[drunkpotato]

Thanks for the great tips! I’m not super thrilled at the idea of running Linux on Windows, though that may be the best option. It would be nice to have more games available, but I find using Windows a grating experience with its constant popups and annoyances. It’s a thousand little things that annoy the heck out of me when using it. I had a Windows work box for 3.5 years and the only nice things I have to say for it we’re Outlook, Excel, and SSMS, which are fine products.

[eyerony]

Strongly agreed, I haven't even kinda liked Windows since Win7. Still, it's not as bad as the constant oops-rebooted-there-goes-your-work fest I recall from early Win10. I forget it's there most of the time, until I suspend my work VM and fire up Steam for some games.

I don't really trust a ZFS root on Linux not to, you know, suddenly break in ways that keep it from booting up, so absent that the snapshotting you can do for your whole OS when it's running in a VM is very handy, too. Though of course you could do that with any OS playing host—Windows is just convenient as the best driver shim available on generic x86 hardware, really. Takes a bunch of the headaches out. "I want to upgrade this, will my Linux installation become way less stable if I do?"—who cares, it sees what VBox shows it.