It absolutely is relevant.

The government shouldn’t be able to know whether I’m buying toilet paper, ammunition, or anti-government books. There should be no way to track purchases to me unless I opt-in and provide it (e.g. register for a warranty, submit to background check, etc). They don’t need to know both sides of any transaction to enforce any law, because that would be a violation of my 4th amendment rights (or whatever privacy/anti-search laws you have in your country).

I happen to not commit crimes, generally speaking, but that’s completely irrelevant to the discussion about whether my purchases should be in the clear. Ideally, everywhere would accept some form of privacy-oriented cryptocurrency, like Monero. How money gets from me to the vendor is completely unrelated to law enforcement, all they need is a record of transactions for tax purposes, and there’s nothing stopping the store from tracking that in the same way they do cash. If they suspect someone of a crime, they can do old-fashioned police work and prove it (e.g. subpoena camera footage, station officers at the scene, interview people, etc).

I highly recommend separate machines for work and personal/play.

If you need Adobe stuff for play, then a separate drive for Windows makes a ton of sense.

Thanks for the tip. I have an AP from them, and it works really well. Guess I’ll have to look at the rest of their product stack.

And you do not need the payment for your order of bell peppers and toilet paper to be private.

Yes I do.

Just because you don’t value your privacy doesn’t mean nobody does. It’s none of the government’s business what I buy, nor is it my bank’s. They’ll need to find another way to catch criminals than forcing me to be transparent about my transactions.

Well, Biden won in 2020.

And they expect to control the White House soon. Why not set yourself up with more power for when you get power?

Maybe? I never bothered to check, but my understanding was they specifically didn’t support that gen for whatever reason.

I don’t know anything about Lightroom or what similar software would be, so unfortunately I won’t be much help. But I hope you can find a decent alternative.

I’m the same way. I thought websites were cool and wanted to make one. So I did and taught myself. Then I took a class at my high school, then again at the local community college once I could do concurrent enrollment. In college, I worked on software projects to relax from my CS classes, and I still do that today.

Even if AI takes my job, I’ll probably still hack on stuff. I’m in it because I love software dev. I probably could’ve climbed the ladder long ago, but that would’ve required sacrificing what I want to do.

So yeah, hopefully I can keep making money with my hobby, but I’m not interested in becoming a corporate hack just to make a buck.

Blackrock makes some decent funds, I’ll take that one.

The only PC we have with Windows is my wife’s, and that’s because she plays an anti-cheat game. My desktop, laptop, NAS, and Steam Deck all run Linux.

The free OS Linux also doesn’t pull this crap, and Rufus can write a Linux ISO to your USB drive and remove Microsoft’s gaslighting from your life.

Yup. OG Ryzen had TPM but wasn’t supported for Windows. Not sure if that has changed.

Use separate disks.

Yeah, this is why I never got into VR, the Linux support blows even if you get a supported headset because the games aren’t made for Linux. There are some games, sure, but it’s not worth spending $1k+ on an Index.

I’ll use it once the barrier to entry drops or Linux support improves.

Good time to start looking for a good deal on cheap home lab crap though.

Linux is like the “I own an old hotrod in my garage and work on it as a hobby” compared to “I drive a cheap commuter car and just want it to work”

Really?

Linux gives you choice, sure, but it doesn’t just randomly break unless you’re doing something exotic.

Garuda Linux

There’s your problem, you’re using a bleeding edge distro, which is like having a hotrod.

If you want a boring commuter, install a boring commuter distro, like Debian. If you want something fresher, there are a lot of options before you get to Arch-based distros, like Fedora. Stick to the most popular distros and you probably won’t have problems.

Don’t get me wrong, Arch can be fantastic, I ran it for several years with minimal problems, but you really do need to be ready to step in and get your hands dirty.

My main advice is to go in expecting to need to replace software. A lot of stuff works (e.g. discord, Steam, etc), but a lot of stuff doesn’t. If you’re flexible, use a mainstream distro, and stick to what’s available in the repo or on flathub, it’ll probably be more stable than Windows. Just don’t expect your random RGB app or whatever to work, and be ready to swap some POS hardware if the manufacturer doesn’t support Linux (e.g. certain WiFi vendors that aren’t Intel).

Also, don’t expect Linux to make things faster, you’re still limited by your hardware. But do expect common tasks to work well.

If it’s anticheat, blame the devs, because they’re specifically blocking Linux. If it’s something else, maybe we can help.

Then Apple. Their M-series are fantastic, and their support cycles are great. Also, taking marketshare from Microsoft is generally a good thing because it’ll force them to make a better product.

Peanut butter and raisins, gotta get those ants on a log.