I have a KVM host (12.04.5) that I have been installing guests on in variety of ways. I just noticed recently one of my guests was running a generic kernel when I'm fairly certain I specified minimum virtual machine during install from a 12.04.2 server iso. From what I understand it should be running a stripped down kernel "optimized" for VMs. I set up another server to test, this time using a 14.04.1, and sure enough I ended up with uname -r returning 3.13.0-32-generic. It seems that if I use an .iso to install, I end up with generic regardless.

However building with the vmbuilder ... --flavour virtual --suite precise ... (I don't have trusty available yet) script gives me an ubuntu 12.04.5 LTS system running kernel 3.2.0-67-virtual.

The server FAQ mentions I should be getting the virtual kernel.

What are practical advantages of using linux-image-virtual kernel? gives me the impression that it doesn't really matter functionally (in my case I only have a couple VMs running).

I first thought was maybe I was somehow not applying the correct options because the installer F4 menu doesn't really give great feedback if the mode has been selected or not. Looking in the log /var/log/installers/syslog I see Command line: file=/cdrom/preceed/ubuntu-server-minimalvm.seed ...

I know that I can install the virtual kernel package down the road, but why am I not, or should I be getting the virtual flavor of kernel from an ISO install when doing an minimum VM install?