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nutty about natty
Asked: 2013-03-06 15:47:53 +0800 CST

Lubuntu on Virtual Machine: (minimum) disk space requirements?

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Minimum system requirements for Xubuntu (...)

  • 5 GB of disk space
  • With Lubuntu, you can use computers with even less memory.

I read the above as Xubuntu and Lubuntu both requiring a minimum of 5 GB free disk space. For argument's sake, let's say the free disk space requirement were indeed 5 GB for the regular, non-virtual installation of Lubuntu.

Back in the day, I worked a little with MS Windoze Virtual PC, but don't recall the "conversion factor" of virtual to physical disk space; but I'm pretty sure it's not "unity" ;) ... but please do correct me if I'm wrong !!

ps: Futher, I'm aware of two installation methods: standard and alternate, the latter designed especially for systems short of memory (RAM). I didn't yet check the exact options the alternate installer would offer, e.g. selecting which programs not to install, thus reducing the free disk space requirement.

installation

2 Answers

  1. There is no difference in disk space requirements depending on whether you install Ubuntu on a physical or on a virtual machine. I even can't think of a possible reason for those requirements to be different - are bytes only 6 bits when you run on VirtualBox? Just joking.

    The amount of disk space the installer requires to proceed with the installation, however, is not calculated based on real disk usage - this is a ballpark figure which is hard-coded in the installation script, and is around 2 times more than the space which will actually be taken after the install - to allow for copying, creating temporary files and other stuff during the installation.

    I'm finding that the figure is a bit on the safe side, so if you want to install, say, Lubuntu on a machine with only 4Gb of disk space you can edit the installer script and adjust the amount of disk space the installer requires. I don't remember the exact location of the file to be edited though.

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  2. As we can see from your tags you are using Virtual Box for virtualization. Then you can choose a dynamically allocated virtual hard drive:

    A dynamically allocated file will only grow in size when the guest actually stores data on its virtual hard disk. It will therefore initially be small on the host hard drive and only later grow to the size specified as it is filled with data. Virtual Box Manual

    So in practise you can give your virtual machine far more disk space than needed, but only those bytes that are really used by the VM are reserved from your remaining hard drive space. This also means that it is of no practical benefit and thus not recommended to go down to the lower limit of system requirements when creating your Xubuntu or Lubuntu VM.

    In case you are short of memory on your drive consider

    • installing without a swap
    • avoid taking snapshots of your machine
    • do not "save the machine state" on power off.
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