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I have 32 bit intel(R) Core(TM2) Duo CPU.

Yesterday I tried to install Ubuntu 32 bit.

It literally took me 10 hrs to complete full installation. Why is virtual box so slow and is there any solution.

Because I want to install linux mint now I want it to happen faster

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  • Make sure you check whether VTX is enabled (if your processor supports it) in your BIOS. Most older computers came with it disabled, and you are guaranteed to have abysmal performance without it.
    – Moshe Katz
    Mar 29, 2020 at 22:06
  • core 2 duo should be a 64 bit CPU. If you were to install 64 bit OS, then you should be able to add more RAM. Check your computer's manufacturer to be sure.
    – Keltari
    Aug 28, 2022 at 16:41

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Any VM is going to run considerably slower than your main system.
The slower & smaller your system, the more difference that is going to make.

With a 32-bit OS & maximum 4GB RAM, that is going to hit you even harder. Presumably you also have an old spinning rust Hard Disk, which is where your already struggling computer will have to constantly page RAM to in order to keep various tasks running at all.. that will slow it down still further.

The only ways to significantly improve the speed of the VM are:-
More RAM - can't be done on a 32-bit OS
Faster &/or larger HD - or better, SSD.

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  • Not sure about the larger HDD (though larger ones also tend to be the faster onces. But that is not due to their size). But the 4GiB RAM (3 usable by OS? How much allocated to the VM?) might very well be the main issue.
    – Hennes
    Mar 30, 2020 at 14:07
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Your machine (operating system) is hobbled with limited memory and you can expect it to be very slow.

  1. VMware is faster than Virtual Box and may be worth considering.

  2. More importantly, upgrade to a 64-bit operating system and add working memory to your computer. 8 GB is a reasonable minimum for virtual machine use and 16GB is much better.

I am using VMware on a decent 64-bit machine and the Virtual Machines perform very well and fast. Fast host SSD helps as well

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  • I'm quite sure the OP is inflicting this upon himself out of sheer masochism... I had to do with a 2006 MacBook Pro, one of the very first, with a Core Duo CPU (not Core 2 Duo, mind you) and a 32-bit Snow Leopard that I never could upgrade because subsequent versions of OS X only installed on 64-bit platform, which mine wasn't and never would be, so I sympathize with our guy. This said, I agree with you on principle, and I'll add this: when creating the VM, I usually give it as much RAM as I can spare without the host diying on me, to speed things up on install. Then I cut it down.
    – user1019780
    Mar 29, 2020 at 13:57
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The question was asked a long time ago, but just in case someone gets here, this may help speed up your vm, especially in the installation process:

  1. Shutdown the VM

  2. Go to that particular VM's settings

  3. Select Storage from the left most column

  4. In the middle column under "Storage Devices" click on each Controller (they are something like "Controller: SATA", or maybe "Controller: IDE", etc) and for each selected controller in the right pane, under the attributes, make sure "Use Host I/O Cache" is checked.

  5. Hit ok.

Now turn on the vm, and it should run much faster.

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