I think I'm going to try to use Vagrant. And VMs really slow down the system, which is why I was thinking of getting a new OS. Dual booting is also not a great way of handling stuff. This is the first I've heard of Vagrant, so, I'll try that!
I'm asking this question because this is the first time I'm reading about Ubuntu in a bad light. And all I can gather from the websites I've seen is that it tracks the user's search history and sends it to Canonical.