should i try to first deveolop games in a virtual machine environment (or is that just for software dev)

just want to know if anything breaks my pc desktop won't.

if so, what are the recommended os's and distros to use for game dev? (I have ubuntu currently) I also have an anbernic device (basically a gameboy) and would like to use the same distro on linux (i believe retroarch and ArkOS?)

and for the vm, how much resources should be needed? Ive laxed like 4GB RAM and 2 processors with storage of 40GB, is this good?

Im thinking of making incremental games, meaning small basic games first, then flashy crap later, I want to step to step from text based to 2d to 2.5d to then 3d in a gracefull way.

do i need discord for my dev help or should reddit suffice? (channels/sever recs?)

thats it for now, thanks for reading!