Title basically.

One of my windows computers, which happens to be the one I happen to do the most CAD work on, can’t upgrade to windows 11 due to having an Ivy Bridge era Xenon (it’s an E5-1680 v2 for the curious, older used workstations are fantastic bang for the buck computers).

Switching to Linux on this computer has been in the cards for a while, but I hadn’t been in a hurry to do it. Looks like my hand might be getting forced…

  • curbstickle@anarchist.nexusEnglish
    2·
    19 hours ago

    Just wanted to mention, I do this for work apps, including Autodesk products (and a bunch of niche industry apps).

    I have a base VM for Windows (really for a few different versions of windows, some applications are horrifically outdated but still needed), which has nothing installed but the bare necessities. None of the junk from the microsoft store, just a working set of drivers, including GPU for pass through. I block local network access for everything but access to a specific directory on my NAS (mounted proxmox-side so Windows doesnt see it as a network endpoint, just as a mounted drive).

    I clone that image for each application I want to run independently.

    Its been my method for a good few years now, aside from my work laptop its the only bit of windows I have. It also keeps a nice separation of my work stuff from my personal stuf.

    I then boot the VM for whatever application I need, and off we go!

    Highly recommended if you’ve got the setup to support it. And you don’t have to go anywhere near the extent I do, I mention it just to share how far you can take an approach like this.

    Hope it helps!