User2288 Thanks for sharing. It really defeats the purpose of using a privacy-respecting OS when all the programs are invasive. Would you say from your experience that the software your course required worked on MacOS? Were there students who used it?

      Tuba In the end, I would still using a privacy-invasive OS so it wouldn't really help to run a VM with all the performance drawbacks. I was thinking about using Wine but it's too much work and I just need to get by a few years to get my degree. Any other thoughts?

          yore in the case of software development the programs I needed to install were, Eclipse, slack, node server, Microsoft office, adobe pdf, zoom, java and c runtime environments (i think), and maybe a few more i cant recall right now. Also had to sign up for several free and "free for students" online services some of which required personal info (github, slack, atlassian, figma, trello, google, microsoft, discord, etc). Also had to sign up for multiple government websites to get a student loan as well a FORCED to install 1 gov ID app on my phone.

          Students were able to use windows and macos just fine. There were some students who were just fine on linux too. Problem with linux is, if you run into trouble who is gonna fix it for you? I wasn't adept enough with linux.

          Running vm bacame quite a pain. I thought i could have a linux laptop for privacy and just run windows requiring software inside a windows vm. This quickly became a lot of pain, slowness and battery drain. Not to mention i ran into network issues on the linux os when connecting to university network which i didn't know how to resolve. Also the linux os didnt work perfectly with the laptop and i had other issues with that too.

          See?

          Even using privacy browsers to log into sites was being a problem. I had to revert to some default browsers in some cases which undermined my other efforts.

          All this aside from the massive toll it took on me to juggle all this crap.

          Im not saying all this to deter you. Your case might be different than mine. But i wish i had known all this on day one, which is why im telling you now.

          If i had to do it all over again, id simply give up on the privacy aspect, dedicate 1 laptop to all my school related work and not have to worry about "browser finger printing" and "ip hiding" and not worry about hiding my identity or email address either (make a dedicated email address for your entire education journey, you'll have to give it to a lot of people and sites and gov sources). Instead Id just keep my private life out of that laptop.

          Its ok if that laptop gets fully associated with my identity and accounts. Have a separate platform for your private life. While you are a student a lot of personal information about you will become unprivate unfortunately, including your name, phone number, email address, and even home address being put on papers that get uploaded to google docs or shared online with other students and on their phones and laptops.

          Id say take a strategy of "containment" and "walled garden" approach. Be mindful to not associated your other activities with that laptop and browsers.

              Dont watch porn on this laptop.

              Dont enter your "life holding" passwords on this laptop.

              Etc.

              yore
              Regarding wine, i havent used it, but i think in today's world of VMs, wine is not necessary and probably not worth the compatibility problems.

              VM allows the option of cutting off the internet on it as well as passing it through vpn without the VM os seeing original ip, as well as hiding hardware IDs and direct hardware access to VM os. Sometimes this is useful.

              For example MS office is highly invasive. I try to keep it in an offline VM

              Also almost all programming software is available on linux and mac. But security software might be a different story.

                User2288 TBH I think it’s the online services that are more problematic than the OS running on a laptop. You’re effectively forced to sign up to various things because somebody else has chosen to use that platform, and you effectively just have to agree to the T&C to get anything done. If everyone else uses Teams, you can’t insist on using Mattermost or IRC. It’s the same kind of problem as ‘everyone uses WhatsApp’. It is possible the university signs some of these agreements for you (eg institutional Microsoft account) but sometimes your group/project/collaborator will pick a tool and it’s hard to avoid using it.

                Then the next problem is the need to install their apps. I think GOS profiles go a long way to helping here, since you can wall them off from the rest of your phone.