This repository has no cloud account, and none will be created. Creating one requires a payment card and accepts a billing relationship, which is not something a study repository should do on anyone's behalf.
So this file is what you type, with the traps marked. It has never been run here, and nothing in the notes claims an output for it.
The runnable half is 01_vm_and_hosting.py, which models overcommit and measures where it breaks.
| Step | Choice | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| New Virtual Machine | Custom (advanced) | Typical hides the disk and network options you need |
| Hardware compatibility | Workstation 17.x | older only if you must move the VM to an older host |
| Guest OS install | Install later | attach the ISO after, so the wizard does not run an unattended install |
| Guest OS | Linux → Ubuntu 64-bit | picks sensible defaults for the virtual chipset |
| Processors | 2 cores | more than the host has physical cores makes it slower, not faster |
| Memory | 4096 MB | see the overcommit note below |
| Network | NAT | the guest shares the host's IP; Bridged gives it one on your LAN |
| Disk controller | NVMe (or SCSI) | IDE is slow and there is no reason for it |
| Disk | 40 GB, split, not pre-allocated | see the disk note below |
1. Memory. The host must keep enough for itself. Giving a 16 GB laptop's VM 12 GB leaves 4 GB for Windows, the hypervisor and your browser, and the whole machine swaps. Type 2 hypervisors do not balloon aggressively, so the overcommit that works in a datacentre does not work here.
2. Disk: "Allocate all disk space now" vs "split into multiple files". Pre-allocating writes 40 GB immediately and is faster afterwards. Not pre-allocating grows on demand and is what you want on a laptop. Splitting into 2 GB files matters only for filesystems that cannot hold a 40 GB file (FAT32) — and for copying the VM to a USB stick.
3. NAT vs Bridged vs Host-only.
| Mode | The guest gets | Reachable from the LAN? |
|---|---|---|
| NAT | a private IP behind the host | no, unless you forward a port |
| Bridged | an IP from your router's DHCP | yes |
| Host-only | a private IP, no internet | no |
Choose NAT and then wonder why nobody can reach your web server — that is
experiment 2's most common failure, and the fix is either Bridged or a port
forward in Edit → Virtual Network Editor.
sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y open-vm-tools open-vm-tools-desktop
# ^ shared clipboard, drag-and-drop, correct screen resolution
ip addr show # note the guest's IP -- you need it for experiment 2
free -h ; nproc ; df -hTake a snapshot before you install anything else. VM → Snapshot → Take
Snapshot. A snapshot is the only reason experimenting in a VM is safe, and
it is the feature that has no cheap equivalent on physical hardware.
Every EC2 instance, Azure VM and GCE instance is a guest on a type 1 hypervisor — ESXi, Hyper-V, KVM or AWS's Nitro. The cloud is this experiment at rack scale, with the wizard replaced by an API call. Knowing what the wizard was choosing is what makes an instance type comprehensible.