Light (hdd too) Distro for VirtualBox

[Jason Marks]

BerkeleyLUG -

After dragging my feet all day yesterday, I finally got around to studying PureScript, which existed* on a Mint 19 xfce VM allocated w/ 16GB of RAM...

* existed: it got messed up. ( nope, no virtualbox "snapshot" ) It's in "infinite login" mode similar to:

https://askubuntu.com/questions/997615/virtualbox-guest-ubuntu-login-loop

Although fixing it would be nice, that's not my immediate concern as I've already wasted a few hours trying to do just that. 

My current concern is to find a smaller Ubuntu based distro to install vscode on and be small enough ( my Mint was 52GB ) that I can *backup* more easily / readily.

I'm currently trying to upgrade a Lubuntu VM to 20.04 (probably should have waited and asked first)

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

- Jason

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Jason Marks (jym...@sbcglobal.net):

> My current concern is to find a smaller Ubuntu based distro to install
> vscode on and be small enough ( my Mint was 52GB ) that I can *backup*
> more easily / readily.

Maybe you should consider the approach of paring down by removing what
you don't need. But I have to say that the entire *buntu family is not
really where you go seeking 'svelte' (or for that matter, avoiding
complexity tangles).

Or you could do a custom reinstall, and simply omit a lot of stuff.

Or you could try:

Peppermint OS
elementary OS
Bodhi Linux
LXLE
Pearl Linux OS

Those are all relatively lightweight *buntu variants, most based on
Lubuntu. But seriously, have you tried taking action during OS
installation and not just accepting the default kitchen sink?

[Jason Marks]

> But seriously, have you tried taking action during OS

> installation and not just accepting the default kitchen sink?

No, I haven't. Is there such an option in the Ubuntu LiveCD's? I've not seen that option...

but will look again.

I tried to learn more Linux w/ Ubuntu Server 20.04, but I'll ask about that later. I ended

up installing a GUI, initially the "core" and things wouldn't work right (couldn't log out)

and on reinstall (to a bigger hdd) I just apt installed "kubuntu-desktop" (if mem serves).

It's everything. Huge. But then I could logout/shutdown w/o issue.

I considered Manjaro per a blog post stating that Manjaro comes w/ less pre-installed

and then you add what your want vs. Ubuntu's here's everything and one has to remove

what they don't want, but my first attempt, years ago, wouldn't boot after install.

Furthermore, I'd like something more stable... non-rolling, maybe?

It might be a non-issue, but VirtualBox VM's can grow, but never shrink.

> Or you could try:

> Peppermint OS 

> elementary OS 

> Bodhi Linux 

> LXLE

> Pearl Linux OS

Tis why I asked! Appreciate this list. I found a couple "best lightweight Linux in 2020" type blog posts, but wanted another perspective.

TYVM.

peace & 42

- jason

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[Rick Moen]

Quoting Jason Marks (jym...@sbcglobal.net):

> No, I haven't. Is there such an option in the Ubuntu LiveCD's? I've not seen that option...but will look again.

I will confess, I haven't actually ran an Ubuntu installer in a dog's
age. Used to be, there were both 'desktop' and 'alternate' images, and
I always favoured the latter because they (1) ran in a -lot- less RAM,
(2) were accordingly one whole heck of a lot faster, and (3) permitted
fine control of installation details including adjusting what is to be
installed. The alternate image used Debian's d-i installer, as opposed
to the one Canonical wrote from scratch for the 'desktop' images.

The 'alternate' ISOs got dropped some revisions back. I think if I had
it to do today, I'd use either the 'network installer' ISO or the Ubuntu
Server one (the latter because, even if it's not flexible, it at least
is less kitchen-sinkish).

Aside from that, there is also the remedy of 'remove what you don't
need'.

> I tried to learn more Linux w/ Ubuntu Server 20.04, but I'll ask about

> that later. I endedup installing a GUI, initially the "core" and
> things wouldn't work right (couldn't log out)and on reinstall (to a

> bigger hdd) I just apt installed "kubuntu-desktop" (if mem

> serves).It's everything. Huge. But then I could logout/shutdown w/o
> issue.

Ubuntu Server IIRC defaults to a pared-down GNOME, so having a 'GUI'
should actually have been the path of least resistance. I think.

Good job on finding *buntu's kubuntu-desktop metapackage, though. There
are similar metapackages for quite a number of DEs (Desktop
Environments). Of course, you really, really do not need a DE just to
have a 'GUI' it suffices to install a window manger, without the whole
marching band that comes with a DE.

> > Or you could try:
> > Peppermint OS 
> > elementary OS 
> > Bodhi Linux 
> > LXLE
> > Pearl Linux OS
>
> Tis why I asked! Appreciate this list. I found a couple "best lightweight Linux in 2020" type blog posts, but wanted another perspective.

You're very welcome. I found that list of possibles by playing with the
search feature on Distrowatch, and winnowing the return values based on
guesstimating what you might be looking for.

[Jason Marks]

No worries.

It appears I've been too stingy with my VM hdd allocation. Due to fear of running out of hdd space on the host, I ran out of space on the guest.

Lubuntu 18.04 VM apparently needs more than the 10GB I allocated. Hit that limit running updates today. Expanding it doesn't feel worth it to me. (Interestingly this is the one that I cloned/have a living backup of!)

Still pondering the lightweight replacement. My one foray w/ Arch was ArchBang a few years ago and I successfully (natively) installed it to a 2GB keydrive! Guess those days are gone, but they were different anyway. But I never really felt comfortable w/ Arch.

Anyway, the neat thing about my dilemma is that by the time I am finally ready to replace the hdd w/ an ssd, it'll be cheaper and or bigger. ;o)

peace & 42

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[Jason Marks]

Update:

While looking into "snap" & following instructions that it was safe to manually delete the snap cache, I saw "docker" (under /var/lib/). Forgot about trying to learn that. Well, between the snap cache, docker containers (then eventually the whole thing), & firefox, I now have 2.3GB free.

Breathing room.

peace & 42

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[goossbears]

On Wednesday, September 30, 2020 at 11:42:42 PM UTC-7 Jason Marks wrote:

No worries.

It appears I've been too stingy with my VM hdd allocation. Due to fear of running out of hdd space on the host, I ran out of space on the guest.

Lubuntu 18.04 VM apparently needs more than the 10GB I allocated. Hit that limit running updates today. Expanding it doesn't feel worth it to me. (Interestingly this is the one that I cloned/have a living backup of!)

Still pondering the lightweight replacement. My one foray w/ Arch was ArchBang a few years ago and I successfully (natively) installed it to a 2GB keydrive! Guess those days are gone, but they were different anyway. But I never really felt comfortable w/ Arch.

Anyway, the neat thing about my dilemma is that by the time I am finally ready to replace the hdd w/ an ssd, it'll be cheaper and or bigger. ;o)

Jason,

IMNSHO, another matter to consider from the get-go on the initial installation of your host Linux distro is *How* you partition your "hdd space on the host".

Rick M has posted a relevant article written by a Karsten M. Self on his linuxmafia.com site touching on this point entitled "Linux Partitioning mini-FAQ", http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Linux/FAQs/partition.html

Perhaps it's  obvious, but you seriously may wish to plan for future Linux-distro installations on allocating much more diskspace dedicated for your /home partition to accommodate the Lubuntu 18.04 VM and any other VM's you wish to use in your desired scenario(s).  Here's an example of one such scenario, and even using something like Karsten M Self's "minimal partitioning: boot, root, swap..." on a relatively low-capacity 250 GB hdd (either spinning-platters -or- SSD):

0.5 GB /boot (distro-single system with extra space for a limited number of additional Linux kernels and initrd's)

30 GB /<root> (yep, that's less than 52 GB)

16 GB swap (assuming that physRAM is 16 GB?)

160 GB+ /home (rest of hdd; really!)

This way, that dedicated 160 GB+ /home partition can accommodate a handful or so of VM guests with a bit of extra diskspace for /home/<user> configurations+settings+other files,  assuming for the sake of argument that each VM is expandable to 30 GB maximum :-)

Further thoughts on that from Rick M, Michael P, and others?

-A

[tom r lopes]

I normally just do 

/boot for the EFI partition

And

/ For the rest

If I have a mix of drives I put/ on the SSD and /home on the large HDD. But sometimes I'll just symlink downloads or videos or photos to the HDD and Leanne the rest of home on the SSD. 

If you have / and /home on separate partitions then the space not used by one mountpoint is not available to the other. 

I like the idea of LVM but have not tried it yet. 

Also I have not tried to share a /home between two distro. How does that work?  Wouldn't you have conflicts between the config dot files in the two OS?    

There are also different thoughts on the EFI partition mount point. 

Ubuntu likes /boot/efi 

And now the Arch wiki has /boot or /efi

I run Arch and like to efistub. So I need the kennel and initramfs in the EFI. So /boot for me. 

Also the Arch wiki recommends /boot if you use a bootloader that can't read the root filesystem. Like grub and btrfs. 

Thomas

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[Jason Marks]

I've dipped my toe in the Linux pool off/on over the years, but I never really grok'd the whole partitioning thing. So, TYVM for this.

As for some "clarity" on the situation, here are my Linux "projects" that I'm hoping to keep in separate threads.

1. My Linux VM's are running on top of Win10 on a laptop.
• my main go to VM is Linux Mint 19 that recently hiccupped. It's there, but in infinite login loop.
• my fallback Ubuntu 18.04 VM's were hard set at 10GB and expanding the max hdd size is more work than I'm willing to take on ATM. But I did free 2.3GB last night.
2. Considering upgrading to an SSD and switching to Linux. (which the above will definitely help with)
3. An Ubuntu Server 20.04 native install and "kubuntu-desktop" on top of it on an HP EliteDesk 705 G1 SFF. AMD A4-7300B w/ 8GB of RAM and recently installed 2TB hdd.
4. Oh and I did a similar install ( Ubuntu Server 20.04 + "kubuntu-desktop" on an HP Stream. ).

So, yeah, this thread is more about taking care of point #1, but all help appreciated!

Also, for future noobs finding this thread ( and future me too ) I misspoke on 2 topics:

1. Win8 was the OS that erased my Grub boot menu. Older laptop that I partitioned the hdd and dual booted.
2. VirtualBox allows setting up a dynamic or static sized hdd. When setting up with dynamic allocation, one still states the max size the drive can grow to be. The fs will grow as needed, but not past this limit. In the case of my Mint 19, I gave it a max size of 100GB and it grew to 52GB. Well, the 52GB is the size that Windows reports the .vdi file to be. "df -h" reports I have 67GB free. So here in lies a little (potential) confusion. One can "clean" up a bit, but the space isn't returned to the host OS only the guest. IOW, the .vdi file never shrinks.

peace & 42

[goossbears]

Quoting Jason Marks <jym...@sbcglobal.net>:

As for some "clarity" on the situation, here are my Linux "projects" that I'm hoping to keep in separate threads.

1. My Linux VM's are running on top of Win10 on a laptop.

• my main go to VM is Linux Mint 19 that recently hiccupped. It's there, but in infinite login loop.

• my fallback Ubuntu 18.04 VM's were hard set at 10GB and expanding the max hdd size is more work than I'm willing to take on ATM. But I did free 2.3GB last night....

Quoting Jason Marks <jym...@sbcglobal.net>:

Also, for future noobs finding this thread ( and future me too ) I misspoke on 2 topics:

..

2. VirtualBox allows setting up a dynamic or static sized hdd. When setting up with dynamic allocation, one still states the max size the drive can grow to be. The fs will grow as needed, but not past this limit. In the case of my Mint 19, I gave it a max size of 100GB and it grew to 52GB

Thanks for clearing up the first point of confusion :-)

How much total and free diskspace do you have on that Windows 10 laptop?

Is it at all possible to backup and uninstall/clear-out as many Windows10 programs and data as are safely possible to free-up significantly more than the 2.3GB freed from last night??

If it's possible to free-up 30 GB or more on the laptop's Windows 10 partition, then why not at the very least just create/"re-install" a duplicate of the fallback Ubuntu 18.04 VM(s),

but this time dynamically allocating the just-created virtual disk image/.vdi to that 30 GB maximum?

After successfully doing so,  then the originally "hard set" 10 GB VM(s) could be conceivably deleted and thus free-up further Windows 10 diskspace for current (e.g., Linux Mint 19) and future

(e.g., other Linux distro) VirtualBox guest needs.

-A

[Jason Marks]

@ trl

I'm probably repeating, but most of my Linux adventures mentioned in this thread are running (or semi-running?) on VirtualBox on a Win10 host.

On Thursday, October 1, 2020, 01:08:53 PM PDT, trl (Thomas) wrote:

(well, snippets at the very least)

> I normally just do 

> /boot for the EFI partition

> And

> / For the rest

I'm mainly running Linux in VMs, but I do have the Ubuntu Server 20.04 (w/ kubuntu-desktop) installed natively, but as was alluded to earlier in the thread, I just accepted the default settings...

> ... But sometimes I'll just symlink downloads or videos or photos to the HDD ...

I've heard of simlinks and might have actually made 1 or 2 a few years ago. This is something I should focus on learning. Somewhat related, I just realized/learned that VirtualBox does allow attaching more than one .vdi file. So, it looks like mounting extra volumes (?) is possible. More info when I have it.

> I like the idea of LVM but have not tried it yet

I was forced to figure some of it out. Alas, working thru it once wasn't enough to remember everything. Ubuntu Server 20.04 "updated while installing" (?) suggested LVM as default. It only allocated 200GB of a 2TB hdd. I'll share more of that adventure -- of attempting to setup the Server -- in another thread shortly.

> Also I have not tried to share a /home between two distro. How does that work? ...

*bump* This interests me too. ( But perhaps I'm just naïve and symlink-ing my edu/development folders would be sufficient. ) Anybody knowledgeable about sharing /home?

> I run Arch ...

Good to know! I may try ArchBang or similar, but given my current speed in these matters, you are safe... for now. ;o)

... I will try to remember to search the forum before asking oft repeated Q's.

peace & 42

[Jason Marks]

@ A

On Thursday, October 1, 2020, 08:49:18 PM PDT, goossbears wrote:

> Thanks for clearing up the first point of confusion :-)

> How much total and free diskspace do you have on that Windows 10 laptop?

> Is it at all possible to backup and uninstall/clear-out as many Windows10

> programs and data as are safely possible to free-up significantly more than

> the 2.3GB freed from last night??

> If it's possible to free-up 30 GB or more on the laptop's Windows 10 partition,

> then why not at the very least just create/"re-install" a duplicate of the fallback

> Ubuntu 18.04 VM(s),

> but this time dynamically allocating the just-created virtual disk image/.vdi

> to that 30 GB maximum?

> After successfully doing so,  then the originally "hard set" 10 GB VM(s) could

> be conceivably deleted and thus free-up further Windows 10 diskspace for

> current (e.g., Linux Mint 19) and future

> (e.g., other Linux distro) VirtualBox guest needs.

> -A

That sounds way too logical for me, but yes, I'm moving in that general direction. ;o)

• The 2.3GB was freed up "inside" one of the 10GB Lubuntu 18.04 VMs
• ( mistakenly referred to as Ubuntu 18.04 previously )
• I'm not sure that a VM can be transferred to a new, bigger VM. It seems that one needs to make a new one and reinstall/uninstall apps ... err set it up how one likes all over again. That might not be all bad.
• As for the host hdd. It's 1TB half of which contains family pix/vids. The Server, that I've mentioned from time to time, is supposed to become a centralized (LAN only, for now) repository for those pix & vids. Which will help free up a little space ... Will ask more specific Q's about this in a new thread.
• Beyond that, I did find a certain programming language, that I've attempted to learn, installed 3x when I only need 1 (at most?). That cleared up 4GB!
• Slightly related to all of this is that backing up one giant file, say a VM for instance, is much, much faster than backing up a ton of little files that have the same cumulative size.
• This may be due to the fact I'm still using mechanical internal & external usb hdd's

peace & 42