I tried putting it on a VM a couple weeks back and immediately ran into driver issues followed by Wine shitting the bed while trying to install an older game. I want Linux to be as painless as you make it sound, but even your description belies the troubles it has just underneath its surface. An operating system is supposed to get the hell out of my way, but Linux's default position is to obstruct the user's path. It might be better, but it's still a shitshow.
I never tried it in a VM, no idea about issues there. Mint's installer is also a live USB, so you can just boot it on your real hardware and see if it recognizes it all without actually committing to anything. Would probably not be suitable to test any games out but would at least definitively answer the drivers question.
I tried putting it on a VM a couple weeks back and immediately ran into driver issues followed by Wine shitting the bed while trying to install an older game. I want Linux to be as painless as you make it sound, but even your description belies the troubles it has just underneath its surface. An operating system is supposed to get the hell out of my way, but Linux's default position is to obstruct the user's path. It might be better, but it's still a shitshow.
I never tried it in a VM, no idea about issues there. Mint's installer is also a live USB, so you can just boot it on your real hardware and see if it recognizes it all without actually committing to anything. Would probably not be suitable to test any games out but would at least definitively answer the drivers question.