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?

Out of curiosity, do you use your xmpp app for SMS as well? I’ve been doing so (since the majority of my family will not leave the SMS messaging system) but its a bit lacking when it comes to groups and MMS.

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.

If your internet connection is coming from hotspot tethering to your phone you’ll want to put it in a Faraday bag when not in use since your phone will be trackable at all times even if off. If you use a hotspot instead the cell signal and WiFi are still trackable but the lack of Bluetooth and GPS aids greatly in keeping the tracking to a minimum.

I agree with your general statement, but in theory since all ChatGPT does is regurgitate information back and a lot of chess is memorization of historical games and types, it might actually perform well. No, it can’t think, but it can remember everything so at some point that might tip the results in it’s favor.

Don’t worry, Microsoft is bringing semantic search to Windows too. That way you can have the worst of both worlds.

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 use Librewolf as my daily driver for most things, then Mulvad when I don’t want any fingerprinting.

Mulvad is highly underated IMO.

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)

Just to chime in, I’m in agreement with goodeye8. I liked R1 but R2 is fleshed out a lot more. Its a lot more fun and engaging.

I found that in R2 I played and replayed every area to get the variations and fight different bosses or defeat them in diffdrent manners I didnt do everything 100% but I did most of everything. In R1 I think I only went back to defeat one boss in an alternate manner. I know that’s not really a measurable way to give feedback, but it’s my anecdotal way of saying its a better game.

As somebody who has in recent years changed habits like this, I agree with you. But its a harsh change at first.

Turning off most notifications is a key step. It changes your mentality from reaction to your device to a proactive action at a chosen time. It’s a huge shift and well worth it.

Then I started turning my services off at times. No, I don’t need to take a call while driving or check messages in the store. That stuff can wait.

My overall logic is that I don’t need to make myself available to any and everyone at any and every time.

Sure, sometimes it bites me in the butt as far as convenience, however my quality of life has improved overall. I am very protective of my time and mental attention now, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I highly recommend taking small measures to test the waters. Then increase as you acclimate to it.

I like that idea bit it’ll never fly. That software is an asset. A bankrupt company needs every asset to be sold to cover as much percentage of their debt to their vendors as possible. I’ve been in a company that went bankrupt and I’ve been the vendor of a company that went bankrupt. Being the vendor was the harder experience.

I’ve had the same thing happen for my own personal domain that I run through Addy. Its frustrating because people can’t tell what a “good” domain is, so how can you have any rules about it? And if you do, then have a verification system with your customer service team.

But I’ve always said to myself, if this service won’t take my email then I don’t really want to be their customer. What else are they going to screw up when I give them my data?