On Thu, Dec 19, 2019 at 07:10:39PM +1100, Brian May wrote:
Is there anything else we should be doing?
What windows apps does he need to run? Will they run in WINE? if he needs Office apps, can he switch to Libre Office? Is the computer powerful enough to run windows in a VM? If so, do that on a snapshot-capable filesystem (zfs or btrfs) and run a nightly cron job to snapshot the windows VM, and keep old snapshots for at least a month. If he gets scammed again, roll back to the night before. BTW, it's quite easy to set up a windows VM on linux KVM running in full-screen mode, from boot up - so it looks exactly the same as windows running on bare metal. There's a (configurable) keystroke sequence to switch back and forth between the linux console or X, and, of course, you can ssh in to fix any problems (e.g. shutdown the win VM, rollback the snapshot, and start it up again). In short, even though it may not be possible or even desirable to get him running linux, look for ways to minimise his reliance on and exposure to windows, and to minimise the effects of windows security flaws. crap like this scam and ransomware and viruses aren't as big a deal if you can just rollback a snapshot to a pre-compromised version. NOTE: if he runs windows games, or anything else requiring fast 3D graphics, you'll probably need to look into VGA passthrough with a dedicated GPU for the VM. put a cheap CGA card in for the linux side of things, and re-use his existing card for the VM if it's better. there's a minor catch, however: nvidia has some annoying crap in their drivers that make it slighly difficult to run them in a VM (because of bullshit artificial market segmentation reasons), but there are ways to fool the driver that it's running on real hardware. AMD radeon cards don't do this. craig -- craig sanders <cas@taz.net.au>