I’m not sure I can answer that in detail. Also, “safe” is kind of vague so I’m not sure what your threat model is.
But I will say that I would 100% be running it as my home windows if I wasn’t using Linux. Do I think it’s the equivalent? No. Do I think there’s a possibility of Microsoft turning things back on with updates? Yes. But its far easier than running O&O and a bunch of power shell scripts to try to remove bloat and telemetry hoping you got everything. I have no complaints.
Your lack of time is the biggest issue, followed by your music needs (which are not impossible but I also know its not plug and play).
I would recommend going with win11 for simplicity and times sake. I would also recommend at least trying out ameliorated windows11. https://ameliorated.io/
Basically their stock run book makes the OS far more secure and private by setting up an admin account and then making your account a standard user (the way it should be done). Then it strips out all the bloat, restricts services, and installs open source alternatives like libre office and libre wolf. It also drastically changes the UI, which most of it I like and some is meh, but its all much better than the crap stock UI. I run this as a VM for all the stuff I still need windows for and I love it. Nothings ever going to make windows not windows, but this is pretty close and a simple click install. I highly recommend it.
I mean, if the company doesn’t think you’re worth it to show up and see if you are right for the position, then how crappy are they going to treat you when you work for them? It’s a red flag and saving job hunters time by eliminating that company as an option.
Sometimes in the darkness of the internet where all our worst sides come out and I get trampled by the evil of governments, corporations, and people in general…a small beam of light shines through illuminating the beauty of this world.
Today, your comment is that beam of light. You didn’t mean it to be, but sometimes little things have bigger impacts. Thank you. Have a great day.
This is so common they added a notification when you delete a lot of files. It basically prompts you, you’re deleting a lot of stuff are you sure? OK, it’ll be available in the recycle bin for 30 days if you change your mind.
I dont agree with every point made, but agree with the overall sentinent. My problem is that the same thing can be said about other retailers, especially the brick and mortar ones. Walmart, Target, Home Depot, …whoever. They’ve all done it, and continue to do it.
Small business? Yeah, those essentially don’t exist in this context.
I have always said, ecommerce isn’t killing brick and mortar retail. They are killing themselves. Why? Because I’ve never felt like a valued customer at any of the retailers out there. I’ve been absolutely shit on by all the big retailers out there. And that’s not even getting into their policies, politics, and other behind the scenes stuff that I do care about, but it doesn’t directly impact my shopping experience.
So then I can buy something online, from a wide selection, with competitive prices, have it delivered to my door quickly, and if there’s any issues have zero problem with returns? That works for me.
Now in modern times I can argue that they don’t always have great customer service, don’t always have great pricing (for what you get), and its not all sunshine and roses. But I don’t see a viable alternative.
Find me another retailer online or brick and mortar that can supply me well and treat me well and I’ll go. But small business cant compete. And big retailers when they had all the money and power they didn’t do that so now that they are the underdogs why would they do it? So it’s just not happening.
Damn, it looked like candy to me too until I read your comment. Now all I see is candy guitar pick.
I’m going to second the comment to leave well enough alone. Do NOT mess with your machine if its what makes you money.
I know you commented you don’t have funds for a second computer to test with but that really is the best step for you.
This is especially regarding some of your other details. You are not in for a quick and smooth transition (sorry to say).
VSTs are “sort of” supported on Linux. Basically they’re not and there are work arounds that I haven’t done using wine for compatibility.
I run a virtual machine for the windows software I am reliant on. So basically my Photoshop etc I use Affinity in a windows VM and it works fine. Depending if you get intensive with your work you might need a lot of resources or experience lag. But for the most part it should be fine. Look into virt-manager for your VM if you want to go that route.
Besides the VST issue, audio recording will probably give you additiinal problems. I haven’t delved into it because he rabbit hole went too deep for me, but from what I’ve read there tends to be issues with audio in VMs (tremendous lag for one).
But all that being said, there should be a solution for all of your needs. It probably won’t be straight forward though given your use cases. I don’t want to sound negative with my warnings, I just want to make sure you don’t shoot yourself in the foot with your work.
I get that, but it’s more logical to me that of I’m going to whistleblow on a company to not use one of their devices to do it. That way it doesn’t matter what apps are or are not secure, you’re not using their device that can potentially track you.
Not “you” necessarily, “one”.
I bring it up because you mentioned company MDM blocking signal. The fact that company MDM is active indicates its a company device (if it’s not that’s an entirely different conversation).
So why would one expect privacy on a device they don’t own?
Why would you expect any form of privacy on a device you don’t own?
Yeah, I’m in the same boat as you. But I’ve noticed my maps dont update any longer so I’m glad this is all coming together at the same time.
Yeah, I’m already running opnsense on an old PC with an added network card. Then I use Unbound DNS with various blacklist filters on my outbound traffic.
It honestly seems good enough because I monitored it for a while when I set it up. But I don’t monitor it continually and I don’t have specific blocks that I set up myself, just the published blacklists. If something new is phoning home I’d be unaware until I check it, which is what I like about your setup.
Smart. Right now I just rely on various blacklists that seem to block everything I need to. I might do something like this at some point though to be sure.
This was my thought too. Seems easiest to me to DNS block on the firewall side (and be network wide).
I would highly recommend this as I did something similar. I ran Linux on an older machine separate from my main machine. I did so for about 10 months. Plus I built out a gaming machine for somebody and set up another old machine as a media center, both with Linux.
I finally made the 100% switch just a few months ago. I bought a new M.2 drive and swapped out just like you are planning. I really needed to make sure I had no hitches for work purposes. I haven’t even considered swapping back (though in full transparency I have Windows running on a VM for some apps that I can’t get in Linux)
Thanks for all the info. I did some testing and a bunch of apps that didn’t work before are now working. Not everything, but a lot more than before.
That’s crazy. It didn’t work for any of the banking apps I tried it with. Maybe I’ll give it another try since it’s been a while.
Exactly. I tired SuSE back around 2001 and Ubuntu around 2006. It was not a better experience so I never stuck with them. I started using Mint last year and it just stuck. There are some quirks and learning curves, but it’s a good experience. Linux has changed a crap ton.