Let’s say you’ve assembled the best server PC money can buy and outfitted it with a powerful virtualization platform. The next step involves deploying some virtual guests where you can build your projects. But with a myriad of operating systems floating online, you might have a hard time choosing the perfect OS for your VMs. So, here’s a quick list of the best distros you can run inside virtual machines.

4 DietPi

When you’re low on system resources

Designed to help you make the most of computationally-challenged SBCs, DietPi stands out from other CLI distros with its ultra-lightweight nature. Despite the name, DietPi is compatible with several platforms besides Raspberry Pi boards – including virtual machines.

But you shouldn’t let its low resource overhead deceive you; this optimized distro can be armed with all the necessary packages for your demanding projects. While DietPi consumes more memory than Alpine Linux, it’s free from the musl compatibility issues you may encounter on the latter, making it a solid option when you want to get every last drop of performance out of your virtual machine.

3 YunoHost

Perfect for deploying an armada of containers

Self-hosting may have become a lot more accessible these days, but it’s easy to get intimidated by Docker, Podman, and other platforms if you’re new to the home lab ecosystem. Thankfully, you’ve got YunoHost, an operating system built specifically for running apps and services as containers.

Besides letting you create custom domains for your self-hosted applications, YunoHost has a massive catalog of containerized services. So many, in fact, that you can have hundreds of containers running inside a virtual machine!

2 Whonix

After all, it’s meant to be used with VMs

There are quite a few operating systems designed for security-conscious users, though most of them can’t maintain your anonymity unless you install them on your daily driver. Whonix is an exception, as the entire OS is purposely built to run inside two virtual machines.

The first VM is responsible for establishing a connection to the Tor network, thereby letting you leverage its onion-routing provisions to cloak your IP address. The second VM, called Whonix Workstation, connects to this gateway virtual machine and lets you perform all your computing tasks and experiments while preventing your ISP, websites, ads, and malware from spying on you.

1 Debian

The ol’ reliable

If you’ve read my self-hosting and home server guides here on XDA, you may have noticed I favor Debian more than any other operating system (including the ones on this list). That’s because Debian (and by extension, the distros based on it) has the holy trinity of a simple UI, stable nature, and solid performance.

In other words, Debian just works the way I want it to without running into compatibility errors out of nowhere. Some might consider it a bit too basic or boring (heck, even I feel that way at times), but when you’re trying to build a wacky project on your home lab, a Debian VM will always be my top recommendation.

There are plenty more where those came from

Still on the hunt for other options? If you want a more polished experience than Debian, Linux Mint and Fedora are top-tier distros for your virtual machine experiments. On the other side of the convenience spectrum, you’ve got macOS virtual machines. While they can be an absolute nightmare to set up, it’s possible to build a functional Hackintosh with a little bit of elbow grease.

There’s also Windows 11, though I wouldn’t recommend setting it up as a virtual machine for anything aside from gaming projects. Besides requiring a ton of CPU cores and memory, Microsoft’s flagship OS can be a hassle to configure on Proxmox, XCP-ng, Harvester, and other non-Hyper-V platforms. In fact, you can even run Proxmox as a virtual machine inside hypervisors if you want to experiment with the platform before installing it as a bare-metal OS.