[wrighty52]

Personally, I'd suggest using something like Vagrant instead - more lightweight in my opinion, in terms of being able to instantly destroy & create a new one with 2 commands.

Although, saying this, there's no reason the OP can't just install Linux over (or alongside) OS X.

[johnward]

I'm curious as to what makes Vagrant more light weight as it still needs some type of VM software.

[ecaron]

Its more the discipline that Vagrant creates in letting you repeatedly generate the same environment.