none of these applications require particularly low latency, so if you’re on Pipewire, you can increase both min, max and default quantum to something like [1024, 4096]. i have to do this on my N100 laptop and it helps a lot.

pw-top tells you which app uses which quantum too, and often times, your machine will slightly struggle with apps that suddenly demand lower quantums and cause stuttering. increasing the min quantum fixes this issue.

You can use something like virt-manager to mount your USB as a hard drive within the VM then install it from an ISO file.

I would recommend something like Tiny11 for this, but make sure to install the appropriate drivers for your hardware first (or at least have the installers ready for when you reboot).