Alone with my computer
I read a post on mastodon sometime in the last couple weeks, I can't find it again but it was from someone that re-installed Linux on their main machine for the first time in 10 or more years. They said it felt like, and I'm paraphrasing, "Its nice to feel like I'm alone when using my computer".
They contrast this with Windows where it feels at times that you are sharing your computer with every Ad exec and marketer on the planet.
I think it was Molly White, who's always worth a follow, that said something along the lines that most software today would be considered spyware 20y ago. Now that I'm writing this it may actually have been evacide that said it. Regardless, its true.
We spend WAY too much time turning off tracking every Windows update, or deleting apps that were automatically installed without action from us, I'm looking at you Co-Pilot. We have children using these computers and they click buttons. I'm old enough to remember when Apple tried to give a U2 album away for free and the world freaked out. Now every company shoves software and updates down our throat and no one complains.
Computing like its 1999
For over a year now, I have moved away from the M$ Office suite and now only use text files for everything. I write this blog in MD and RST, every work product I can is written in RST and I use Juypter notebooks for all my calculations. The only areas that I haven't switched to plaintext is power system modelling (ETAP and SKMPowertools) and CAD (AutoCAD). I don't even have a viable OpenSource alternative to these, and no the FOSS options for CAD aren't viable.
For email I still use webmail, but this week I have started configuring my Debian Laptop in a way that I should be able to keep track of my email, calendar, and contacts offline, still using the Fastmail services for connecting with the outside world. The "tech stack" that enables this includes, mbsync, vdirsyncer, khal, and mutt. I think I'm there now for my main/personal email and about 80% of the way for work.
When I get to 80% of the way there for work I will then start the process of installing a WindowsVM on the laptop and ensure that it will work with the three softwares mentioned above, maybe each with their own VM.
At that point I will be as close to the FOSS operating point that I will be able to get.
Using a VM
If you have experience running a Windows VM on Debian (or LMDE) let me know. I don't want to use VirtualBox, the last few times I tried it, it didn't feel "stable" to me. This could be PEBKAC, but other options/ideas are very welcome.
I will keep you up to date on my progress.
If you are interested in the tech stack that I'm using for work and home so you too can get yourself out from under the corporate computing boot, let me know with a comment below, or mention on mastodon. My links are here.