• Spice Hoarder@lemmy.zip
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      23 hours ago

      You can

      • run your favorite flavor of Arch on your bare metal
      • use Aero theme plasma with KDE
      • legitimately install VMware Workstation Pro, since it’s free now.
      • run windows 7 in a VM with extended kernel patches. (bonus points for making your windows VM immutable)
      • HugeNerd@lemmy.ca
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        22 hours ago

        Hm, I’ll see what I can do about that. I have a Value Village rescue PC that will soon be set up.

    • definitemaybe@lemmy.ca
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      18 hours ago

      Maybe try ReviOS? It’s a “playbook” file you run on a clean Windows 11 install that strips out all of the telemetry and junk, and mostly “just works”. The only big potential pain point, imho, is not getting automatic driver updates from Windows Update.

      I just installed CachyOS with virt-manager running ReviOS in a virtual machine. For my needs, it’s amazing. Arch Linux allows for easy updates to the latest versions of software and CachyOS further improves it with optimized, pre-compiled packages, which is particularly relevant for a smooth gaming experience. (Outdated packages aren’t a good mix with new games, and the optimized packages improve performance.)

      The only “big” challenge I’ve had with Windows is getting videoconferencing working smoothly (my webcam is flickery), but that’s not a big deal. Zoom in Linux works great, and Teams/Zoom both work well in browser (in Linux). So, most of my work stuff is in the VM, but I have Zoom and a separate browser (for Teams meetings) installed in Linux.

      This setup requires a bit of technical skill; you need to be able to find and follow guides. (Ex. I needed to troubleshoot why I couldn’t change the VM resolution, and the fix was to download a set of VM tools in Windows.) If you have light technical skills to search for and read guides, it shouldn’t be too challenging.

      (I use Arch, by the way.)

      • HugeNerd@lemmy.ca
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        22 hours ago

        Please describe the nature of this risk, and explain why I don’t have any of them?

        • seejur@lemmy.world
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          18 hours ago

          No OS is safe, because within millions of lines of code, it is bound to have some vulnerabilities that can be exploited.

          But what is absolutely unsafe, is an unsupported OS, where the vulnerabilities that are found are not solved/patched

          • HugeNerd@lemmy.ca
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            18 hours ago

            I agree, all I ask is you show me one in Windows 7. Send me a URL that when I click it my bank account is emptied immediately.

            All these threats people see are always something you actively install or are involved in, or some sort of social engineering scam. Even Windows 17 can’t help you with that.