| Run whateverOS in a VM under whateverOTHERos.
| But, aren't you trading one "walled garden" for another
| in the process? How much are you willing to pay
| (in lack of convenience) for that?
|

I'm not. As far as I'm concerned, VMs are for the
birds, except maybe for fulltime software testing.

| E.g., none of my machines talks to the outside world
| (save this one)....
| We do our banking and online purchases on an "immutable" laptop;

That sounds like a well planned solution, but
it wouldn't work for me. Too much hassle. Most
things I do involve going online. Even if I'm editing
a photo or writing software, it's not unusual to
want to look something up. I don't want multiple
machines any more than I want VMs.

With banking, I just don't do it online. I take
the approach of operating safely when online
and avoiding banking, shopping, etc. Those things
simply can't be made safe. Even with a read-only
laptop you still risk things like man-in-the-middle
attacks in your connection to the bank.