How much more optimized is a regular operating system than a virtual one?

Question

Operating Systems

I'd like to hear about this in Ubuntu and Solus Linux, for example.

Answer 1

Not at all :) This is the same system. And then optimized - where? In I/O, in graphics, in calculations? Your question - without details, in general, it makes no sense :) The whole difference between a bare-metal system and a virtual machine is that the first one has direct (well, like direct - through firewood) access to the hardware, and the second one uses virtual firewood for this ( for some things there are paravirtual firewood - like stubs that give work to real host firewood). And that's it.
But this is significant only for games.

Answer 2

Optimized is the wrong word.
They are identical.
It's just that the virtualized one does not have direct access to the hardware - that's the whole difference.

Answer 3

Considering the Intel Management Engine/AMD Secure Technology, we can assume that a "regular OS" is basically running in a virtual environment... it just doesn't quite know about it)

Answer 4

Depends on the specific hardware and the availability of straight-forward drivers for it.
Without drivers, it will work equally well both on real hardware and under virtual hardware (unless the real hardware is more powerful than the emulated one, but again, not every piece of hardware will work at full capacity without drivers).