I think this VM is still on Sonoma, actually. I still need to upgrade.
I can't remember exactly what I did to get an installer image, but there's a million shell scripts online for downloading macOS installer images. For booting it, I use this premade OpenCore for KVM/Proxmox. I have to check if I made other modifications (I run on an AMD CPU), but I think I mainly just had to set the serial and model - I personally used a 2019 Mac Pro.
My university's introductory CS course has us using Java. It's a web IDE within a textbook, but weirdly enough, I found it's actually just connected to an AWS instance of Ubuntu.
I myself have been daily driving since my sophomore year of high school.
I think the answer is obvious. There are so many better alternatives available today. Some examples include:
That just sounds like classic Winsanity right there, not a hard drive issue.
What about Virt Manager GUI, which is what I use here? It's a frontend for QEMU and it's not that difficult, honestly.
iTunes will not work in Wine for the OP's use. For one, the OP will have to use an old version from 2019. Also, it won't be able to connect to any iDevices, as the driver support isn't there.
I'd say play with Linux in Virtualbox or Hyper-V. I used the former before transitioning.
Also, I'd say don't use Ubuntu; it jumped the shark years ago and has lost much of its quality.
I usually recommend PopOS for people new to Linux, as I find it to basically be decrapitated Ubuntu.
I don't personally use openSuSe (I'm a big Debian/XFCE guy), but its YaST settings are more comprehensive than other distros.
However, I would warn you you might not be able to avoid config files and terminal sometimes, though. Maybe that's not a bad thing, though; sometimes, the terminal and text files are the most efficient way to do something and a GUI simply can't expose a program's full power. That's why I recommend you starting in a VM - you can have a bit of fun without the full commitment.
As for ffmpeg, I don't know that there is a good GUI. Honestly, though, learning command line ffmpeg isn't the worst idea - I've found it very useful and something I got used to. If that doesn't work for you, then best of luck finding a GUI.
For trying to run applications designed for a different distro, you could use distrobox. However, it's pretty rare these days that an application doesn't have a universal Flatpak. Honestly, if an application is deliberately limited to one distro, I find it isn't worth it and may signal low software quality.
For notepad++, you could use something like VSCodium, but honestly, if you're used to Notepad++, just run it under Wine.
For virtualization, don't use Virtualbox on Linux. It doesn't use the built in hypervisor module, KVM, but its own proprietary one. I'd recommend the Virt Manager GUI instead.
Most distros seem to have OpenSnitch in their repos.
I found a prebuilt OpenCore for KVM. https://github.com/thenickdude/KVM-Opencore
I then changed the config.plist to make it think it was a 2019 Mac Pro.
And that's why there's a "-2" on the end of that arch vm - there was one before that I borked while trying to update it because I hadn't used it in so long.
It's a terabyte SSD. I've currently got 136 GB left on it. I think part of it might be they're auto-expanding qcow2 images, so they don't actually take up the full space provisioned for them.
10, plain 11, 7, and funny enough, Server 2022 are all legit licenses (I can get a key for server through my university). Actually, I'm pretty sure the 11 one, I upgraded a Windows 7 VM to 10, then to 11.
Every other Windows version that needs it (11 LTSC, 8.1, and Vista), I just temporarily host a phony KMS server whenever it needs to be reactivated.
I apologize for talking so much about Windows on a Linux sub. May Stallman break into my house and give me 10 lashes as I slumber.
I could be totally delusional, but I think it's just something like
dd if=whatchamacallit.dmg of=whatchamacallit.img. I think you can get a net install image through macrecovery, which is a utility included with OpenCore packages.