This is the way I think of it also

Yeah that is a nice recommended

I actually use newpipe for casting to my chromecast at the moment so I see the appeal

Regarding Apple, That’s what I feel too, but I don’t feel like going Pixel and GrapheneOS or fairphone etc.

But I still want to optimize my privacy and move to open source alternatives where I can without sacrificing too much

You make a good point tbh

That’s a struggle, but I’ve heard of some great music storage self hosting services out there, can’t remember the names of any atm tho

There is also the option of sideloading a modded YouTube client for the adblock aspect.

I was thinking about getting 256GB version of the phone and self hosting a storage solution, but I ain’t got the server to do that yet, might aswell pay for icloud drive until I finish my studies. Luckily I dont need alot of storage, just need the security of having stuff backed up.

I also selfhost adguard home over my home network.

Yeah I guess getting hate for choosing Apple is fair, I was anti-apple a few years ago but now I would rather get rid of Google, and ios isnt bad nowadays either for my use cases.

I could just go for a fairphone tho with /e/OS tho

Pretty sure it was developed in germany

Matrix is open source, should give that a try,

it could be a bit more user friendly tho

The biggest downside of ditching Windows is losing that comfort zone where everything just works without thinking about it. But if you’re cool with putting in some effort to learn new stuff, Linux will feel way snappier right from the start.

Since you’ve got an Nvidia GPU, I’d definitely go with CachyOS - it’s been my best Linux experience for gaming and daily use. The Linux community respects it too: https://cachyos.org/

For your setup specifically, you’ll probably like how much less space Linux takes up compared to Windows, plus it’s way lighter on system resources so your older hardware should perform better. Gaming works surprisingly well these days thanks to Proton, most stuff just runs.
You could dual boot first to test it first without committing. CachyOS would be perfect for what you’re doing.