They work just fine with real-debrid.

Yeah, it’s trivial work for a capable AI. It isn’t farfetched to envision an AI tracking down your alt accounts by analyzing writing style, post/comment topics, and various other bits of commonality.

My knee-jerk reaction is that I’m generally against it. I’m all for AI in a variety of applications, but I don’t participate in discussion in online places to give free training days to corporate LLM’s. If somehow it could be guaranteed that it was only used in open models I suppose I would feel a little better, but the second issue in my mind is that even careful people leave a trail of identifying breadcrumbs sprinkled across their posting history. A human having to sift through thousands of posts and comments will have a much harder time putting pieces together than an AI will. So I see it as a privacy concern mostly.

You got a lot of distro recommendations from across the spectrum and it’s honestly hard to go wrong with any of them. It’s mostly a matter of preference. As such I’ll give you two pieces of advice:

1. Set up a multi-boot flash drive (assuming you’re currently using Windows, YUMI is a great utility) so that your can try a bunch of them and see what jives with you most. A great feature of Linux installers is that you can actually run the entire OS, full-featured, from the ISO. So grab a whole slew of them, throw them on the flash drive, and spend some time taking them for a spin.
2. Do your research on compatibility. Laptop makers often don’t make Linux drivers, so the latest hardware has compatibility problems until the community covers the gap. There are also some laptop manufacturers that have Linux in mind when they make their products, like System 76 and Framework.

Good luck! IMO getting into Linux for the first time is a fun journey. Enjoy it!

I’m in IT too. My experience is that if you use Linux at home and Windows at work you just end up skilled at both. At one point I was even using a Macbook at work (wouldn’t have even been a consideration if WSL was just a little better), using a Windows jump server or a VM for my Windows-y ops, and I became skilled at all 3 OS’s.

All of that is to say that your skill won’t decrease if Windows is still being used, especially if you’re using it in a professional context.