[mothered]

There's no right or wrong, but more so based on your overall usability pertaining to compatibility of devices, software and expectations of your computational tasks and needs.

If the Linux platform suits and fulfills your requirements, then be It as It may. I read you're having Issues with VMs. Don't select a VM that's dependent on SLAT (Second Level Address Translation), hence requires a supported CPU. If It's solely for running a stand-alone OS and nothing more, I'll state the obvious and suggest to go for a basic VM such as Virtual PC 2007 or VirtualBox.