I have a laptop that I'd like to run multiple operating systems on, at the same time. Specifically, I'd like to be able to boot up a Windows 7, if needed, a Windows XP, if needed, and a Ubuntu desktop, if needed.
Basically, I'm wondering if there's a virtualization setup that doesn't require a big operating system as the main host, so that the main host is streamlined for just booting up a virtual machine package and load virtualized machines inside that.
I have a VMware 7 license for Windows, and since I like VMware, buying a Linux-license is not outside my scope.
However, VMware needs a host operating system, how lean can I make the Linux host and still be able to run VMware on top of it?
Or is there some other product that works well? I don't want a home-clobbered virtual machine application that doesn't accelerate graphics drivers, etc., I still want as much performance as possible from the machine, but I'm of course willing to let some of it go to the overhead of virtualizing things.
Basically, my main goal is to load as small an operating system as the host OS as possible, consuming as little memory as possible, so that the rest of the machine is left for the virtualized machines.
Anyone have any tips?