Froyn

Right, it’s just the side-bar makes the distinction between “online services” and “self-hosted” so I wasn’t sure.

A place to share alternatives to popular_ online services_ that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don’t control.

VPS is self-hosted?

Check out Woot! Right now they’ve got Win10/111 Pro for $20.99 or Home for $18.99. Not sure what that converts to for Euros, but I’m confident it comes out less than 150 of them.

I firmly believe that this information (but for porn) would increase adoption of the software being advertised.

Time to sacrifice a robot and dial-up the BBS to see what’s fresh.

Or set up a second pi-hole.

That just sounds like Amish with more tech.

True, but most of the fixes are super dumbed down (for the audience).

After reading all the given responses, I’ll go with the one not listed.

“When the interviewer asks you to.”

Like a Pi based tablet?

Back in the late 1900s, you could open a laptop and remove a hard drive with only a #2 phillips screw driver. So I think they mean that. Physically remove your Windows drive, install a fresh drive, install/play/learn Linux. With your Windows drive disconnected, you can do ANYTHING in Linux without fear of losing any data on that other drive.

Frustrated and just “need to work”? Reverse the process back to the Windows drive.

Feeling a little more confident and want to access your files on the Windows drive? Get a SATA-USB adapter. No need to go all enclosure just yet as that just adds steps when you need the Windows setup.

Comfortable in Linux? Copy your important data over to the Linux system, format the original drive, NOW put it in an enclosure for a handy backup drive.

Feeling confident in your newfound prowess? Connect that external drive to a Raspberry Pi and turn the Pi into a basic NAS, maybe drop a little VPN on it, and now you can access that device/drive from anywhere. At the very least, you now have a place to backup important data in case the laptop falls into a volcano. Hell, now you’ve got a reason to subscribe to SelfHosted & HomeLab.

Reference: 1998-2001 I ran a “dual boot” using removable hard drive bays on a full tower system. As noted above, Windows can sometimes mess up what makes your dual boot possible.

Currently running Mint on an older HP Envy AMD laptop to get back into the Linux swing. Win10 is my daily driver on the desktop from that need of things to work. When you’re fixing other people’s/company’s computers all day, the last thing you want to do is work on your own computer. That and a lack of real gaming support/documentation forever ago is what pushed me back to Windows. The old argument of “Linux is free” wasn’t too heavy a talking point when MS kept giving me free licenses to stick with what I was more comfortable with. Win11 reminds me of Win8, reminds me of WinME, and the cycle of MS dysfunction continues. I want off the ride.

With Gaming as viable as it is on Linux, plus much nicer tools for VMs (AND Docker exists now), I’ve got about year to convert my daily driver desktop (2025 end of Win10).

Oh and I did try to put Arch on that laptop. It was overwritten by Mint as soon as it booted up without a GUI. Now, might of been my fault for using a “base image” or something, but again I need it to just work without spending what limited time I have trying to make it work. But hey, at least folks aren’t trying to get you to install Slackware from 3.5" floppies.

Cool thing is you can run them side-by-side if you wanted to dip your toes and check the waters.

My RPi3 is still kicking (Single purpose PiHole)

Must not be my neck of the woods (US). You mentioned the Pi, which is in my wheelhouse of “cheap”. Personally I’ve got a couple computers picked up from the local community college for $10 running TrueNAS and Proxmox.

My Google-Fu couldn’t find an R9 3900X for under $200, just the chip, used. I had hopes you had a better source I was missing out on.

13ft Ladder is twice as expensive as this solution.

Got a link for a cheap Ryzen 9 pc?

Muahaha, long ago had a system with a removable 5.25" HDD bay. Matching drives in enclosures, 1 linux, 1 windows. One “permanent” drive in the machine for user data.
Super easy to swap between the OS when you’re physically changing the first drive on the IDE chain.

Tracert will give you the latency of each hop required to make it to your destination. Not sure why everyone is complicating it.

For you and I, yes I agree there is a difference. For OP, who has not replied to any comment, maybe not.

KISS: Plug workstation 1 into monitor 1 and workstation 2 into monitor 2. Then use something like Synergy to share the keyboard and mouse between the computers.