- Our forums run on a SAMP configuration, and because I am old-school IT pro, I treat the forums as a controlled "Production Environment". Any patches, mods and ad-hoc stuff gets done first on a LAMP VM configuration that runs on my Laptop (and Drew's PC). This is a 25Kbyte RAM and a 1Gb System + 2Gb Application HDD running Ubuntu 8.04 over VMware server.
- I also have a development sandpit that I have an OOo development build on. This is currently Ubuntu 7.10 and again a split Sys+Apps setup (this time 4Gb + 8 Gb) over VMware. I have fully scripted the build process from getting the sources from OOo to having a full OOo 2.4 build that you can mod and debug. (You need to leave in overnight to complete the first time, but it takes only one unattended command).
So my current proposal for this latter environment is Ubuntu 8.04 Gnome over VMware Server (but also able to work in VMware player). In terms of Virtualisation S/W big three (VMware, VirtualBox, MS VirtualPC, I have already pretty much discounted MSVPC because it really only works well for "Windows on Windows". Most of my own experience is on VMware, which I like as a product (which free but not Open Source). I would very interested in feedback and comments on both the choice Linux flavour and Virtualisation S/W.
PS if you want some background on how virtualisation works, can I recommend two articles the first is an intro to virtualisation Virtual Machines & VMware, Part I written in 2001 but still very relevant. The second is a fascinating albeit heavier article on how virtualisation technologies are currently implemented: A Comparison of Software and Hardware Techniques for x86 Virtualization