Converting DnD rules and edge cases was always a bit of fun and became my "hello world" as I was learning stuff.
Years back, I worked at a company where the agreement required them to review any personal application that I created for a year or so after I left. I was super happy to send them iterations of my DM'ing tools - written for Java (micro edition), WinCE, Palm, and any other mobile gadgets I could get my hands on.
Around the 4th application I sent, the pharmaceutical company released me from the non-compete clause. I've always wondered if they were required to try and run the applications.
Consider a dedicated SSD for each OS. You should have a couple M2 slots in the laptop. What you can do is remove (or disable) the Windows SSD, install Linux on the second drive, and then add back the windows drive. Select the drive at startup you want to be in on boot and default the drive you want to spend most of your time in. I did that on my XPS and it was trouble free. Linux can mount your NTFS just fine, without having to consider it from a boot/grub perspective.
Ubuntu just raised the minimum RAM requirement from 4gb to 6. While it might have been possible to run anything with a GUI on 4, I can't imagine that is a good experience.
When they turned Centos into streams, I cut my workstation over to Ubuntu. It has been a reasonable replacement. Only real issues were when dual booting Win10 horked my grub and snap being unable to sort itself on occasion. When they release 26 as an LTS, I'm planning to update. You are spot on - the desktop itself is reasonably lean. 100+ tabs in Firefox... less so. Mind you, the amount of RAM in the workstations I'm using could buy a used car these days.
I don't really get it. I have ran fleets of thousands of devices running Chrome in a container on Ubuntu server, and it's a nice experience. It took a lot to make it nice, but once it was there it was rock solid. This was with 1GB ram on a Pi 3. When we swapped to Pi4, we just had thousands on gigabytes of ram and thousands of cpu cores unused.
Had a similar experience with the XPS series. Was able to find a keyboard. When taken apart, realized they had used plastic bits, tape, and other things to connect the keyboard to the top lid. Seems they expected one to either be handy with epoxy or buy the combo.
I resemble that remark. I've got to wonder how many people are starting to cut over to Linux/Mac or just stopped caring about being patched on Win10.
A couple weekends ago, I made the overdue call to kill my dual booting with Windows 10 and go full Linux. I'd considered finding a copy of the embedded Win10 long term version or paying for the patching. The local account was one of the things holding me back from doing the update. I knew I could muck with things to still have it, but figured it would be yoinked away later. Similar thoughts to updating the old threadripper that no longer qualifies for Win11. The reinforcement came from all the blasted copilot integration -- notepad, paint... just looking like evasiveness was going to be everywhere.
For a long time my 'good' box was Linux, my old box was Windows. So much just works. I still have an M2 with Windows 10 on it, but it is not in any machine right now. Will see if I run out of space and need it before they actually provide something I'd want to even have on my desk.
My Bride worked for a banking/credit card company. Someone took the sample "northwinds" Microsoft Access sample app, changed the labels, and modified their business process to mimic a few of the existing queries. At some point, there was a company mandate to port all of these types of apps to Oracle. Oh, the huge manatee... The process/business was a non-trivial bit of cash flow.
There has always been a bit of back and forth. Giving long deadlines and crazy costs, the business will always kruft something together. Sometimes it works, sometimes folks get burned, sometimes you get a nice hand off.
I was able to pick up recycled flourinert, which I used for an immersed dual celeron setup. It was mind boggling to see the submerged motherboard chugging away and silence beyond the the soft whir/gurgle of the water pumps. My first CRAYon machine was so messy. I always hoped that it was coolant from our U of MN's Cray.
I had the 17" XPS, which was lovely. A nice 16:10 screen, which was the main thing I was looking for. Battery was easy to replace. Easy memory and M2 drive replacement. It was a pretty good laptop for x86. Main issue was heat/sound. Linux was pretty easy to get going on that hardware. You could get at the internals - so cleaning out the fan was doable. (order new screws, as they ship with silly soft metal on the orignals)
When they released the 16" series, most of the updgrade features were gone. Memory was tied to the CPU, which puts you in the same position that Apples does. Not a fan. I swapped out the 17" for a 16" macbook. I doubt I'll look at an XPS again.
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