualisation/thread_1005903_best_vm_+distro_to_run_from_usb_key_on_windows_(bo.md
What is the best distro + vm software to use on a pen drive such that linux will run relatively smoothly from a virtual machine on a middle aged (not extremely old but old nonetheless) windows computer?... Also, does anyone know where I can find a howto for installing this (whichever distro+vm that you choose)? I've been searching around, and I figure out what would work the best.
Thanks so much.
For a distro I would advise to use Puppy linux. I have fit the minumum installation on a 265 mb drive and a version with java and firefox on a 512 mb.
However, I don't think you will be able to get any virtualization software to fit on a flashdrive. Maybe if you got one of the new 16 Gb flash drives, then you could fit a small distro of linux, and then run VirtualBox with a windows installation (I'm assuming that's what u want). However, you would need a decent amount of ram to run both the lightweight linux system and the virtual system. I would advise at least 512 mb at the very minimum.
An alternative could be to install a minimal ubuntu with debootstrap (see for instance http://howtoforge.com/minimal-ubuntu-8.04-server-install ) on an ext3 partition of your key, then use qemu (stored on the first FAT32 partition of the key) to virtualize it.