What do you typically use your computer for? That’s going to have a major impact. If it’s pretty basic stuff (web browsing, text editing, etc) you shouldn’t have any issue. If it’s something that’s more complicated or unusual, then sometimes it’s easy to do and sometimes not, depending on what you want to do. In general, a little bit of comfort searching the web and working in the command line helps a lot with troubleshooting Linux

Okay. They do have port forwarding though

ProtonVPN

On the tracking and phoning home: gross, I wish they didn’t do that. I’ll stick with FreeCAD.

It makes sense though, that they don’t care about pirated software unless you’re making money off it. It’s probably in their interest of hobbyists can learn how to use the software from pirated copies - that’s just a potential future paid user, if they develop the skills to eventually want to use it professionally.

How would Autodesk or Dassault discover that you are using a pirated copy of their software in the first place?

Yep! That’s what I do. I use just about everything else in Proton’s ecosystem, but I choose to use Bitwarden as my password manager. Just feels like better practice to not be wholly dependent on Proton for all my security.

It’s what I use for work, and it is quite nice!

As long as the insides work all right, I’m good! I’m into thrifting and visible mending, so something well-loved, but cheap, is right up my alley

Yep, I think it’s what I’ll be going with!

My favorite edition!

To be fair, there is open source hardware- Arduino and whatnot. But a microcontroller is a lot simpler than a full computer.

I started around 2018, using crouton to run Ubuntu on a Chromebook so I could have better functionality. I went back to Windows for a while, then I started using Pop!OS as my daily driver last year. I still don’t know if I love it, but I’m sticking with Linux of some flavor going forward.

I mean, I suppose that’s fair. I guess paying for email with Monero feels a bit like overkill to me, but it depends on your threat model

No problem!

Relevant XKCD

True, but WireGuard is on their roadmap of features in the works

Do you need to pay for your email provider with Monero? If it’s the VPN that you primarily care about, then I believe Mullvad accepts Monero

SimpleLogin. It’s owned by Proton, and I use their VPN and mail quite a bit. And it can be integrated with BitWarden to generate random usernames that forward to your mail account