Tried coLinux. Had to go back to VirtualBox. I'm not sure what the problem was, but running network-heavy apps in coLinux caused my wireless connection to drop out in the Windows host. Never had that problem before or since with other VM products.

Otherwise, there were no problems and I felt it was right answer to the problem. Why bother running a full-on emulator, when the kernel is open-source and can be modified to run as a process within another OS?