Well there’s your mistake: using VMware on a Linux host.
QEMU/KVM is where it’s at on Linux, mostly because it’s built into the kernel a bit like Hyper-V is built into Windows. So it integrates much better with the Linux host which leads to fewer problems.
Ubuntu imho is unstable in and of itself because of the frequent updates so I’m looking for another distro that prioritizes stability.
Maybe, but it’s still Linux. There’s always an escape hatch if the Ubuntu packages don’t cut it. But I manage thousands of Ubuntu servers, some of which are very large hypervisors running hundreds of VMs each, and they also run Ubuntu and work just fine.
It’ll definitely run Kali well, Windows will be left without hardware acceleration for 2D/3D so it’ll be a little laggy but it’s usable.
VMware has its own driver that converts enough DirectX for Windows to run smoother and not fall back to the basic VGA path.
But VMware being proprietary software, changing distro won’t make it better so it’s either you deal with the VMware bugs or you deal with stable but slow software rendering Windows.
That said on the QEMU side, it’s possible to attach one of your host’s GPUs to the VM, where it will get full 3D acceleration. Many people are straight up gaming in competitive online games, in a VM with QEMU. If you have more than one GPU, even if it’s an integrated GPU + a dedicated one like is common with most Intel consumer non-F CPUs, you can make that happen and it’s really nice. Well worth buying a used GTX 1050 or RX 540 if your workflow depends on a Windows VM running smoothly. Be sure your CPU and motherboard support it properly before investing though, it can be finicky, but so awesome when it works.
Which distro in your opinion is the best for virtualization (Windows 10 on either KVM or VMware), stability, and speed?