Right, gotcha, the game server thing isn't particularly hard generally speaking but you are correct you do need a bit of practice. I would suggest if you have to possibility to try installing linux on real hardware rather than a VM as it's 2 completely different experiences entirely. You'll learn much more on the real hardware.
I think by the way that there are some distros already rolled as game servers for the pi? https://retropie.org.uk/ for example.