I just want a very minimal linux distro with a gui interface that I can install virtualbox or libvert on to run a virtual machine. I am currently doing it in Ubuntu Mate, but I want something really small and that uses as little resources as possible so that the virtual machine guest will run much better. anyone around here familiar? i've tried ubuntu minimal and i couldn't get my wifi working so it is not viable.
For GUI : Install minimal Ubuntu/Debian + LXDE and access it with RealVNC For VMs : Use LXD Containers or if you want full hypervisor + Virtualbox
I've looked into this subject over time & it surprises me that no simple solution has yet appeared. All the 'bare metal hypevisors' seem to have steep learning curves - LXD is for Linux guests only & the closest thing has seemed to be one of the recent/lobotomized windoze versions with a built-in hypervisor...no thanks. There should be something around someplace that boots minimally & allows the user to choose which guest(s) to start while allowing more than one to be running & able to switch between them quickly & easily; dream on, right ?? I've yet to find anything like this, but I'll keep on wishing !!
For my uses (I'm not the OP here...) I checked out Qubes & it looked very complicated at the time - this discouraged me from looking deeper into it.
Qubes does not support 3D acceleration. If you want a VM with 3D acceleration, you can try ESXi with a GPU passtrough. David Ramsay wrote an article called "Setting up GTX-1070 Passthrough with ESXi" explaining how to add a GTX-1070 to ESXi 6.5.