What operating system do you use?

[nikita1]

desktop everyday: WinXp (now smuggled as Embedded,no sp3,all software stuck at last xp support,Mypal,VMs,no antivir,...)
desktop games: Win7 (min for Pascal...)
laptop: win10 educational (heavily mydded,no tiny10/privacy10)
usb multiboots: Kali,MiniXp,WinToGo,modded linux distros,...

[dueda]

desktop everyday: WinXp (now smuggled as Embedded,no sp3,all software stuck at last xp support,Mypal,VMs,no antivir,...)

Sounds interesting. For a while I used a MSI Wind 2 with XP modded to look like 7; boot, themes, WinFlip, TrueTransparency, Yahoo Widgets... Best thing except the 1024x600 screen.

[RobertX]

Ah people still using old operating systems.

Are they connected to the Internet?

[dueda]

I used my portable (the term then was netbook) everywhere, public wifi, 4G celular modem, home... XP still kicking during Windows 8 era.
But I sold the device (and regret it, no more cheap workhorses like that A5-sheet size ultraportable). Now only WinTen. But would use again, no doubt, on a secondary machine.

[RobertX]

But the thing is, is it wise or even "OK" to use a discontinued Windows OS and connecting to the Internet?

I wouldn't, which is why I use my oldest computer (2006) disconnected from the Internet.

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Not a direct submission, but since we are talking about operating systems, I thought I'd put this out...

[dueda]

If I don't use that PC for anything else but silly browsing and testing stuff, there should be little risk and probably zero consequence. A VM sandbox would also help.
I'm a pirate, like to try new things just for the fun of it. CNet has a page called "Download Junkie" that definitely applied to me for the last 30 years. Guess I got a virus only once.

One has more chances of being hacked or scammed on legit sites than from a trojan, I guess. A hacker will attack databases with thousands of people instead of wasting time with random individual attacks which can just get a bunch of cat pictures and bank information worth $99.

[RobertX]

So what is your difficulty doing this?

As I recall, most GNU/Linux distributions will almost always come with a media player and a torrent client.

You might want to find a way to install missing codecs and/or the libdvdcss2 library if you want to watch out of region DVDs ("legit" ones).

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dueda, the thing is, that any operating system can be used to pirate, even OSX, at least in theory.

I'm not sure about FreeBSD, but my instinct says "why not?"

I don't use my Linux Mint computer to pirate, but I could if I wanted to.

I am very sure that any more well-known GNU/Linux distros can help you in that endeavour.

[dueda]

I started asking if, as the hacking toolkit themed distro the Op mentioned, would be also a pirating themed one; obviously pirating can be done on any distro or OS but a package tuned for it and already loaded with utilities would be nice. In my particular scenario, a full desktop system wouldn't be needed; all I need is a decent torrent client, a cool media library manager and a player. But that doesn't cover all, some people would need a series of cracking, encoding, compressing, coding and sharing tools to manage or even run seed boxes, phreaking, hiding thru multiple VPNs or hopping around, ride the darker corners, etc.
Now, difficulty I guess I've none (besides getting drivers for my hardware, maybe).

[RobertX]

My argument is, according to what you've told us so far, you can do the same things with any GNU/Linux distro.

Are you going to do heavy hacking work? Well, I would say that any distro can do that.

Every GNU/Linux distro almost has a torrent client and a codec pack, and unlike Acquisition, they are all free (or Free, depending on your word choice).

Have you decided on which GNU/Linux distro you want to try out? If not, go with Linux Mint. I went from Knoppix to Ubuntu to Linux Mint, and I'm staying with Linux Mint!

EDIT: After some thinking, I do have a question: did you remember mentioning that you are going to run it in a virtual machine? If so the argument still stays, but you could just remove everything other than the bits that you need.

[dueda]

I mentioned before that Mint seems to be a good choice.
Utility of doing so is debatable, as getting another OS in a VM on an old business pc doesn't sound a top performance option.
I'm downloading VirtualBox and Mint Virginia now, but will also try some custom 11 as well. Heck, since I'm at it, maybe even an Amiga emulator.