Why? Nothing wrong with running your network interface in a VM. There are reasons for doing so even if drivers aren't an issue. Qubes OS does this, for instance, for security reasons.

Windows also does. Almost everything is a VM in windows these days.

It's just how things work these days. If you'd say "I run my VPN client in a docker container" it would raise a lot less eyebrows. Yet it's not very different, really.

Though conceptually I'd frown at having to run Linux. I'd prefer upgrading the hardware to a supported chip.