Your reply doesn’t make much sense. You say you have VMware but no VMS but you can delete them. I am not sire if you have them but they are not going to affect the host. I would remove the vmtools package from your computer/host reboot and see if it clears up the issue
You did not respond you request for an IP a to see if the devices are listed and whether they have an IP address.
I like the question. Nothing would make me change. I use Debian for servers and fedora for my desktop. The distro is not what makes it good or not. The window manager does not change the only think that does change is the package manager and how up to date it is.
I only use Debian for servers because the installer makes it super easier to install without a wm.
I use fedora for my desktop because I like the atomic versions and more up to date packages.