What I have done, both in real installations and virtual machines is I make my /tmp and /var/tmp folders tmpfs. I have found, at least with KDE, the need to create and read/write hundreds of small files will slow down a system with poor iops.

I have lately taken to running installations off the SDHC drive on my laptop and all is well and pretty fast, if I'm using a tmpfs /tmp and /var/tmp.

Try that in your VM, and like Lisa said, if possible, give it more ram.

Nathan

On Monday, March 11, 2013 06:48:12 PM Josh Coffman wrote:

Hi,

  I want to move all my non-windows dev to an ubuntu (or suggestion) virtual box vm. I'm noticing a sluggish UI both on ubuntu and Mint with cinnamon when running on my macbook. It's a retina with ssd and plenty of ram. I thought it might be unity until I tried Mint. Anyone know trick to speed up a vbox on mac?

Thanks,
Josh