Yes, same here. That is why I read on Lemmy to inform myself in advance and reduce the amount of tabs.

I am in the 5 to 20 tab range depending on the solution I am searching for. At around 5 I usually use LLM to help me and cross-check with more searches. If it is longterm, I subscribe to related communities on Lemmy and interesting podcasts.

Regarding your question to virtualize Windows: Use virt-manager if it is just for you and Proxmox if you want to provide virtualized services. Certainly, you can use Proxmox just for yourself, it even works with nested virtualization if you want to learn things before commiting to additional hardware. I am there right now. Many more tabs will be opened to learn about Proxmox, I am sure.

I recommend Debian stable or Fedora if your aim is to get things done. NixOS is maybe a thing you can try out and learn about in a VM on Proxmox or with virt-manager.