Fedora is the recommended VM for class.
I offer some configuration scripts and dotfiles for Fedora,
so you can easily configure a freshly installed instance.
https://git.mst.edu/os/linux_config
Basics:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fedora_(operating_system)
https://getfedora.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Hat_Linux
https://www.redhat.com/ (the commercial support-driven
version)
Download:
https://labs.fedoraproject.org/en/security/ (recommended
XFCE desktop)
https://getfedora.org/en/workstation/download/ (gnome
desktop)
https://spins.fedoraproject.org/ (other desktops; I
recommend XFCE for newbies)
Installation guide:
https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/quick-docs/creating-and-using-a-live-installation-image/index.html
Documentation:
https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/docs/
(mediocre)
https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/
https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_enterprise_linux/
(for the OS itself, applies to Fedora, mostly)
sudo dnf install gcc kernel-devel kernel-headers dkms make bzip2 perl libxcrypt-compat curl
Then, install guest additions.
Compared to Kali, Fedora security labs is a generally more minimal
(but also more easily functional) security distribution for disk
forensics, WiFi hacking, etc.
https://labs.fedoraproject.org/en/security/