why did you switch?

These days, Windows constantly gets in your way with ads, forced updates, crappy apps that install themselves, useless features like Cortana, forcing you to make a Microsoft account, etc. Linux or the BSDs, however, usually give you a bullshit-free and distraction-free experience. Plus, no spyware, completely free, endlessly customizable, and low resource usage (if you use a lightweight setup, but even "bloated" distros like Ubuntu and Mint are often light compared to Windows).

And what surprised me? I guess the only thing that surprised me is how easy the experience is, especially for things like gaming, which Linux has historically had a bad reputation for. Also, how nice it can be to use the terminal, not that you have to, especially as a novice user.

I don’t have ads within my OS or start menus, I can do whatever I want with it, I can customize it with different desktop environments, if I mess anything up and need to clean install I don’t need to worry about license keys.

Also chicks dig penguins.

The telemetry and ads baked into windows. I'm so sick of ads creeping into every corner of my life

I got tired of windows pretending it knew better than me what i wanted, whether that was updates or security scans or fuck knows what else.

The final straw was when they shitted up the start menu with garbage and tried to shove their app store down my throat. At that point i was done.

For me it was the philosophy behind Free (as in freedom) software. Call me a Richard Stallman fan, but I would love to live in a world were everyone is free to:

• Run the program as you wish, for any purpose.
• Study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
• Redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor.
• Distribute copies of your modified versions to others.

Learn more at fsf.org

Call me a filthy casual or whatever, but I use Windows, Linux and macOS equally. My preference is Linux but I don't limit myself by just pretending the other two options don't exist :)

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I have to use Windows for work, and I choose to use Linux for all of my personal devices. Windows is trying very hard to corral me into using bing, edge, cortana, etc. and gets in my way when I try to use the tools I prefer instead. It intentionally obscures what its doing with updates and security. That is unacceptable. This is my computer, not theirs.

No Linux distro that I've tried does any of that shit. They have never tried to push my behavior in one direction or another, they aren't watching everything I do to help their product teams develop an even more annoying desktop. The various Linux distros I've used have felt like nothing but a way to let me use my damn computer.

I do have a small partition with Windows on it to play the occasional game I can't run on Linux with Proton. Thanks, Valve!

My reasons:

• You can completely customize linux to your liking. In win it is hard to customize even such a basic thing as keybindings.
• You can fully control what is installed, win had tons of stuff, that cannot be uninstalled.
• Things like proprietary software, telemetry etc. is opt-in, no need to deal with windows spying on you for example
• System is leaner, less bloated (you can fill it with processes if that is what you need ofc)
• Dev environment is a lot more comfy than linux

The biggest downside:

• Gaming is rough around the edge, even though it gets better and better.

You can make your computer your own. You bought it, you deserve control for it, you do not need a corporation to decide things for you.

The benefits of Linux is that you can simply multitask much better, and do things more efficiently. It's honestly not the same and the two are just not comparable, but not everyone can appreciate or take advantage of that.

For an inexperienced person to set it up, of course it's not that simple. Those that are comfortable with Windows find all of these benefits trivial over the perceived amount of effort to transition.

For an experienced person like me, Windows is much more of a nuisance to set up. I really like my setups clean, I just can't stand how dirty Windows gets. To clean your system effectively, you'd have to reformat it. There are things like Scoop, MSYS, Docker, etc. I had to use Windows on my laptop for school. The way I use Windows is like how I use Linux, except Powershell commands are just non-intuitive. It just feels really awkward over Bash.

It's just a better operating system. It stays out of the way and doesn't bother you with a billion alerts about shit, and it doesn't update your computer when you don't want to, it doesnt install ads you don't want...

I could go on but you get the picture. Linux is freedom from dealing with Microsoft shit all day.

Windows: This pc belongs to Microsoft and you will use it how we say you can use it.

Linux: Your wish is my command.

I was writing just writing some code one day. I then realised something, I needed to press " key twice. I thought my keyboard had died, but the behaviour was consistent so that's unlikely. Then I realised what happened. Windows had installed and set English international as the default layout, and I was unable to switch it out in settings. Even if I manually switch to English us, it would eventually go back. And editing the registry to remove it just made all windows system apps shit themselves.

Now at the same time, I had a laptop. It had an update pending for a few weeks, but the update kept failing and hence I had not allowed it to update this time. But as I open up my laptop to code on there with the right keyboard layout, I see the update screen. THE LAPTOP WAS NEVER TURNED OFF, and it was plugged in. I waited and waited till it finally failed yet again.

Also shortly after one more of these attempts was made my windows which wiped my encryption keys and made my system unbootable or recoverable.

I had used Linux on a Chromebook before with custom firmware, all my dev work happend in wsl, and I had did a lot of projects on the raspberry pi, so for me the logical step was to completely wipe my SSD and install Linux mint. That happened about 4 years ago and I have not ever thought of leaving Linux. I did switch to arch though, so I use arch btw.

Windows 95 was dreadful.

Yes I am old and my knees do hurt, thank you.

I got into Linux after doing my first end to end build of a pc, I needed an OS, and I wanted to learn basically how to build a server for my own amusement.

Here are the benefits: literally ninety-nine percent of everything else in the world is or seems to be based on Linux or it and Linux dated at some point. The best programs for ripping/encoding movies are on Linux. If you want to build a home media server or do home automation: Linux. If you want an easy, cheap NAS: Linux. Network wide ad blocker: Linux. You can do all of these on the same machine at the same time and it will be 'let's go' and it can do it on surprisingly lower resources than Windows ever will. Once you're comfortable with Linux, there's a massive range of things you wanted to do or didn't even know you wanted to do but Windows made difficult or expensive or inconvenient that are ridiculously easy to do. Even something as simple as doing backups to your primary machine are suddenly low stress. This is why when getting my friends into it, I tell them to use an old PC or laptop and go: every time--every time--they're like "I've been wanting to do X and it's right here" and me "yeah, I know, welcome to a much less frustrating digital life".

If you can't or won't for whatever reason transition fully from Windows; you don't have to. It makes life with Windows monumentally easier as you can lower your expectations on what it will do and leave it for things that for whatever reason, it has to do. Linux fits itself into your life, you don't have to carve out spaces and overthink way too much to make a space compatible with Windows.

For me, the biggest benefit: I have ADHD and depression and was and still am perpetually bored combined with low grade misery. I combat that with learning new things, setting up projects to do, anything to occupy my mind. Linux is amazing: there's always something new to learn and to do, because it can do anything. I want to learn how routers work; flash a router to DD-WRT and go. Get into advanced terminal and command line: Ubuntu Server, Arch, or Slackware, let's go.. Home Automation looks interesting: there's an entire OS for that or I can run it in a container on my primary machine. I know what a container is and how to use it: awesome. Media Server, NAS? I've built them on single board computers and run them or I throw them on the same machine: Linux can do that.

Here's the funny part: I went back to school to get a degree in Software Dev and decided actually, I may get three; I was barely a mid-passing student the x decades ago I tried this education thing. Since I restarted, everything is just--easy. Someone gave me a scholarship, which is insane. I tutor people, for fucks' sake; its weird. At work, I started getting much more advanced assignments: batch? Terminal, sure, send me the design documents, I'll test that. SOAP: never seen it before, but not really worried, send the documents and give me a demo, I can do that, I"ll write everyone a tutorial afterward.

The most important thing Linux does is it teaches you--and keeps doing it--that your computer is not an unknowable force of nature you have no ability to control or anticipate, but a tool. A complicated, advanced tool, but a tool. It shows you and tells you how each part of the tool works and why and how they fit together and you have no reason to be afraid or panic ever again. Nothing will faze you anymore: hard drive error to cataclysmic failure, motherboard short to weird beeping that never stops: okay, you have experienced it (twice) or you read about that on that site when you were looking up sed statements, you can handle this. You may have checklists for it. You recompiled kernels, which at one point you were sure were some sci-fi thing; this is not even on the radar for upsetting.

You will have the extreme pleasure of telling Windows when it gets saucy with you 'You do know I can format you down to bare drive and reinstall everything in the next five seconds? My data is safely backed up on Watson Xubuntu and I have some free time; are you really feeling it right now?" And do it. And be annoyed for the next few hours you have to do it, but you can and if you have to, will, and it's inconvenient but you're not worried at all because this is not some unknowable wtf black box magic; Linux taught you this is just a tool, and exactly how it works and everything will be fine.

This has been my SepTalk on me and my feelings about Linux.

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You may want to dual boot, especially if your classes are online. I've seen issue after issue using a Windows VM for online exams. But, for me it'd be worth asking a buddy or using the computer lab to get around an invasive OS as your daily driver.

The last time I installed Windows after it broke itself I said that I had enough and would switch to Linux the next time it broke.

1. Package managers are a godsend and there's nothing like them on Windows. Chocolatey is okay, but it's got nothing on Linux pms. This discontinuity between installing and upgrading some applications, other applications, Windows apps, drivers, and system software makes me want to cry.
2. Customization. Man is Windows lame here. Colors on Windows is about all you can do, and it's so limited. I bought the machine I should be able to set it up how I like. There are some deeper ways to theme and adjust things more directly, but they're hard to use and risk breaking your system. On Linux, customization is easy, even on a more pro-default-option DE like GNOME. I just want things to work, and Windows fights me to get it to a usable state.
3. Bloat, telemetry, ads, proprietary garbage, etc, etc, etc. I like FOSS and using FOSS software, and I can use it on Windows, but I have to have so much other stuff too. Debloat scripts exist, but they can only do so much. There's always gonna be something Microsoft owns on the system
4. Complexity and control. Linux is simple. Binaries go in bin, and the settings for them are usually in ~/.config or somewhere in /etc. Want to adjust some obscure setting to fix some issue in a program you installed? Oh go tweak this clear config and explicit setting to fit your hardware or whatever. Easy to fix. On Windows, all the system stuff is not only hidden, it's restricted, and also so many times on Windows when you run into issues the solution is you have to edit *shudder* the registry, or worse you have to do a PC reset. Overtime your system slows and blue screens become more frequent too, and there's nothing you can do. On Linux, you can learn 7 or so folders and understand how your entire system works, keep it maintained, and run it for years. Had a prof in college who was on like a 20yo Gentoo install.
5. Tiling. There are ways to do tiling on Windows, but they're all bad and glitchy. Nothing on Windows comes close to i3, and I can't go back to a non-tiling workflow. Windows wants you to do things the Windows way, and anything outside of that is always lack luster. People talk about Linux balkanization as a problem. It's not. Those people are just ignorant and stupid. No system can ever really fit all use cases, so it's important to support choice. Windows doesn't just promote one way to do things a la GNOME, it actively works against doing things other ways.
6. Programming. Compilers and dev tools on Linux are so much easier to install and set up than on Windows. If you want to program, you've gotta be on Unix/Unix-like
7. Windows weirdness. There's so many things on Windows that are just weird decisions. I'll be using Windows and be like "why the heck did they do it this way?" I'm constantly left scratching my head. Windows has made me lose all respect for Microsoft engineers. They're clearly stupid. On the other hand, everything on Linux makes sense and has good reasoning behind it. You need to learn very little comparatively to understand your entire system.
8. Stability. Not talking about applications/upgrades here, but rather Linux will never crash on you, but I can't go a week without Windows blue screening.
9. Freedom. I like owning my computer. With Windows, Microsoft owns your PC. Does this directly effect everything constantly? Is it the end all reason for me to switch? No, but it's icing on the cake. On Windows I feel stuck and miserable. On Linux I feel free and happy.

I wouldn't ever go back.

When Windows decided to auto update in the middle of an important meeting without any prompt;
when I download files overnight and the fan takes off at midnight by its telemetry process;
when it gives me a full screen ad trying to change my system settings and stops me from entering the system on time;
when the system starts to integrate with ads from the browser to the taskbar.
It's not because how good Linux is, it's because how bad Windows has become.

So I left after my little checklist of must-to-haves is fulfilled. With no regrets.

I think the straw that broke the camel's back for me was when I learned msvc compiles telemetry calls into every binary.

It took a few years after that incident for the linux gaming ecosystem to mature to a point that I could switch over entirely, but I'm there now. EVERY time I use windows now, I groan at something it tries to do without me asking. It's so nice knowing that my PC will only do what I ask it to now, and that I won't get pushed into yet another garbage UI overhaul I didn't ask for.

I switched because Microsoft just keeps getting worse and worse, and I like having complete control over my system. And limiting the amount of my data going out.

Linux in general uses much less system resources than windows, and I like being able to easily change my workflow (desktop environment, window manager, etc).

Work. Software development is so much nicer on Linux and I grew to really enjoy the power and flexibility of the terminal. I started with dual boot on my PC and eventually deleted my Windows partition and went full Linux.

Many things have substantially improved significantly in the last 10 or so years such as gaming, drivers and overall desktop user experience to the point where I dread trying to use a Windows machine. Plus I'm pretty comfy now and like that I have full control over my machine when I use Linux vs whatever spyware MS is trying to shove down people's throats.

Linux doesn't try to sell my elderly mother a subscription to onedrive

Better privacy, control over the operating system, fully free and open source, practically impossible to get a virus (you still can but Linux viruses are rare), less system utilisation and I was surprised by how easy it was to use. My first reaction when I installed my first distro was "Wow it's almost as easy as Windows". That being said I did run into a bunch of problems early on but there's extensive guidesout there. My first distro was Manjaro but recently, since I started getting angry at the fact that even the smallest system update broke my install and I had to run timeshift restores very often, I had made the switch to Nobara and so far I'm really enjoying it

I switched because I really hated windows 11. When it first launched it was such a broken, buggy, unusable mess I just decided it was easier to learn linux

It’s probably better now but I still haven’t had a need to go back

Windows became unusable for me. Forced updates, unremovable adware, resetting user preferences, and shockingly stability.

I mostly game and tinker on my PC and for the most part everything's just works these days. Sometimes I run into a game that has poor performance or something I need to tweak. But truth be told that was not unusual in windows either. I would frequently need to mess with ini's and config files in games to make them work right or have FOV not designed for consoles.

Linux is not perfect but windows is also not perfect the big difference is your used to it's quirks and the methods to fix them. If you use Linux enough and long enough you will get the same sort of skills.

There are a small list of programs I can't replace like fusion360, Photoshop, and Visio.

If those Gimp is good enough to replace Photoshop for most my tasks but not always.

I decided I preferred dealing with issues caused by the limited resources of a well-meaning community (And often largely corporate contributions, I know) rather than issues caused by some giant company's malice and greed. Goes without saying I don't use Chrome either or any Chromium-based web browser. It's not just Linux. There's no surprise "Now you gotta pay a subscription to get the next updates!" catch when I get up in the morning and I never have to figure out how to disable anti-features.

Basically every non-game program on my home computer I don't strictly need for work is open-source, often worked on by volunteers or crowd-funded and that just kinda feels good, y'know? I decided to completely switch to Linux around 12-14 years ago and I sometimes laugh when I hear of the deliberate nonsense Windows users have to deal with at every major update. Or when installing basic software.

To install any program I want, it's just a matter of opening a terminal, or GUI package manager like Pamac and typing its name or often a related keyword. It gets installed along with anything it requires. No need to cautiously find the proper website (Anyone remember when SourceForge messed with Gimp's installer to put ads in it?), download an installer and launch that. All my programs get updated for me through that very same GUI, along with my desktop environment, drivers and the kernel. Don't gotta think about it or wait for some popup in each and every program to tell me "Click here to update! 😌". And my computer doesn't randomly reboot or slow down on me.

And Edit:
Last thing, but the Windows basic desktop utilities, like the file browser, text editor and such are all so much worse than the most common Linux alternatives that it's kind of sad. I don't know how people function without tabs and split-view when moving files. And I haven't even touched on how ridiculously customizable Linux desktops are. Nothing compares out there.

I got tired of forced system updates and my laptop switching itself on in my backpack - purchased a used Macbook, installed Linux and never looked back. WINE has bridged the gap for running some .NET Framework (not Core) apps I used that can't run natively under Linux.

I was surprised with how things just "worked", although I was admittedly prepared since I was using Linux on my HTPC for a while prior.

My desktop still runs Win 10 LTSC though, mainly down to having racing simulation games and a gaming wheel.

If you're going to use your computer for coding in school, it may be best to stick to whatever they'll be using? Just so you don't get left behind in a session by just trying to figure out getting a required software stack installed on your machine

At a certain point I've heard that being a developer on Linux just feels more comfortable, and I've decided to give it a shot. Never looked back since then. My enjoyment of using a computer skyrocketed, and it gave me flexibility to do a lot of things I couldn't do properly before

There were a few reasons I wanted to switch, but nothing pushed me much, until a lot of things culminated at once.

I'd been using Linux on servers for a long time, and a Linux desktop in an old job, and I much prefer the usability of it over Windows (I really like the command line options on Linux over CMD or Powershell, and kept having issues with Git Bash, whereas stuff would just work on Linux), as well as the customisablity, and it is more friendly for developing (at least in my opinion, web development for me specifically) so I'd been contemplating it and occasionally trying out distros in VMs. Then I found out my PC isn't compatible with Windows 11, and it had me thinking it was dumb that I couldn't upgrade because my PC meets all the specifications but there's some specific thing Microsoft didn't like and didn't think was "secure enough" or whatever. It got me thinking that it's dumb that a company can decide what I'm allowed to install on my PC. Even if my PC was vastly underpowered for the OS, it should be up to me to decide what I can and can't install on my computer that I built with my money.

I looked into installing Windows 11 and bypassing the check, and it seemed like too much hassle, so I was going to stay on Windows 10, but at some point after, a Windows update completely broke my installation - which wasn't the first time - and after hours of trying to fix it, it pushed me over the edge. I decided to completely scrap Windows at that point, because I was just fed up and preferred Linux anyway, and justified it further because of the fact Windows is essentially spyware on top of that. I nuked my OS drive and installed the distro I liked the most at that point (KDE neon) over it and never looked back.

I also have Valve to thank for that impulse too, because at the time I'd been looking at their work on Proton because I wanted to know how well gaming worked on Linux, and from what I saw, pretty much my entire library would work mostly without issues thanks to the info on ProtonDB. If I hadn't seen this info, I might have hesitated to switch, but knowing most - if not all - of my games would work (even if I had to do a bit of tweaking) made the decision very easy.

The main thing that surprised me is just how polished it feels. At least with KDE as my desktop environment, it feels like everything has a purpose and they belong together. So many things in Windows felt tacked on and like it was an afterthought, with vastly different designs. The biggest thing I love is being able to fully (and I mean fully) customise the taskbar, window decorations, colours, animations, everything. I love being able to make things my own, and I couldn't do that on Windows. Windows was more "Microsoft with a bit of my touches" whereas using KDE neon it feels like my computer.

Also, software repositories are fantastic. Instead of having to download an exe for each thing you install and each having their own way of updating, with package managers I can just search in a central place, install it, and the package manager itself will keep it updated for me. It's just so much more user friendly. Although one thing that threw me off with package managers is seeing a notification that I had updates and it was like "you have 200 updates" and it shocked me, but obviously each piece of software has their own individual update, including system packages, instead of Windows update where you get a single package with a bunch of updates in it that you can't customise, and possibly a few driver updates.

One obstacle I hit however was graphics drivers. I have an nvidia GPU and nvidia really doesn't want to play nice with Linux for some reason, but to get a decent gaming performance you need their proprietary drivers. I had quite a few issues trying to get them properly installed, so unless you have an AMD GPU or are fine spending a bit of time possibly troubleshooting, take this as a warning (or if you don't care about gaming, because the open drivers would probably be fine for just a basic PC)

• control
• flexibility
• stability

It was nothing to do with the positives of Linux, it was the negatives of Windows. If they hadn't gone full spyware after Windows 7 I'd still be using Windows today

When the Steam Deck was first announced, I was so excited for it that I figured it was as good a time as any to switch to linux on my desktop, to get familiar with in in advance of the Steam Deck release. I wanted more control over my PC, and I've been wanting to switch to linux for ages, but it was something I kept putting off just because I knew it would be quite a time sink to learn to use it.

I was surprised with how simple linux really was. I started with Kubuntu and hopped to Garuda, to be able to use the AUR, and I've been in love with linux to the point where I never even boot into windows despite still having it installed. I just have never felt the need, and windows now feels so clunky and not very personalized to my preferences.

For me it was a couple reasons:

1. my brother installed Ubuntu 12.04 on my desktop for me when I was in high school, and I was enamored with the different desktop layout. It got me started on the journey.

2. maintaining it is much easier than windows. Running one command/script to update a system is much faster than heading to the right window or menu and hoping Microsoft delivers you an update. Plus if it breaks it's easier IMO to troubleshoot and fix.

I kept having troubles with Windows 11 and I was also fed up with all the Microsoft crap and how they push they're Cortana, Edge or other bullshit.

Switching has been amazing. Yes, also confusng at first, but you'll learn a lot and rn I'm happier than ever with my machine.

I'm running Fedora Workstation.

I never switched. I checked out BSD and Linux when it was new and I stuck with Linux.

Ok, I was on AmigaOS before, but it died.

I really didn’t want to install Vista. I didn’t like how it looked or felt so I swapped out XP for Ubuntu. I stayed until Win7 and switched back to windows, but windows 8 rolled around and I went to Fedora. I’ve been here ever since.

I switched because of Bejeweled ads in the Start menu, honestly.

When I was in college, one of those stupid Lockdown Browsers broke my laptop’s ability to use its physical speakers. No amount of modifying Windows registries or even clean installing Windows could fix it. I booted Linux from a USB stick and lo and behold everything worked as normal. I wiped Windows and never looked back.

For me it was hardware ethics.

Spending thousands every couple of years because a marketing department tells you your old device is suddenly shit just doesn't sit well with me.

I've used the same $400 dollar phone for three years now, keeping it updated with lineageOS. And I've kept my trusty 6 year old editing desktop relatively capable with routine part upgrades and Linux.

Our entire economic system is based on making people buy new shit as often as possible, and that's so ridiculously unsustainable it's insane most people just put up with it so long as they can keep their nose down watching tiktok.

For me, it just came down to how unintuitive and slow Windows's desktop environment is. Setting up the most basic customizations requires going through like 15 sub-menus or dealing with the registry. Also, GNOME and KDE are just so much prettier than Windows's desktop environment.

I switched because there's nothing I can do on windows that I can't do on Linux. Granted, it can take some legwork and reading tutorials to get certain games running on linux. But I just feel more in control of my stuff on Linux.

As a beginner, I really suggest you make the move to Linux as easy as possible for yourself. It's more likely to be a pleasant experience, and thus a long term one. Try something easy like Linux mint. Once you get used to that, you can start distro hopping.

It was when the third or fourth thing ended up persistently broken after an update and the whole system became too much of a pain to use. I honestly don't recall if it was XP or Win 7.

I had used a couple of Linux flavours before for a short periods and originally planned to dual boot, but this time, just never got around to putting a new Win partition on and found that I had no need for it anyway.

I Did not want to reinstall Windows again. Switched and never looked back.

For me I just want to see Linux get more support and it'll get that with more market share so I switched. I think there should be an alternative to windows or mac. Also the terminal is so nice to have. After many years on linux I'm very comfortable in a terminal but still don't know a lot of the powerful commands, but now with ai I can just ask it how to convert videos or move files from one computer to another and it gives me the command

Originally, because I was a poor middle school student with a bunch of dumpster hardware. I could not afford a windows license (this was the XP days). I immediately liked Ubuntu (gnome 2 at the time) more than windows, everything felt faster and more customizable. It really screamed on my pentium 3. I used Linux of various flavors all the way through school and continue to use it as my OS of choice to this day. I remember my teachers always being mad that I didn't use "times new Roman" font when I turned in papers, explaining that I used Linux and TNR was not an available font didn't do much for me. I would switch to windows for AAA games back in the day, but that is quickly becoming less necessary.

The biggest benefit I have seen over the years is that it is so much easier to keep old hardware alive (and still secure) with Linux. If your old matching is starting to bog down you can always find a lighter weight distro to load it up with. And when you are ready to upgrade hardware the old stuff can easily be turned into a server, game console, or PC for grandma. Anything to keep it out of a landfill is pretty easy to do. It used to be that you never had to worry about paying for an upgrade either, but now that windows is essentially free for upgrades that is no longer a huge benefit.

I switched once in college just because I could. But then I switched back when Windows 7 was released.

Then I switched again at work because our product ran on Ubuntu server, and I hate PuTTY with a passion, and it was just easier to manage Linux from Linux. But I switched back again when we were acquired by a larger company that required us to use more productivity tools that didn't run well on Linux at the time and had to to "just work" (Skype for Business, Zoom, etc).

These days I spend most of the workday in WSL via Windows Terminal. At home I run a handful of Linux VMs atop an ESXi hypervisor installed on an old desktop. But when I'm not working, I generally just stay as far away from computers as possible.

When you first switch you might feel overwhelmed because you'll have to develop a sense of how things work in a non-Windows world. But, after a bit you'll realize you feel in control of your computer, maybe for the first time ever. It may seem like a small thing, but the realization that I finally "own" my computer and control the software that is installed on it, how it runs, what programs do what tasks, etc... was really surprising and made everything worth while.

As for switching, I had been exploring the idea. One night while writing an important work email on my Windows 11 pc in outlook (also work required) my pc just randomly shut itself off and, of course, outlook did not save the email draft. Deleted the windows virus the next day and my pc has worked much better ever sense.

If you make the switch you'll be able to find lots of great help with technical issues online in places like this.

Microsoft didn't stop the fuckery so I had to.

I switched back in 2005 (I think), because Windows XP didn't have the drivers for being installed on an S-ATA drive and SUSE could be installed without any hassle. I feel very old.

Windows ME sucked big time. Never looked back.

My brother pushed some buttons in Windows lockscreen, which caused assistance settings to never go away again (I still don't know how I should've fixed it), that was the final annoyance with Windows and I switched to Linux on my laptop. On my PC I switched once I didn't need Windows for work (remote desktop) anymore.

Switched to Linux in November 2022. I was tired of not owning my pc

Privacy concerns and a growing view of closed source software as malware.

Back in the day (1999/2000) Linux seems to be a small niche, fun and novelty. I started with Turbolinux :D

I'm in the same boat myself. Windows is and has been my daily driver since the days of Windows 3.1. Over the past few months, I began a path learning web development and I've been using WSL on Windows 11 to learn. I picked up an old laptop and I'm currently installing Debian with KDE Desktop hoping I to find a life raft out of the Windows world for reasons unknown.

Is faster. I don't care about the extra bells and whistles, and I want a straightforward functioning system that allows me to do what I need to do. I also like that I can customize my desktop experience to my heart's desires. I can literally change the way my system looks if I get bored of it. Most importantly, the lack of tracking/telemetry and being a smaller target on the web.

I switched to linux mostly because of privacy concerns (had to create outlook account to use windows, ads at Start Menu, proprietary software etc.). Also, I always heard that linux was a very customizable OS.

My surprise was that it wasn't that complicated. I always had that idea that linux was only for hackers and high IQ individuos. And, needless to say, it was bullshit. You can be a normal person that uses linux ^^

Leaving windows will be like leaving hell ^^

Windows Vista kinda sucked and Kubuntu 7.10 was so much snappier, and I was already dealing with Linux servers so I liked it for web development.

For me it was pretty gradual. In my university research a couple years ago I needed to work with the university's supercomputer running RHEL, so I got some exposure there. At some point I put Mint on my laptop, keeping Windows on my desktop "in case I needed to do any real work", then about a year ago I put linux* on my desktop as well. I do still have a Windows dual-boot just in case there's some weird software I need to use, but I haven't touched it more than once or twice since. I switched partially out of curiosity, but largely as part of an effort to de-google and de-microsoft my stuff so I'm more in control.

*distro-hopped a bit, but now am settled on EndeavourOS

I was surprised at how much you needed the terminal, but also how easy it was to use the terminal after a bit of practice. I prefer it to GUIs for a lot of things now (like git). Also, installing software from a package manager rather than going to a website and downloading it. I didn't like that at first, but I love that concept so much more now, since I can just sudo apt upgrade and everything is up-to-date (no downloading the new version after an update).

I'm now to the point that when I do need to use a windows machine for some reason, it takes me a second to remember how things work. It's kinda a weird feeling tbh haha

So it was 1995, and a new version of Windows came out. Sadly it didnt run on our 486 so we upgraded to a new computer with a Pentium processor (a week before the Pentium Pro was released). My parents got their new machine and i was left with with Windows 3.11.

A friend of mine from school, a few years older, had just come back from a computer show down in Green Bay with a box fully of floppy disks (like 70). That weekend i brought my computer over to his house along with a few other friends and we all installed Slackware. At that point we were all using the Universe of Wisconsin's dialup service and were able to get online, do some Gopher, IRC and MUDing.

The only other time i ran a non *nix OS would be when work gave me a Windows machine or when I was gaming (Quake, Ultima Online). Otherwise it has been Linux and BSDs since 95

I really enjoy copying URLs / bash scripts off the internet instead of downloading a file and pressing enter on it.

For me, it was much like iPhone vs Android. I've twice been back to owning an iPhone and have kept leaving because of the more closed ecosystem. The freedom to explore, take apart, modify, hack, learn, etc. I don't do a lot of that, but it is nice to try things out. So in summary for me its the philosophy behind it, and I can install it freely across all computers, Pi's, etc in the home.

EDIT: I forgot I'd also bought Vista at the time, and it was not great. I vowed after that not to pay for another Windows OS.

crazy updates which broke normal functionality, absence of tiling window manager

I saw a post from r/unixporn on all and thought it looked really cool.

I switched when my old Windoz XP install deflated in a blue screen of death. I didn't even know there was a difference between an OS and the computer as a whole, but a friend gave me four live CDs with linux distros on them (Ubuntu 12.04, Bodhi, PClinus, can't remember the fourth).

What made me stay was the FOSS ideals that make software available to all. I was so broke at the time that I didn't have the money to buy a new $100 windows install. Without Linux I wouldn't have had a computer. Since then it's always been the ethos that has kept me with Linux. That being said, here are the unexpected benefits:

• Entire file system is stored as text files. Super easy to back up and administrate.
• Support communities (Arch wiki, ubuntu forums, etc...) are filled with highly educated members who have very often asked and answered the questions I had.
• The app repositories. It blew my mind when I found out I didn't have to hunt around on the web for an .exe file that might be coming from an insecure source. Linux apps (distro repos, flatpaks, snaps) are centrally available from your terminal just for your distribution.
• Lastly a more overarching meta-point, the software respects thr user. Windows and MacOS don't respect you and make it difficult to maintain freedom in the way that you use your computer and manage your files.

I made the switch when windows ME was released, right now I'm using win10 for work because of some software that really doesn't have an alternative in Linux but I do run it on all of my other computers. Benefits:

• customization: If you want a desktop environment there's KDE, Gnome or XFCE, if you want just windows or a tiling window manager there's tons of them too
• package managers: update all your software on your own terms while you brew some coffee.
• scripting capabilities: you can automate lots of stuff with bash.
• scalability: do you have a potato computer, no problem, do you have a nice one, even better.

Edit: I forgot to say that I run Debian on most of my machines.

Forced Windows updates bad. Gaming on Linux good. Also Windows 11 not installable on perfectly good hardware.

My AMD graphics card had atrocious driver support in Windows, and every time windows forced the half-yearly big update on me, my PC would go into a BSOD loop and I would not be able to run windows. It was becoming a massive annoyance and a humongous time waster.

So I switched to Linux Mint. No hardware problems at all. With the graphics card working, I played a video game that literally worked better in Linux than Windows.

Then I bought a new laptop and dual booted different distributions. But every time I log into Windows after doing something in Linux (Fedora KDE spin), my windows clock would get messed up. There are professional softwares I have to use that only work on Windows, so completely switching to linux was not an option, and windows boots up Much faster than linux.

So when I needed some space for an online multiplayer game, I got rid of the dual boot. Now I run everything using WSL2.

Windows remains the default platform for small developer teams, and large video games. So it takes a large incovenience to abandon it. And just a little bit of friction is enough to make me switch back to windows. Sorry if I disappointed you guys.

W10 came out and W7 security updates was done. Had to move to W10 for work and our engineering software got slower. Moved home (older) computers to W10 and they became useless bricks. Found SUSE/OpenSUSE supported my CAD software with their linux release. Swapped to that. Speed was back for work and home stuff. That was 2017 or so. I haven't gone back to Windows except for some shared excel reports. Teamviewer, Webex, zoom, MS teams all have linux versions for work collaboration.

I was on windows 10 without an SSD. There is only so much dog slow you can handle before you want to change it. I was amazed by how much faster linux was. Windows 10 was the first windows I noticed that struggled this much. It's like they gave up on performance and just relied on the hardware. I dual booted from there with linux mint and over time, I started windows less. I haven't used it in months.

Critical last straw for me was having shit Internet and windows updates eating literally all my bandwidth. Other reasons include privacy, ownership, etc. I was already familiar with Linux when I switched.

I hate all of the spying that Windows is engaged in now. What really pushed me over the edge is that Windows started opening a full page Office 365 add in my browser every time the computer woke up from sleep. I couldn't find any information about how to stop it and eventually just said "fuck Windows" and installed Linux. That was about 3 years ago. I still have Windows as a dual boot because I need it for Fusion 360, and the piece of shit still does the O365 add that I can't get rid of and now constantly tries to trick me into upgrading to Windows 11, despite the fact that I've already said no about 10 times. Fuck Windows piece of shit spyware/adware masquerading as an operating system.

Ads

It was easier to set up than Windows. Windows took longer and had more missing drivers. Linux Mint worked almost perfectly out of the box--all I did was change the video driver for my dedicated graphics (and that was done easily by picking one from a provided list).

There was no special reason for switching 25 years ago. A friend of mine used Debian and I tried it out. Not being a gamer must have helped because if you like playing, chances to encounter a game that only runs on Windows are quite high.

Now the reason why I never changed back. Once the system runs, which may take some rime depending on how customized you want it, it always runs the same way. I never had a slowing down due to updates. Another reason may be not having to think about viruses or malware. Never had it and most likely never will. Antivirus? They may exist for Linux but I have never used them.

In a few words. It just works.

I've been growing increasingly frustrated with how much my computer felt less and less like my own with every Windows update. They have been steadily removing control away from the user and putting me in frustrating positions. I've used Linux for a week here and a week there over the last few years so I thought, screw it!, and made the switch about 3 months ago. I don't feel any need to go back.

The last straw was when using the Xbox app. For some reason I didn't have ownership of the folders where the games were installed. I couldn't see how much space they were using and I couldn't access them to troubleshoot an issue I had. Well I could, but I shouldn't have to manually give myself ownership of non-critical files on my machine while using an admin account. In addition, after uninstalling a 100GB+ game, it for some reason just left the files on my drive (That I also didn't have ownership of to delete.)

The Xbox app also one day decided that it couldn't update any games, the error codes are shit and don't lead to any usable information or the copy/paste responses from their troglodyte community helpers telling you to run sfc, chkdisk, Windows repair then they just tell you your RAM is bad. (This applies to most of Windows' generic ass error messages) To top it off, the Xbox app now launches THREE other launchers by itself... without asking (Ubisoft, EA, Riot). Whoever decided that needs to be fired, ideally into the sun.

I don't want to use anything from a company that hires brain-dead morons that make and/or allow those kinds of design choices.

Private, Secure, FOSS. I want something that I know is my own and not a $200 license to a proprietary POS operating system that spies on me. Run a packet tracker on any Windows system and watch that guy ping to Windows with every bit of telemetry you can offer.

Why did I switch to Linux ? I pushed Windows XP as far as it could go (skipped Vista altogether), and after that I became so frustrated with Windows 7 being so bad that I switched to Linux and never looked back since.

I haven't switched. Not fully. Gaming is still far better on Windows. Yeah I have a steam deck amd the games that are supported run amazingly.

Anyway, I switched because as a software dev, Linux is such a better development enviroment. Getting a working C/C++ compiler working on windows without using VS is a huge pain, but most linux distros come with GCC preinstalled. Need to do Java? Just a command away.Rust? Ruby? Python? Same deal.

sick of windows. spyware, forced updates, no customizability... ect

Windows is cancer with the telemetry. Also the updates, which is the reason I hate Ubuntu

I just like to hang out with you guys : )

Getting personal, are we?

Well, the year was 2006 and I had a tank of a Dell D610. Never failed me --- until it did.

One day it did the BSOD thing. I thought it was neat. After having used computers for more than a decade I finally saw the infamous BSOD. So, reinstalled Windows and got everything set up jus... BSOD.

Curious.

Another BSOD.

So, I reinstalled (for the second time) and very cautiously rebooted...BSOD.

Well, fuck.

I happened to have a Knoppix LiveCD laying around. I got that up and running and managed to download Ubuntu and burn that and installed Ubuntu and never looked back.

I didn't stay with Ubuntu for long, though.

I don't have a technical job either. I am just a teacher. Linux serves me well.

Windows kept annoying me. Somewhat ironically, the last straw for me was right after I tried linux for the first time using a live usb. Upon trying to go back into windows, BitLocker locked me out for changing secure boot settings. I thought, no problem, I'll go online and get my recovery key. I go online to discover there's no bitlocker recovery key. After some investigation, I found out if your OneDrive is locked down (for me because I went over my storage limit, something that only happened because windows insists on uploading all of your personal files to onedrive) you can't get your recovery keys. I deleted the stuff but had to wait a full day before onedrive was unlocked and I got my recovery keys.

So, in summary, windows locked me out of my computer that I own because I tried another OS, then didn't give me the option to unlock my device because I used too much storage in the cloud service they made me use. No thanks, I'd rather have control over the device I paid for and I own rather than it being controlled by some massive corporation.

And I gotta say, when you actually learn how to interface with your device on a deeper level, having complete control over everything is super nice. Also, the unix-style command line makes way more sense and is far easier to learn than the windows command line IMO. While a lot of newer Linux distros don't need you to use the console, it is really nice to know how for more advanced usage.

It was fun to play with Linux. And it was easier to develop on. The terminal is amazing.

Windows is a spying machine if you don't work hard to change the default settings

I switched once in college just because I could. But then I switched back when Windows 7 was released.

Then I switched again at work because our product ran on Ubuntu server, and I hate PuTTY with a passion, and it was just easier to manage Linux from Linux. But I switched back again when we were acquired by a larger company that required us to use more productivity tools that didn't run well on Linux at the time and had to to "just work" (Skype for Business, Zoom, etc).

These days I spend most of the workday in WSL via Windows Terminal. At home I run a handful of Linux VMs atop an ESXi hypervisor installed on an old desktop. But when I'm not working, I generally just stay as far away from computers as possible.

Back in the days of Vista, I had been dual-booting and using Knoppix (Live CD) as needed for a while. My main daily use outside of games was all open source that was available on Windows and Linux, OpenOffice (would recommend LibreOffice now), Firefox, Thunderbird, etc.

Windows used to get dreadfully slow, unless you reinstalled. Or maybe I was fixing something. Reformatted the hard drive, set up the Linux partition (Ubuntu 6.06 IIRC), Synaptic, tick all my usuals, apply. Come back a little bit later, fully up to date, do some logins, Linux is fully usable. Even installed Battle for Wesnoth in case.

Boot over to Windows, update, reboot, update, reboot, install drivers, more reboots. More drivers, more installables, more updates, more reboots

It was bedtime, off finish off later, and I ended up using Ubuntu as my main for a week.

After that week, I found I only booted to Windows for games. Never looked back. That week is the week I flipped from 60%/40% Windows/Linux to 60%/40% Linux/Windows. Since then Linux only gets better, and I use Windows less and less.

About the reason for switching, it was something pretty small, actually:
Windows' UX getting increasingly worse for keyboard-centric usage (it slowly but surely got to my nerves e.e" ). Added with my HDD with Win10 dying after 6 years, being impulsive and loving to learn new things, I set to test new systems, in search for the ideal UX for my needs. Then, the Linux distros fitted like a glove, even more so with how customizable they could be, and they became my main systems (Mint currently). Still, ever since stopping using Windows as my main system family, I don't shy away from testing other systems. Even got the chance of testing Vista (surprisingly functional despite its infamy) and Macintosh 7 (I got very lucky in finding someone with such a computer).

And as mentioned before, a good part of Linux is being customizable. And surprisingly (from an outsider's perspective), you don't need to know coding most of the time! You just need to know how to do troubleshooting (which Linux programs more often than not facilitate by showing the error in detail). Also also, from an ADHD point of view, it is good for non-linear learning, since small things you learn in one activity can help immensely in other activities, potentially even helping with non-Linux systems.

But as a cautionary tale, not all things work on Linux, so it's always good to have a back up system or system installation ISO around. And given Linux's open nature, you either have companies working behind them, such as Canonical, Red Hat and Microsoft (this last one with their "Azure" server system), potentially deteriorating their systems for the sake of profit, or systems made from users to users, which then depend on the devs being interested in continuing development, so don't expect your favorite distro to be supported or viable forever, and be ready to make the jump to other distros if you need to.

For vim, terminals, and keyboard-driven window management. It's nice to have full control and feel like a first class citizen instead of a product. Or like the developer actively thinks you're an idiot.

It came down to right-to-repair/upgrade. I've been a mac user my whole life. The 2012 MacBook pro was the last model that users could upgrade themselves. I got a decade plus out of those machines because I could upgrade them. They actually still run quite well, but Mac no longer includes those models in their software updates and no longer allows users to easily upgrade any of their laptops manufactured since. That was it for me. Got a System76 laptop and made the move. Couldn't be happier.

So I still technically use Windows, but only because I need it because of some software for school, but I still use Linux most of the time. It's mainly the small yet super annoying things in Windows that caused me to switch. Like how everything has to automatically try and back up to OneDrive until you dig into the settings and disable it, or how it constantly badgers you to use insert Microsoft product here instead of what you want to use. Plus as a computer science student, and someone who spends a lot of time in the terminal, Powershell and the Windows command line feel so old and incapable compared to the Linux terminal (WSL has helped with some of that, but not all of it.) It's just small issues that cause big issues when you run into them, because it just makes simple things harder to do than they need to be, usually for the sake of pushing their products.

I switched for two reasons. First, I don't like how Microsoft is trying to attach everything to an online microsoft account. I prefer local control of my OS. I know there is a workaround for this, but it isn't worth the effort.

Second, I am Cheap. My latest hardware is a decade out of date, and linux makes better use of the limited resources that I have.

My experience with windows:

• Requies a monthly reinstall just to squeeze better performance.
• I pay for a licence and I still don't own a copy of windows
• unnecessary services running in background without my concent, and I had no control over them, eating up resources.

My initial experience with Linux:

• I need to study it to know my way around.
• applications behave as intended and are reasonable with provided resources.
• I initially started out with a destop environment which came with some extra software I didn't need (subjective).
• experience was quite stable.

My current outlook towards Linux:

• My system is configured and equipped with tools I only need. No bloatware.
• Gives me a better idle temps than windows.
• FOSS has lot of talented software which got limitless potential. Your imagination is the limit.
• Better security and no surveillance.
• Nvidia drivers, and its respective tech needs to be fully adopted for Linux.

I bought a laptop just as Windows Vista came out that could barely run it despite being labeled as "made for Vista". Once I installed Ubuntu on (Gutsy Gibbon) on it everything worked much more smoothly...even World of Warcraft through Wine, which was why I wanted a new laptop in the first place. I haven't played WoW for years, but I never wanted to go back to Windows.

I actually like Windows. Not because its a good OS (it isn't) but because my software works with it, and it works with my hardware.

Only problem Windows 11 has decided thaty hardware isn't compatible anymore thanks to no security chip and because it requires a mandatory account to use.

The security chip is me being stubborn, but the mandatory account is an issue because I know people who live off the grid, and not entirely by choice.

So I wanted to find an alternative and Valve is showing that Linux is good enough that they can ship thei Steam Deck to mass market, without Windows.

I've jumped 4 distros since starting this. POP_OS, Manjaro, EndeavorOS and Fedora. What I've learned is 3 things

1. Linux has become stable, no matter what OS I used the experience was the same software was the same. And most if not all of it just worked. Its not Windows with exe installs (unless you're using Wine/lutris) but its similar to android/iOS that I was able to get into it easily enough

2. which distro you want depends on the software you need and how up-to-date the packages need to be. Ubuntu (and any is based on it) has packages that are too out of date for me.

3. find a desktop environment that you like, since it really narrows down which distro you use. I like KDE plasma and if the distro doesn't game with it pre-installed or an installable option I won't use it.

The end result was some productivity software shuffling fusion to freecad, Vegas to resolve etc. But almost everything I needed was installed out of the box, or installable without extra packages. With flatpak and community repos filling in the blanks.

Currently on Fedora, and it's the closest distro to user friendly Linux I've used. Manjaro is a close second, but how the manage aur and their own packages caused me to destroy my install with no hope in recovery. Thankfully I was able to save my files.

Proprietary software just feels gross, low quality, and opaque. I want to feel like I've actually got some kind of control over the computers I own. Windows was feeling more out of touch with software developers. Installing a compiler in Linux is super easy compared to Windows.

Windows XP was the last Windows that I wanted to use. When it became totally obsolete, I upgraded to Linux Mint. I will never go back to Windows. I did not even start off using Windows. MS-DOS was my first operating system.

I had a 3-4 year old gaming laptop, and a mandatory windows update would corrupt the hard drive forcing a fresh install. I say mandatory because it installed no matter what I tried. Disabling updates in settings and registry never would prevent this update from wrecking my computer. I could get a few days to a week of use and then it would crash and require a fresh install.

I installed Ubuntu to see if it was a hardware issue, and it ran great. Years later when I finally got another computer I tried windows again, but quickly realized how many things I hated about windows. I deleted my windows partition and have never looked back since.

I was trying to get some work done, I don't even remember what it was, and literally every tool that did exactly what I wanted was only available on Linux. Every time I looked stuff up, people just said, "oh yeah, type this into you command line and it works!" And I finally decided fuck it, and wiped my work laptop and installed Ubuntu.

I switch to Kubuntu in 2020 because Microsoft discontinued Windows 7. Then I switch to Debian to learn more about how Linux work, and after that I moved to Siduction to get the up-to-date packages. I still rice KDE to look like Windows 7 to this day :P

I switched because Windows XP reached end of life and I had no interest in Vista. I was also pretty familiar with Gnome 2 and XFCE, both of which provided a very similar desktop experience to XP but way more customizable.

I need tools that powerful and less memory hungry on old device, especially thinkpad, WSL2 with Windows kills the HW, so in the end I ends up using fedora... because it's near EL standard (I work with Red Hat Enterprise Linux), and it's useful to be near the workflow I need.

Linux KVM with Windows better than WSL2 on Windows.. so.. I use Linux in the end.. and never looks back..

I’ve been using Linux since I was 14 like over a decade ago. I was forced to by my moms crazy boyfriend and when I had the chance I immediately installed windows. Long story short I absolutely hated it and switch back to Linux within 6 months, haven’t looked back since.

We had to do a presentation in the first year of secondary school, and somehow I ended up with Linux as my topic. I found it immensely interesting after doing the (admittedly limited, but hey I was 16) research, and decided to try it out after I found out that I can have both Linux and windows at the same time.

Long story short, I loved the sheer choice of distros, working with the terminal (which is so much easier than GUI working for a lot of things), how looks can be insanely customized with so many desktop environments, how you can install all (okay, most) packages you need from the terminal, how the updates are all handled by the package manager, then I found out about free and open source software as a concept and so on and so on.

Now I have only linux on my laptop, and windows on a desktop for gaming. Once you get used to it, it's honestly very awkward to go back to windows.

When I was 5/6 years old, I loved computers, but I wasn't necessarily a hobbyist. I learned almost everything on my own. I used to heavily modify my Windows desktop back then with skins and Stardock programs to make my desktop look like Mac OS X. I was a big fan of Apple's user interface (iOS/iPad as well, both the skeuomorphism and, well, the flat design a little bit).

So when I was 9, I saw Linux. I decided to use wubi and Ubuntu, tried this brand new OS.

It was awesome. I could modify it as I wanted to. I slept on my primary school classes. Ricing at the time felt great, you had so much control over your own desktop.

I have no idea why I stopped at that point. I think Windows 8 looked cool enough to me, but now I think it's one of the worst OS I've ever used. But games just worked there, honestly. Linux felt more like a toy, while Windows was my comfort zone.

Eventually a few years away from a decade later, I did use Debian 7 for hosting stuff like my bots in GCP. Having used Linux to customize the DE and the exposure to the terminal really helped a lot in making things more familiar to me.

Then I thought why don't I just use Linux desktop again. I started distro hopping. I finally found home in KDE Arch Linux, Proton-GE, the AUR, and Arch Wiki. I rarely do ricing if at all, only because I finally found the setup I'd rather be comfortable with than changing it frequently for no good reason.

I still use W11 to this day on my laptop but only because of school requiring me to use Visual Studio among other things. That's where Docker, WSL2, scoop, MSYS2, and several open source projects to improve QOL comes in. I can be comfortable with Windows and continue to use Linux without any annoying differences in my workflow. I also just use Vim on everything, and the CLI when I want to do productive work.

I've rarely held my mouse on the computer and neither did I work hard to memorize anything. You'd start getting intuitive with everything the moment you start to try understanding the rationale of how stuff is designed to be.

I was having issues with windows, and hate the look of windows 11 so I decided If I was going to have to re-install and deal with a new OS's problems I might as well deal with linux issues and learn something new.

I duel booted, and two months later thought back and found I hadn't gone into windows since the install.

A year and a half later and I can say that the issues I've had on linux have been easier to fix than windows. Two separate problems I've had on both. Linux was easy and took about ten minutes, windows took a day, and a month each.

with windows I get esoteric error codes that mean something generic like "failed to update windows" when it stops at 3% for two hours and crashes. The solutions for it including two magic fix all commands (didn't fix it), restarting it 'correctly' (nope), and copying a regedit value from another computer (did work). This all coming from the end of a random windows 7 forum post. My computer was on windows 10.

On linux it told me my arch keyring corrupted. When I googled the error I got an explination and the arch-update-keyring command. This worked.

With a swap file (167gb for some reason on windows) I got a greyed out GUI and twelve re-starts, 4 to get the screen up, 8 to make it work. On linux, I copy pasted commands.

Apologies for the rant, jt's early, but this is why I switched and stayed. I also like customization, alot

I was learning OpenGL at the time and I was frustrated that I could not play a game using OpenGL (When I use a technologie in programming, I love using software that use it) because none of the games in my library supported it. So I discovered Ubuntu 16.04 and I immediatly loved it. I also reinstalled it seven times because every time I broke it and I didn't know how to fix it.

What realy chocked me at the time is how easy it is to install C++ dependencies for your project. You just use the package manager and boom, you link it to your project and your done and if for whatever reason the package is not available in your package manager, you can build it manually very easely.

However, there where some downside too. VSCode didn't exists at the time (or I didn't ear of it) and the only proper IDE was kdevelop which I never liked. Hopefolly, when VSCode came it was realy cool, but not as cool as when I discovered NeoVim. The gaming too was bad, Proton didn't exist, Wine was not as advanced as today and DXVK was not a thing yet. You could only play games that where 5+ years old and only at 15/20 fps with a lot of glitches.

Linux nowoday serve all my needs, I only need to start Windows when I deploy and test some program to it or when I play a game that is not well supported on Linux and I only do it in a VM with single GPU Passthrough.

Was bored one day and wanted something to do

Every time I boot into Windows, it tries to force me to sign into a Microsoft account. I have to unplug my Ethernet cable to get past it. I just got over it and installed Mint instead. I almost never boot into Windows unless it's for something specific.

I don't have the most overpowered PC. I just have a small little desktop (Minisforum UM700) and Linux runs a whole lot better on it. My work also was giving out some old laptops that they were retiring (still better devices than my laptop which was a Lenovo T420) but they came without an operating system. I've always enjoyed using Linux but never made the full change because I would need MS Office and switching from Excel to LibreOffice Calc was just annoying. Since I didn't need to do work on my personal PCs anymore, I made the switch and I love it. Games run better for me.

I currently use Linux Mint but I might switch to just plain Debian (or Linux Mint Debian Edition once they release LMDE6 which will be based off Debian Bookwork).

Windows xp was really bad, and a little thing called Ubuntu was gaining traction. So I guess just curiosity for what else was out there.

If something is happening, you know it does and you might have made it happen yourself.

Also, you are in full control. Use your machine (here OS specifically) however you want, and make it yours, and not a company's (Micro$hit im talkin about you mfs).

You use what YOU want to use, and not what they want you to use (cough edge, just accept that you're dogsh... cough, please).

Windows is just constantly trying to distract you from work. It's slow, hogs resources, kills my battery.

After tinkering a lot I have found a workflow that works great for me on Linux and I couldn't have found that with windows.

To be honest though. To switch to Linux I'd say you'd have a reason. If you don't work a techy job and don't plan on doing so and don't have much interest in it, you'd just have an easier time with windows.

But let me tell you once you go into Linux with an open mind and willingness to learn, you'll love it.

When I was at uni a professor asked the class to raise their hands if we were using Windows and then MacOS. Then he asked who was using a REAL operating system. Everyone looked confused. He proceded to order all to install linux if we were to follow his class. My First distro was Ubuntu for about a week... I distrohopped for a couple of years and eventually I use arch btw.

Because Wikileaks, Anonymous, Julian Asange, and Edward Snowden. Privacy (in digital data) are our own RIGHT to have as human has right to wearing any clothes so our bodies are not visible by public, and our government do not have to dictated what right clothes we should using or HAVE RIGHT to remove it from us.

In other perspective, people don't realized that their own data can HYPNOTIZED them and create mental health issue that can't be known only by our own mind. Consciousness is very fragile things. Still people pretend not aware and understand that..

For me, I had a netbook in 2008 and Windows 7 starter was a paywalled and slow mess, and Ubuntu 8.10 ran like a dream AND ran Windows apps! And looked cooler and the terminal was pretty awesome to use.

It's still that way, Windows 11 runs like shit and only lets you customize so much and makes decisions on when you update and what services you can have running and numerous other minor complaints, meanwhile Linux is free, fast, works well and doesn't get in your way.

I switched because I read Linux is secure and needs less resources, and also because of the open source philosophy. And because it's free! Hahaha Sometimes I donate a little to different open source developers. Let's help the community.

A variety of reasons really. Privacy concerns, not having full control over my system with Windows, ads being pushed on my computer that I can't turn off easily, Linux is more fun to use and learn about in general. Last but not least is community. The community around Linux is fun to be a part of and makes me want to learn more so I can contribute in any way I can to the projects that I like. Once you start really checking out Open Source software and what it represents it's hard not to care about it.

I didn't want to pay for windows.

As of W10 I stopped trusting Windows. Having ads bundled into a >$200 OS shows me that being an OS is no longer the primary goal.

Previous to that I had been using Debian as a media server so the switch was pretty painless. I can play 90% of my Steam library on Linux, edit photos, edit videos, stream, browse, and do literally everything I used to do on Windows.

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Because Apple stopped delivering updates to my MacBook that I bought in 2016.. The hardware is still working and I want a secure OS on it.. =>Debian

Foss software for everything that's a one click install got me. I'm surprised msft doesn't make Winget more visible

I've been dual booting on and off since 2004, but the big switch came in 2016 with DXVK making my games not run like ass.

I had enough of Windows. I had an older motherboard and the windows drivers were terrible for the sound card causing me to have to reinstall them manually all the time. Sometimes I'd leave a video transcoding and windows would reboot to update. After each update I'd spend the time to get rid of the bloat ware like King games, Xbox garbage etc. Once after an update I woke up to the windows 10 "Welcome to your computer" screen, and it decided during the night that it was going to erase my user profiles.

The most frustrating thing though, is that for all these issues I'm locked out from correcting them, or preventing them, or even checking what happened. Windows obfuscates so much in the name of "user experience" that any effort to diagnose a problem or fix a problem usually results in reinstalling being the best solution.

Also, Settings/Control Panel is a mess and really shows the lack of coherence in the OS. Linux isn't completely coherent by design, Windows is by ineptitude.

I was studying software engineering so I knew about linux for a while but never went ahead to try it as a workstation OS. I started to really dive into it when Windows 10 came out. Win10 is now regarded as one of the "good" editions but that kind of wasn't the case at release time, switching from Win7 it was bloated with a whole lot of unnecessary new "features" and weird changes. Win7 got it's end-of life announced and having Vista and more recently Win8 in memory I just about had it with Microsoft's shenanigans so I started looking for an alternative. I never really ran a doal-boot setup, I had an old little thinkpad to experiment on and in the first year I ran it through basically all major and minor distros I could find. The hopping was real 😄

I was hooked, loved everything about the freedom and it was refreshing building my own OS from scratch so I settled with arch for a while. At first with arch based distros on my main rig as training wheels (Manjaro and Endeavour) and then plain arch with Qtile and then KDE.

Nowadays especially because of my work I rather much prefer more stable experiences, I switched to Fedora after a pacman -Syu borked GIMP in a particularly annoying time (still love you Arch, no hard feelings ❤️) and just now after about 2 years I installed debian with all the RHEL stuff going on. Kinda making a whole circle in this journey.

I was just thinking about this because I have to use windows sometimes at work that linux really brought back the fun for me in computing. Despite all the flaws and issues that we are dealing with like the whole packaging question and things like that, it is just so refreshing to deal with these issues knowing that I can deal with them, rather than waiting how Microsoft will make those choices for me. For me having Windows or a Mac is like having half of a computer where I just have no choice but accept certain things as a paying customer no less.

Windows didnt Work with my Mainboard, Linux did. Eventually fixed the issue, stayed with Linux because it didnt let me down when I needed it the most.

Windows XP looked like such a downgrade from Windows 2000. Lacked stability. Wanted something more customizable. I liked the idea of community powered software so Linux was the solution.

I was on windows and just got tired of the larger amount of spyware in my os. The last windows I used was 8, but I did hold out on that for a long time.

Honestly? My old laptop was having issues (not major but not ideal in terms of overall performance) running Windows 10 and it inspired me to try out a few distros. I later learned after trying a few:

• Overall Linux isn't scary at all, with an abundance of tutorials and documentation provided. (Just be aware of trying not to solve all problems with random hammers, or rather using any tutorial to fix the symptoms you're having)
• In terms of customization it's second to none. Privacy wise has been well documented, but even aesthetically via the UI you have a ton of options. (Plug for unixporn@lemmy.ml for some inspiration.)
• Finally it's nice just to tinker with Linux as a project. There's only so much you can do with Windows or MacOS, while Linux is open and allows for a variety of programs, tools, and more. It allows you to get more comfortable with your computer and by extension more comfortable with technology in general!

everything on linux is so straight forward, it's just so calm.

I've been dual booting Windows and Linux since the 00s. At some point around 2015-2016 I just stopped installing and maintaining Windows altogether and now I have a virtual machine image I just transfer around my network if I ever have to use Windows for something.

I think the real turning point for me was when they introduced UAC and ever-increasing restrictions on unsigned drivers starting with Vista. Wine was already a thing and I could run most games I cared about even back then although I still had to boot into Windows for gaming sometimes. Once steam Proton starting getting really good which was around 2015, there just wasn't a reason to be using Windows anymore. As the enshittification of Windows continued getting worse it became more tedious and time consuming to get anything done in Windows to the point you might as well use Gentoo. I do programming and game modding for fun and there's no way I could use modern Windows for this it's so bad and slows everything down with it's utter bullshit.

Wanted a new adventure to go on and a chance of pace from Windows 10 at the time. Benefits were a less bloated system and more customizability and a way to strengthen my command line skills. I was surprised by how light weight and overall polished the experience was.

I switch to Kubuntu in 2020 because Microsoft discontinued Windows 7. Then I switch to Debian to learn more about how Linux work, and after that I moved to Siduction to get the up-to-date packages. I still rice KDE to look like Windows 7 to this day :P

I switched because Windows 2000 was total garbage, and because Linux gave me actual programming tools. I was like a kid in a candy store. Suddenly I had all these amazing professional software packages, and scripting languages that weren't fucking garbage. I'm still WAY too good at DOS scripts. The number of years I wasted learning DOS. Fuck microsoft. I'm still a little mad.

Hate windows, simple as

For me I was always interested in alternative OS'. I didn't necessarily dislike windows, I just thought Linux was fascinating and liked playing around with the different ways to do things and accomplish tasks.

It was only later in life that I learned how excessive windows data collection was and became uncomfortable with using it that I began to seek out linux as a full alternative and try to decouple myself from the windows ecosystem.

I left Windows because of telemetry, lack of customization, and tedious updates. I just wish I had bought a machine with AMD rather than NVIDIA because I'm still on X.org for optimus-manager.

Embarrassingly enough, wanted to install Ubuntu on an external drive. It was early, still in bed, accidentally erased the notebook's main drive. Thought I might as well give it a shot. That night, tried to go back to windows. Turns out that creating a bootable Windows bootable USB is nearly impossible from MacOS and Linux nowadays.. gave up after a few hours.

So, giving Linux a forced try. I'll probably make a Windows installation USB as soon as I can get someone to lend me their Windows computer. If it takes long enough, I may not though 😞

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My reasoning is nothing big and fancy or philosophical. Hell what had happened was: I upgraded from windows 8.1 to windows 10 and I couldn't pair my phone to my laptop via bluetooth in a way that allowed me to use my laptops speakers and the music on my phone. I started looking for a fix and ended up finding some article or forum about how to do that in linux. Installed ubuntu 17.04 or something like that because I didn't know the release cycle of ubuntu. I never looked back. After that tried Fedora then KDE Neon then back to Fedora then openSUSE Tumbleweed, and now EndeavourOS.

Back in 2003 my sister needed a computer of her own to do schoolwork on. We couldn’t afford a new computer and the only other system we had in the house other then the laptop I had just bought was still running Windows 98 on a failing hard drive and the Windows install disk we had was borked.

I replaced the hard drive, started looking for options and found Ubuntu. And it made sense to me. Once I wrapped my head around the idea of the console, everything made sense in a way that Windows and DOS before that didn’t. And I had the freedom to modify anything I didn’t like, a freedom you don’t really have in Windows or Mac OS.

And it was fast! This ancient computer (AMD Athlon, 256 MB Ram, Ubuntu) was running circles around my new laptop (Pentium 4, 1 GB Ram, Windows XP).

I wound up switching my laptop from XP to Ubuntu and ran smack into why some people complain about linux being hard to use. Some of my brand new hardware just didn’t work in linux. WiFi, no go ever (proprietary firmware), audio, ditto. I liked Ubuntu well enough that I decided to work around the nonfunctional hardware with usb WiFi and a audio expansion card until the next update to Ubuntu when the built in audio just started working.

I’m late to the party but windows Vista forced me off of windows. Not 5 minutes into setting up a new laptop and it told me even after clicking yes for admin privileges that I didn’t have the right to uninstall mcafee… I threw Debian on the laptop and never looked back. Ended up running FreeBSD for years on that thing and have mostly stuck with them since.

For Linux as others have stated lack of crashes and clear ways to customize/fix things was incredible.

FreeBSD doesn’t support all the newer standards yet (looking at you wifi6), but it is beyond rock stable. A month plus of 24/7 uptime between reboots for years and it’s just as snappy as when I first installed it. And even better they push hard to keep things more or less the same. The things I learned setting up FreeBSD 8.0 are still the same for FreeBSD 13. The biggest changes have been upgraded hardware support and quality of life tools that interact with the systems I was already using.

As a note FreeBSD does not come with a graphical interface. They have imo the best manual (handbook) for setting it up and getting going, and have native zfs for software raid arrays.

My risky two cents here is FreeBSD is great for learning all the ins and outs of Unix-like systems but is missing some things linux users take for granted like docker for servers (they use jails you set up yourself) and no cuda libraries for ai. If you have the time and want to learn how these systems operate from the ground up I find it’s better than arch. Easier to install, no compiling everything like gentoo, and an incredibly clean manual that has always made sense and worked exactly as expected. For just getting a desktop and easing into things there’s also nothing wrong with say Linux mint or any of the other recommendations others have said either.

The glory of Unix-like systems is they’re yours, and once you get used to how they run they’ll be rock steady for years and run faster than windows on the same device.