@jake
Re: Q1. If you don't understand the benefits of virtual machines by now, you probably never will. Suffice it to say that using virtual machines makes my life easier. You may have unlimited hardware budget, space, cooling and everything else...I don't. Besides which, it's just a Linux VM. They are free, and disposable. Make a dozen and store the configs and data outside the VM on a networked server.
Not "the most efficient possible" in a purist sense, but I'll accept a 5% performance hit for the ability to throw the VM away like a used diaper when one element or another decides "BTW your distro is too old, we're not going to update properly." Or worse yet "BTW you ran an update and we radically changed the package such that your old config file is meaningless." Configure a VM once, point the configs somewhere central. Make a copy. If your update borks it, throw the VM away and reload the backup.
I know, I know "waa waa waa, test lab." And if wishes were horses, we'd all be eating steak. (It's a reference from a show, don't have an apoplepsy.) Sometimes you don’t have the TIME to do it according to the whitepaper. An update blows up a Linux VM once every six months. Treating a broken Linux VM like a soiled diaper is simply time efficient when compared to stepping through a testing cycle for every round of updates, or frankly for reading the change logs on all 382 updates for my given Linux box.
So why VMs? Because they make my life waaaaaaaaaaaay easier.
Re: Q2 What forum specifically? The hell if I know. One of the dozens I post on. Was it an appropriate forum for the question? Sure! Linux is hostile to newcomers, or anyone seeking to beg information for the great and knowledgeable (but remarkably sensitive) gurus. I know the game, and have for quite some time. You must hold the teacup on one finger while balancing on one leg and chanting the American national anthem during an earthquake. Yes, I asked the right question with the right amount of information in the right place. Even then, you’ve only got a 50/50 shot at get anything other than a pile of static.