I’m running Xubuntu in VMware Server on XP Pro. I’ve turned off X11 and all other GUI stuff in Ubuntu, which brings base memory usage down to 130MB. I’m running Cygwin/X on XP, which allows me to run Emacs in Ubuntu (via ssh) and display it on my desktop along with my Windows apps much like Parallels’ Coherence. The important thing is to change the GRUB entry for Linux to “nosplash”; otherwise, it runs the XFCE graphical splash page and eats up way more memory. All I really need is Emacs; the rest is just eye candy.
