Install and Run Proxmox on Laptop Hardware

What is Proxmox VE?

Proxmox VE is a complete, open-source server management platform for enterprise virtualization. It tightly integrates the KVM hypervisor and Linux Containers (LXC), software-defined storage and networking functionality, on a single platform. With the integrated web-based user interface you can manage VMs and containers, high availability for clusters, or the integrated disaster recovery tools with ease. -https://www.proxmox.com/en/proxmox-ve

The Hardware

The laptop I used in this video is an Asus G74Sx. It sports a 4 core/8 thread i7-2670QM @ 2.20 GHz, 16GB of DDR3 RAM, a Nvidia GeForce GTX 560M with 2GB of vRAM and a Kingston 120GB SSD.

Things You Will Need

Preparing the Installation Media

  1. Download the Proxmox VE .iso file Download
  2. Download the Ventoy installer Download
  3. Extract the downloaded .zip file
  4. Run Ventoy2Disk.exe
  5. Plug in a USB flash drive at least 4 GB in size
  6. Click the refresh icon
  7. Select the flash drive from the device dropdown
  8. Click the Install button
  9. After the installation completes, copy the downloaded Proxmox VE .iso to the Ventoy partition
  10. Safely remove the USB flash drive
  11. Plug the flash drive into the target laptop and power it on
  12. Boot to the flash drive
  13. Select the Proxmox VE .iso from the Ventoy menu

Installation and Setup

  1. Select Install Proxmox VE and press Enter
  2. Click the I agree button to accept the EULA
  3. Select the appropriate Target Harddisk from the dropdown > Click Next
  4. Set the Country, Time zone and Keyboard Layout > Click Next
  5. Enter a password and confirm, Enter an email address > Click Next
  6. Give the Proxmox device a hostname, confirm the network settings > Click Next
  7. Click the Install button
  8. Wait for Proxmox to be installed and configured
  9. After the installation succeeds, take note of the IP address and port
  10. Click the Reboot button

Installing a Desktop Environment

  1. Log back into Proxmox
  2. Run the following commands
    # update software repositories
    apt update
    # install available software updates
    apt dist-upgrade -y
    # install xfce desktop environment
    apt install xfce4 chromium lightdm sudo -y
    # create a new user account
    adduser <%username%>
    # follow the prompts to set the user's password
    # add the new user to the sudo group
    usermod -aG sudo <%username%>
    # reboot
    reboot now
  3. After the reboot, a graphical login screen should be displayed
  4. Log in with the new user account
  5. Launch the Chromium web browser and navigate to https://localhost:8006
  6. Welcome to Proxmox VE running on laptop hardware

Optional Configuration

  1. Launch a terminal and run the following commands
    # elevate to root
    sudo su
    # disable proxmox commmercial repo
    sed -i "s/^deb/\#deb/" /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pve-enterprise.list
    # add the proxmox community repo
    echo "deb http://download.proxmox.com/debian/pve $(grep "VERSION=" /etc/os-release | sed -n 's/.*(\(.*\)).*/\1/p') pve-no-subscription" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pve-community.list
    # update software repositories
    apt update
    # remove no subscription nag popup
    # if running promox 6
    sed -i.bak 's/NotFound/Active/g' /usr/share/perl5/PVE/API2/Subscription.pm
    # if running proxmox 7
    sed -Ezi.bak "s/(Ext.Msg.show\(\{\s+title: gettext\('No valid sub)/void\(\{ \/\/\1/g" /usr/share/javascript/proxmox-widget-toolkit/proxmoxlib.js
    # restart pveproxy service
    systemctl restart pveproxy.service
    # download the dark theme setup script
    wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Weilbyte/PVEDiscordDark/master/PVEDiscordDark.sh
    # run the downloaded script
    bash ./PVEDiscordDark.sh install

Source: https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Developer_Workstations_with_Proxmox_VE_and_X11