Reasons to run LinuxMint in a VM inside Windows 8.1?

[jtpetch]

I've been interested in Linux for a long time, but I decided to go with Windows 8.1 for my new PC due to familiarity and compatibility. Now, my new pc is relatively powerful (4.1 ghz 6 core amd, 8 gb ram) and I figure I could easily run Linux Mint (my favorite distro that I have seen, correct me if that isn't called a distro ) in VirtualBox along side Windows 8. But, would there be any reason to? Are there any significant programs that can only run in Linux that couldn't be replaced with a Windows program? Or would it just be a waste of my space? I'm going to be using my PC as somewhat of a media center, for gaming, for animating (Blender and such), for recording, and that kind of stuff.
Thanks!

 

[skittle]

Any reason? Yes. But that's really for you to decide. BTW recommend dual boot instead of a VM...

Linux is free https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html . A better question is why use Windows?

 

[JOHNN93]

as skittle sais dual booting is the way to go if you want to use linux.if you want to test it and play with it without installing then virtualy runing it inside of windows would be something to consider.now if you play AAA games like battlefield ,far cry ,crysis.you will not find these games yet on linux.but with linux you can do way more than just media,recording and animating.