Totally!
Its one of the greatest experiences I’ve ever had, as a timeline I guess its like this:
- Getting graphics going in my own games in BASIC on a VIC-20 in 84 or something
- First time seeing X86 with a terminal window appearing on a Suse install in 98
- Taming WIN98 inside VMware around 2000, worked as a graphics designer and finally got around all its limitations that way (Could just reset the whole thing every time something broke down)
- Getting started with OSX in 2000, finally getting rid of the Windows menace, running that as a platform with almost no serious problems at all until now
- Finally migrating to Qubes the past weeks & now getting ready to ditch OSX as well
Already ordered another old Thinkpad & started cleaning out my 27 Imac, Will probably see if I can get Qubes installed on that too, but selling it might be the best option for doing a clean break.
The main philosophy behind Qubes is what really works for me, I’ve already tried to “sort out” my different modes & tasks online for years, but its just too cumbersome running several machines and/or Virtualbox VMs and so on.
Now I can easily read and even comment on news here in Asia, roam around in forums that should be compartmentalised, deal with cryptos as well as maintaining an “official” presence online
Also it gives me a good chance to start cleaning up & deleting what is already registered about me, perhaps using GDPR to nuke some of it later on. Just takes a LOT of time with years of registering accounts and services in a few tech fields. Now I can just set up Qubes for the “spheres” of activity that I want to separate & keep going at it all in one install!
The privacy features are of course a main part of this, security is less so for me personally - I’ve got no adversaries that I know or, nor do I need to hide anything.
But I do value my online privacy a LOT, and Qubes is the perfect tool for that 