Question Re OS portability

Hi all the linux & other OS's Clansmen/Ladies ,

Background info:
I'm afraid I'm one of those dirty little windows users, wanting to try out linux & other stuff but have not ventured very far. So in an attempt to force the issue was thinking about how nice it would be to have a minimal OS that was portable that was capable of loading a VM. Sorry about my delivery but I tend to think in abstract terms!

So hunting around the WWW. I have been looking at MenuetOS which for the unintiated is an OS that is built in ASM/Assembler programming & as a consequence is very small & fast. Now MenuetOS has been used in conjunction with Qemu but requires knowledge of Coding or in techno jargon "Needs to be ported to MenuetOS" so it blew me outa the water in terms of loading Qemu onto MenuetOS. Another interesting proposal is a branch of MenuetOS called "Kolibri" written in FASM, another very small OS but no mention of whether a VM could be loaded onto it though. These would have been great to load a VM but Noone have done it!

By the by I have been using Portable VirtualBox VM & I have to say I am very impressed with it, "It does exactly what it says on the can" it can be run from Windows as well as Linux but I don't think it is portable for the Linux versions.

Anyway, so I turned my attention to Puppy Linux & DSL as a front loader for a VM but here again none have done it, it seems. So I have been looking again & another likely candidate, to do the deed & SLAX a cut down version of slackware that comes in a CD version & a USB version circa 180Mb seems favourable. Apparently with difficulty, you can load it onto a hard drive.

So basically my question is does anyone know of small OS's that could be capable of of Running a VM to load other whatever OS's within a portable framework?

Regards,

ispy

Hi Ispy

Slax is nice for this - sometime ago I posted a Slax with VMware on my site - don't remember the link right now.
The iso was slightly larger than 150 Mb
Personally I lost interest because VMware on Windows LiveCDs just rocks better

Ulli

Hi Ulli ,

Always a pleasure to here from you Ulli, I have done further research as to whether "SLAX" derivative of "Slackware" can be installed to a hard drive as well as a USB stick, The hard drive way seems more problematic but is dooable, its just the author for some reason seems to think that hard drive installs are not really what SLAX was designed for he is coming around the idea in that he says that the installer may re-introduced at a future date, it seems that demand from users are pushing this proposal. Slax is also very interesting in that it can be run in RAM with a "toram" switch and reported as you might expect are that it is blazingly fast.

So "SLAX" Seems like a likely candiddate as it is small but fully functional. If a front end loader Like grub4dos or PLOp and/or use unetbootin could be utilized as a front end menu loader with VirtualBox embedded or bolted onto SLAX, that would be a kewl tool to have and make prospective OS's that you load into Virtualbox portable! The downside is that the linux vers of VirtualBox as it seems to date are not portable, if that was the case then it would be, "icing on the cake"?

The discussion revolves round loading a small OS that loads VirtualBox (portable) to load whatever OS you would like!

More research is required!

Regards & Repect,

ispy

P.S. I have also looked at another Distro called BackTrack which has very good reports but is a little large for what I ahve in mind

For those with the disposition ,

As it turns out, "Google is my Friend" I may have found just what I'm looking for & for those interested here are my findings, it almost ticks all the requirement boxes so it appears others have a similair train of thought as me it seems. Some have the savey to make their abstract thoughts reality, "gud on em I say"!

So resigning my procrastinating rant to the bare essentials I have found a linux Distro-bution called NimbleX. Here again its foundations are in Slackware just like "Slax" but unlike "Slax" it ships with VirtualBox therein.

OOWwEEeee! I like this sucker! details details details:

How much awesome can you cram into a 200MB live CD? A whole lot. NimbleX comes with 550 packages preinstalled, and you'll find the usual Linux apps here: Firefox, K3B, XMMS, MPlayer, Gimp, Kopete, Transmission, Klam AV, and K Office, to name a few. Boot times are wicked fast, even from CD, and installation to a hard drive or USB flash drive is dead simple.Desktop performance is equally impressive, even on our shabbily-equipped VirtualBox setup (256MB memory, 8MB video, 8GB hard drive). On that note, it's worth mentioning that NimbleX also comes with VirtualBox installed just in case you decide you want to get Windows XP running in it.Continue reading NimbleX : Portable Linux That's Ready to Rock!

NimbleX distrbution is a small but versatile operating system which is able to boot mainly from a small 8 cm CD but also from flash memory like Mp3 players and USB pens.Because it runs entirely from a CD or USB it doesn't require installation or even a hard drive. NimbleX is based on Slackware with the use of linux-live scripts and is has a lot of this distribution advantages.
First of all, because of the small size you can always carry it on yourself and use it as your mobile OS everywhere you want for the things that where mentioned above and many more.

Because it has the ability to automatically detect and mount all the partitions you can access data on any another computers with ought even knowing the password, both on Linux and Windows.

Now you can use it as a recovery disk or for any other purpose. Because of the low requirements you can run it on old computers as a server. NimbleX is very customizable and can be made easily to satisfy your needs.

Make sure you get the latest release, so whats new?
What's New in This Release:

· The USB installer got some new improvements.
· RC was drastically slimed to fit more usable things...
· VirtualBox OSE is now standard so, have fun with other OSs
· Partimage it's in NimbleX so you can backup/restore stuff
· Added some initial clustering support with OpenMPI
· A basic Firefox Kiosk mode can be booted from the CD
· A lot of software was updated to the latest version
· Bluetooh was finally fixed and it seems to work good
· You have some basic servers to play or work with.
· Compiz was cleaned a bit and some usability was added
· Many things where done. I'll let you decide if you like it

Links Please?

Certainly!

http://www.nimblex.net/

If you wanta stripped down version of NimbleX why not try these the sub100mb edition & if tat ain't low enough try the 69Mb version (Don't think these ship with VirtualBox though? But there again maybe the VirtualBox Module can be added to NimbleX sub100 basic edition):

http://www.nimblex.n...o...7&Itemid=55

If you want to jack it up a gear & install it to a Hard Drive use this:

http://sites.google....nimblexproject/

I've pulled mine down, so its off to play with me, catcha later!

Regards & Best Wishes,

ispy

Hi ispy - thanks for that nice find.

While I was at it I also checked Slax again - they also have a VirtualBOX modul now!
Slax has a much larger number of ready modules than Nimble X so I huess I will play with Slax again a bit.
Or more probably use Backtrack with Workstation

Thanks again for the tip - it came with a very nice timing

Ulli

Hi Ulli ,

Tis Me reporting to you from the sub100 Mb NimbleX Distro Wow this Distro is a kewl tewl. I have found a lzm VirtualBox 2.1.2 file that is used in Slax but have not got it to work with the sub100Mb edition of NimbleX yet but I am participating in the NimbleX Forum where a very helpful individual called Shark1 is helping with it.

Hopefully I will will figure it out with his expert assistance then I will have a 100mB CD distro or USBtro or RAMstro that will load vers 2.1.2 of open source virtual box LOL!

Anyway signing off for now this post is brought to you from NimbleX & I can certainly recommend it's "MAGIC" I will then be able to load any OS that Virtualbox is capable of loading Yipee portable OS's

Regards

ispy