This is the method I use in your scenario, OP. You can use Folder2iso to get the files in that you need. If the OS has official VMware tools, you can also mount the VMware Tools ISO straight from workstation into the VM and this will give you the clipboard service so you can copy and paste files between the host and VM, if this scenario is permitted within your isolation needs.

Otherwise, go the ISO route. You just can’t bring stuff out of the VM back to the host is all.

The two aren’t even in the same league. I’m a big open source advocate don’t get me wrong, but VirtualBox is horrible to use and its not what OP asked.

Sorry I meant TIL about it being considered stable, haha. I’ve known about Fedora because I used it when it was meant to replace the free Red Hat Linux.

As for Steam, I don’t recall how I installed it, sorry! I just recall significant grief getting it going (again, perhaps a skill issue) but had no big roadblocks using OpenSUSE.

TIL about Fedora, last I knew it was a rolling bleeding edge OS. Clearly lots of movement in the Red Hat camp.

As for gaming, drivers were not the problem for me. Getting games to run with ease was. On OpenSUSE, I just install Steam, enable Proton and basically go at that point. Red Hat was non-trivial to do this. Could be a skill issue, but I had a better time getting going with OpenSUSE TW.

Sort of, OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. I started on OpenSUSE Leap but had issues getting things like GPU and Steam working. Red Hat was also a non-starter because of the lack of gaming functionality.

TW works great for gaming and the enterprise features I care about (like domain joining) work out of the box. Its certainly harder to set up than something more geared towards home use (typically one of the various the downstreams of Debian or Arch) but that doesn’t bother me.

Servers are a different story but for Desktop, OpenSUSE.

Because:

• It’s stable even on their rolling OS (Tumbleweed)
• Gaming works exceptionally well
• CUDA works with little effort
• RPM-based (personal preference)
• zypper is an excellent package manager and my experience has been better than that of yum/dnf
• Extensive native packages and 3rd party repos
• No covert advertising in the OS
• Minimal (no?) Telemetry
• Easy to bind to active directory
• it feels polished and well built
• I do not have to mess with it to make it work

Part of my transition from Windows to Linux was that basic tasks like installing software or even the OS itself shouldn’t be a high effort endeavour. I should be able to point to a package file or run a package manager and be able to go about my day without running “make” and working my way through dependency hell.

I say this as a Linux user of all different flavours for well over 15 years who has a deep love for what it brings to the table. If we want it to be common place with non-IT folks, it needs to work and it needs to be simple to use.

Not a distro but maybe Plasma Bigscreen is in the ballpark of what you’re after?