Can they do that without sending any telemetry without you having to resort to firewalls, domain control or other stuff not available to the average user?
No. But they can run Windows-only programs as well. Linux is objectively better that Windows in the privacy (and package management) department, but Wine just doesn’t cut it sometimes.
I tried a year ago to switch to Linux, with Windows in a VM, but it just wasn’t good enough for my liking. I wanted Windows program support but with the power of the Linux command line (such as building C and C++ programs from source). and WSL does that really well. I ended up switching back a few months ago…
Lastly, there’s the aspect of online school. Proctoring systems such as ProctorU and Examity mandate Windows or macOS.
I tried a year ago to switch to Linux, with Windows in a VM, but it just wasn’t good enough for my liking. I wanted Windows program support but with the power of the Linux command line (such as building C and C++ programs from source). and WSL does that really well. I ended up switching back a few months ago…
Lastly, there’s the aspect of online school. Proctoring systems such as ProctorU and Examity mandate Windows or macOS.