I've been using an old desktop with headless Ubuntu server and virtualbox to get a minimalized hypervisor going. Been using it for testing some linux distros and running a media server. One of my favorite distros I've tried so far has been Antergos: distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=antergos (I don't have enough posts to submit links yet ) It was a great introduction to pacman and arch linux, and the it works for several DEs (Gnome, KDE, Cinnamon, Mint, and a couple others).