With a bootloader signed using Microsoft keys, or a bootloader that needs a MOK to be set up to install third-party keys in the Secure Boot database?

I did the latter and it was a pretty annoying process that would scare away beginners—hence me saying a "workaround" was possible. I'm not using a common distro like Fedora or Ubuntu, though. Is setting it up less painful on those?

If I want to maintain my Windows computer, do I need a new computer?

You don't need a new computer, but Microsoft's influence in the industry made it really inconvenient to run any other operating system alongside Windows on the same PC.

When you start, you need to change some BIOS settings to be compatible with both Windows and Linux. More annoyingly, every time you switch between them you'll have to change tbe Secure Boot option. Turn it off before booting into Linux and turn it back on before booting into Windows. There are workarounds to that, but they're not beginner friendly.

You also can't install both Windows and Linux on the same drive. Windows likes to "repair" itself from time to time, which ends up breaking the Linux boot loader.

If I was already looking for a laptop, do I just buy the cheapest one and reformat? Does Distro utilize Touch Screen?

ThinkPads have a good track record with Linux support.

Hardware with niche features (like multiple screens on a laptop) will be less likely to have drivers for those features on Linux.

Touch screens don't have a standardized way of connecting to a computer, so support will vary and you'll need to Google it to find out if some laptop model is supported. If it is, pick any distro that uses KDE Plasma or GNOME for its desktop environment and you'll be fine. If you're coming from Windows, I would recommend Plasma over GNOME.

Literally create all the service problems by normalizing launcher DRM

I hate DRM as much as the next person, but if Steam didn't exist and digital downloads still became a thing, there would still be launcher DRM. Thanks to corporate greed, DRM is an inevitability in the industry.

Games distributed on DVD were packed with DRM fuckery, needing to be inside the computer to launch and using kernel-level drivers to enforce it. Before DVDs, you had games on floppy disks. Those came with physical codewheels that the player had to use to decode a password before it would start the game.

It's poor journalism, yes. Especially if it's a lack of disclosure rather than an explicit refusal for disclosure, as investigation takes time.

However, my opinion is that for a corporation, an explicit refusal to provide data could be valid data when morally judging them. They are entitled to the same legal "innocent until proven otherwise" standard as individuals, yeah. But a non-person entity doesn't need the same privacy rights that a person does. They only need whatever privacy is required to maintain confidentiality (e.g. trade secrets, business strategy, insider information, etc.).

If they had non-incriminating and non-confidential evidence proving their innocence, surely they would prefer to release it to minimize reputational damages. So, if they choose not to, it either means that the evidence needs to be confidential, or that it actually is incriminating. Which of those it is, who knows. It's still not a good look, though.

even their precious HL's engine was IIRC a rewrite or fork of the one for Quake

IIRC, even the HL2 engine was just an improvement on the HL1 engine with a commercial physics engine bolted on top.

Much like Google used to, Valve doesn't really do anything new. They take existing ideas and remove the rough edges to provide a more polished experience than what is already available.

To their credit, that's exactly why they succeeded with most of their ventures. Gabe Newell understands consumers well enough to know that most people don't care about anything other than user experience. Or, as he put it, "piracy is a service problem".

A general rule of thumb: if a corporation is not disclosing data to substantiate its claim of innocence, it's likely because the data proves the exact opposite.

That's a lot of whataboutism and it doesn't really answer my question.

The CPC itself isn't Marxist. China, as a whole, is Marxist-Lenninist pending the final transitional stage where the new, benevolent ruling class dissolves itself and hands power back to the proletariat. It's been that way for decades.

And a state-owned enterprise isn't inherently communist; it's whatever the state is. If it's controlled by the state, and the state isn't classless, there needs to be full transparency in how the enterprise is operated. If the public has no say in its operations, a SOE is just a nationalized corporation executing on the whims of a ruling class—and that's closer to capitalist-socialist ideology than communist ideology.

Also they’ve been separated out of CDPR recently

Someone corrected me on this recently so I'm paying it forward.

CD Projekt owned GOG, not CDPR. CDPR is a separate company under CD Projekt and isn't related to GOG other than both previously having the same owner.

How much say does the proletariat have in how those state owned enterprises are managed or operated, or into what their profits are put towards?

For localization, would -kun work? It wouldn't be a correct translation, but the idea of the average citizen being conditioned into having that closeness and familiarity with Big Brother might make for an interesting take.

Pretty easily, even without introducing a new scan code. If the keyboard uses USB, Windows could have just matched against the vendor and product IDs. Or they could have set something in the USB descriptor.

The only reasons I can think of for doing it this way are either out of laziness because it's easier to make a global hotkey than change a driver, or to intentionally make the key useless as a modifier key.

If people in government were more tech literate and willing to stand by their morals by whistleblowing, they would create a torrent of the encrypted evidence and set up a dead man's switch for the key.