What is the best way to run a server on Linux from a flash drive via VirtualBox on a mainstream Windows platform?

Question

virtual box

Hello, there is a desire to deploy a local server on Linux, but at the same time remain in a windows environment.
What would be the best way? What is the best distribution kit to drive, so as not to eat a million resources?

Answer 1

there is a serious problem, desktop hypervisors (hyper-v, virtualbox, vmware) do not support booting from a flash drive upd turned out to be supported .. but educational program is required. not complicated, but not quite simple either - everything is the same as the presentation of any non-removable physical disk
, otherwise create a regular virtual machine, with a virtual or separate physical disk (not a flash drive) .. and go

What is the best distribution kit to drive, so as not to eat a million resources?

for the server - any . the question is more about how you can deal with it. most of all information on ubuntu is usually more stable than debian (but more conservative) or centos (even more conservative) upd like everything is fresh, cooler than in ubuntu -> fedora

more conservative => stable software, but old
upd and the fresher -> the more bugs

ps .. although I’ll subscribe if someone suddenly refutes with an example of how to start a virtual machine from a flash drive (the virtual machine file was still denied! But anyway, IMHO - Wirth on a USB flash drive is a slowdown in
pps speed and what is the goal? if win10, then 99.99 % of development / testing scenarios are perfectly solved in WSL, and in WSL2 much more comfortable ( upd is already available for downloading graphical applications, and in the next autumn update, or at least next spring - WSL2 will support full access to the GPU)

Answer 2

I've been looking for the perfect one for a long time. And now I can offer a more convenient, albeit alternative, way: install it on a USB flash drive.
A month ago I installed LAMP on Ubuntu 18.4 (128 GB Samsung FIT Plus flash drive).
System loading - 40 seconds. It practically does not heat up (the flash drive is sometimes slightly warm), there is more than 110 GB of free space after installation.