I agree there is probably a better term, but the differentiation would be that you are abstracted one level up from a native shell, and thus could probably more

I agree there is probably a better term, but the differentiation would be that you are abstracted one level up from a native shell, and thus could probably more easily write a cross-platform "virtual OS" that could run on top of Windows, OSX, etc - and install it with the ease of running an application, as opposed to fiddling with more sensitive things.