I've switched to using Arch Linux for most of my day to day work and don't need Windows for anything but gaming and the couple of apps that aren't ported to Linux like OneNote. My Linux distribution is hosted in VirtualBox with Windows as host, and I quite like it that way, snapshots are incredibly useful.Let's say I were to pretty much never care about the Windows host and spend 95% of the time in the guest, what would I be missing out on?Are there serious downsides?Is performance severely affected and will installing straight onto the machine make my life much more amazing?
Any reason NOT to run Linux in a VM all the time?
arch linux;virtualbox;virtual machine
Assuming you can get everything working, and you don't want to do resource intensive tasks such as playing games or doing large compiles, then I think you'll be fine.There's some basic issues you will probably encounter:guest time incorrectguest screen size or color depth incorrectcan't access USB devices (printers, phones, etc.)To fix this, you should install VirtualBox guest additions.  See the VirtualBox Arch Linux guests guide for details.To get some extra features, such as USB 2.0 and Intel PXE support, you can also install the VirtualBox extension pack.After that, there's a few issues you should know about:can't use USB 3.0can't use IEEE1394/FireWirecan't use seamless mode in combination with dual-headtime gets out of sync on 64-bit guestsObviously your Linux VM will be affected if your Windows system crashes too.  Issues I've had happen recently:Windows host crashes due to driver bug (blue screen)Windows host reboots due to security updateWhen running a virtual machine the biggest performance hit will be to your disk I/O.  If at all possible, put your VM on a separate disk and/or use a solid-state drive.  Using a virtual SATA drive instead of a virtual IDE drive can help too.