How to make Ubuntu faster in virtualbox?

[Thor159]

I am using Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS 32 bits in virtualbox. My host is windows 7 32 bits and my specs are:--

Intel Pentium Dual core G2030 3.00 GHz
2 GB RAM
500 GB HDD

And I have given Ubuntu:-

1 core
900MB RAM
128 MB Video memory
15 GB HDD Space

Ubuntu is almost unusable in VirtualBox. Mouse and applications lag. I don't want to dual boot or liveCD.

So, how can I make it at least usable in virtualbox?

 

[vrumor]

Get better hardware. Or give it more resources.

 

[Thor159]

I can't. No money.

Will giving more resources hang up my host?

 

[vrumor]

No idea. But your hardware is severely lacking to run an OS in a virtualbox. I take back what I said, giving it more resources isnt going to help, you just need better hardware or to run it as an OS rather then virtually.

 

[spdragoo]

Yes, of course it will. But that's the problem, is that you don't have enough resources.

Think of it this way: the virtual machine (VM) is just that, a virtual PC. The artificial limitations on the VM are going to cause it to perform just as if it was a real machine with those resources. In other words, Windows 7 (even the 32-bit version) would run spectacularly slow on a machine with less than 1GB of RAM, so expecting Ubuntu to run well is a pipe dream.

 

[Thor159]

What if I upgrade RAM from 2 to 6(4+2) GB

 

[USAFRet]

What if I upgrade RAM from 2 to 6(4+2) GB

There is no guarantee that this new 4GB stick will actually work with the RAM you already have.
Plus, that CPU is severely underpowered for what you are trying to do with it.

 

[spdragoo]

What if I upgrade RAM from 2 to 6(4+2) GB

Won't work. 32-bit Windows is limited to just under 4GB of RAM, so a) Windows 7 won't even know that the other 2GB would be available, & b) it still wouldn't be available for the VM to use.

However...if you had another 2GB stick, you would be OK because you'd be right at the maximum RAM for your machine, & you could bump your VM's RAM up to 2GB (allowing it to run better).

 

[skittle]

Make sure hardware virtualization is turned on in bios (VT-x) and is enabled in virtual box. Also use something less graphically heavy like lubuntu or even lighter something like jwm or a tiling window manager.

Also as others say, give more ram.

 

[adamantine]

If you do get more RAM, try to look up what kind of RAM you already have and match it. You don't have enough RAM to run Windows, virtualization software and a guest, so maybe reconsider doing a dual boot. You could do a persistent live USB as the cheapest option - the price of an 8GB usb stick.

 

[randomizer]

You may need to install the VirtualBox Guest Additions as well. If you can't arbitrarily resize the guest then it's likely that you don't have them installed.

 

[bit_user]

What are you trying to do, in Ubuntu? One option would be to install Cygwin, and run GNU & other open source programs compiled natively for Windows.

And if there are things you need to run in Ubuntu, you could use ssh -Y, so that the window manager is at least running under the native Windows OS. Basically, you run this command from a Cygwin-X terminal, and it will allow you to login to the Ubuntu VM and run GUI programs that display in Windows. You just keep the virtual box minimized and interact with it from Windows.

Anyway, I think adding a SSD might help improve performance, if you run the hosted OS' filesystem from it.