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I used these results to end up using the "Install a minimal virtual machine" option and have been since Jan 2012 without any issues.

Lab

I just setup two vms (one optimized the other not) using 10.04.4 in Parallels to investigate.

At least as early as Ubuntu 8 (I'm not 100% sure), the Ubuntu installation there allows the administrator to use F4 and select from a number of options some of which areF4 on the first screen allows selection of,

  • Normal
  • Install a minimal system
  • Install a minimal virtual machine

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Conceptually this is similar to the Stripped Solaris approach I refined from Tony Bates back in 2008. Since 2013 Gogole Google and others have taken this idea further (CoreOS, Ubuntu Snappy, Redhat Atomic) with the concept of core operating systems with the key benefits (again some borrowed from Solaris),

  1. Operating system upgrade supports transactional upgrade/rollback | Solari had this from way back.
  2. Traditional package managers replaced by new simplified systems (Snappy), or custom image builds (Atomic) | Yeah we did the same.
  3. Security enhanced through isolation.
  4. systemd for system/service management

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Here are the differences between a minimal virtual machine, minimal and normal all with ssh during server during initial setup. The following commands were used,

Code Block
languagebash
dpkg --get-selections | wc -1 # how many packages installed
free -h # how much memory used
ps aux | wc -l # how many processes (including the two to run this command)
df -h | grep root # how much disk used (not going to bother counting the small 30MB for boot
dpkg --get-selections | wc -1 # how many packages installed

Ubuntu 16.04.1

AttributeMinimal Virtual MachineMinimalNormalMicrosoft Azure Default Image
Packages247 

430

[*] standard system utilities selected
no ssh

439
Memory on Initial Boot39 MB 80 MB97 MB
Tasks - 2 to run the commands

162

 223152
Disk Space757 MB 1.3 GB1.9 GB (need to double-check this on a fresh install)
Key Advantage

Reduced fat due to uniformity of virtual machines.

Minimal to run a normal Server.  

Ubuntu 10.04.4

AttributeMinimal Virtual MachineMinimalNormalRecently Ubuntu Snappy 15.04Stripped Solari 10 (Just for Fun)
Packages2133133562 core packages containing minimal utilities 
Tasks848587174 
Memory on Initial Boot73,980k86,584k171,392k167,051 
Disk Space557M791M851M

639M

 
Key Advantage

Reduced fat due to uniformity of virtual machines.

Minimal to run a normal Server. Upgrade core OS as 1 package and revert btw OS upgrades quickly. Made for pure Cloud. 

Ubuntu 16.04.1

AttributeMinimal Virtual MachineMinimalNormalStandardMicrosoft Azure Default Image
Packages247   439
Memory on Initial Boot39 MB   97 MB
Tasks

164 - 2 (to run the command) = 162

   154 -2 = 152
Disk Space757 MB   1.9 GB (need to double-check this on a fresh install)
Key Advantage

Reduced fat due to uniformity of virtual machines.

Minimal to run a normal Server.   

References

Provided what the differences between the installs are - http://askubuntu.com/questions/57336/minimal-system-or-minimal-virtual-machine-on-install