I did exactly this for many months, but then realized that I was spending 90% of my time in the VM and it just made more sense to run the linux install native.
My laptop is my development machine, so I usually have my desktop (Windows, since it doubles as a gaming rig) in reach if I need Windows for Photoshop or Visual Studio or something else briefly and don't feel like firing up a VM.
I don't see any advantage to running the install native. I've actually had more issues in native installs than through VMs.
As a side note, if anyone is interested in running an Ubuntu desktop VM, I highly recommend Lubuntu. It's extremely lightweight and fast, it's perfect for VMs.
How do you configure your VM once you install it? I seem to have a lot of performance issues unless I get a pre-configured VMWare image. The only image I've ever gotten to run as fast as a native install is the Official Backtrack VMware .iso.
I've installed several distributions, including Lubuntu, along with the VMware tools, but I always get really poor performance when I try to set up my own VMs.
2 processor cores and 2G of memory is all mine needs to perform well. Perhaps my level of "fast enough" is much slower than yours, but my VM doesn't feel any slower than the host.
No, nothing at all. I have an ivy bridge i5, 8GB 1600, and two old nvidia geforce 8600 under sli. Perhaps the people at /r/techsupport could help. Full screen in my VM feels just like booting into Ubuntu - no lag at all.
My laptop is my development machine, so I usually have my desktop (Windows, since it doubles as a gaming rig) in reach if I need Windows for Photoshop or Visual Studio or something else briefly and don't feel like firing up a VM.