The real benefit is not just being able to develop Linux software, but the ability to work on cross-platform code. I do most of my coding and debugging in Visual Studio, but when I want to test the changes on Linux I now simply alt-tab to the bash shell which I have open in the appropriate directory, rebuild the changes with make, and then run the updated executable.

That's not necessarily doable for everyone, but for me that workflow is so much simpler than it would be with dual booting or a separate Linux VM.