Virtualization Project; Looking for recommendations!

[scarab1307]

Hey everybody,

I'm fairly computer savvy, but a relative newcomer to Linux. I'm running Mint 7 on my backup machine, and the biggest pain-in-the-*** I've had to deal with so far is getting the wireless drivers working (admittedly not that tough with Mint).
Anyhow, I have an idea for a little project but I could use some help getting off the ground.

I'd like to set up a bare-bones system to play host to various VirtualBox machines and appliances. A simple GUI like fluxbox or openbox would be acceptable, though I'd prefer to use/learn a text-based interface.

Because this will only be a host system, I'd imagine it wouldn't need anything fancy, just hardware support and VirtualBox. This is the system it would be installed on:

~2005 Dell Precision M70 laptop
~320GB 5400 PATA HDD
~1GB RAM
~Broadcom Wireless card (Gasp!)
~not sure what else might be important...

Basically I'll need USB, keyboard, touchpad, DVD-ROM, and wireless working. Maybe bluetooth eventually, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. I've been looking for a distro that fits these parameters but came up short. Any suggestions?

Any and all input would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[Rubberman]

Not a bad idea, but you probably want to add some RAM - at least have at least 2GB, and allocate at least 1GB to a running VM - I am assuming you are only going to run one VM at a time. If more, then more RAM would be appropriate in order to get decent performance.

[trutheality]

I'd consider Ubuntu server considering your experience since Mint is based on Ubuntu.

[scarab1307]

Thanks for the tips, guys! I'll post back on this when i actually have time to build the dang thing.