It’s open source and not owned by an evil corporation. It doesn’t have ads. It doesn’t mine my data and sell it to the highest bidder. It doesn’t have AI shoved in every nook and cranny. It’s much lighter to run. I can easily run it on a 10 year old laptop.

• I have the radical idea that when I own something, I should actually own it.
• I’m a software engineer, both professionally and hobby. Developing on a non Unix platform is bullshit
• HaikuOS is 20 years too late
• What is the alternative? Windows is user hostile ad infested crap, MacOS is a prettier flavor of user hostile ad infested crap. The BSDs have their place, but a daily desktop or laptop isn’t really it.
• Copyleft FOSS or GTFO
• I don’t do a massive amount of customization, but the things I do I want to have. I know that will be the case with Linux. Who the fuck knows with closed source software
• When I find a bug, missing feature, or something just isn’t right I can fix it, file a bug, or just talk to the actual human beings who wrote it. Good luck with any of that in non-FOSS unless you are spending $$$ on a corporate account.

Originally because fuck windows 10

Since then it's the sheer joy of it all. It's just fucking cool that a bunch of people just get together and make something that benefits everyone, with dozens of forks that allow for freedom of choice.

A complete and total lack of bullshit.

If something is wrong, there's a concrete reason, no matter how deep the cause and you can always dig far down enough to catch and deal with it.

Windows decided my perfectly functional PC couldn’t run 11, and Linux Mint has no issues running. I’m not getting rid of a perfectly good computer just because Microsoft wants me to. My husband has to use Windows for work and it seems like a huge pain in the ass. I’m not into fiddling with computers, and Linux is at the point now where it feels no more complicated than Windows (and often significantly less complicated).

I got a new PC and was really upset at the idea of putting windows on it. The ad lack of ownership of my own hardware, I couldn't do it, and so I installed Linux (again), but this time, it stuck.

I really like the control and malleability

Independent to the above, using windows feels really, really bad these days.

Cus fuck microsoft/windows, thats why.

powershell sucks. RegEdit sucks. Start menu sucks. Can't use Niri. Slow. Can't use it while updating. Inverted backslashes for paths are horrible. The only useful feature is WSL, and if you get rid of all other bullshits, you get Linux.

Because Windows 10 installed candy crush without my input and interrupted me to tell me how edgy it was.

I want to use open-source software, developed from people for people. I don't want corporates to exploit my data and take away my freedom.

IT worker, close to 50 years old, only ever could afford low-mid range tech, gamer. Been using windows for over 30 years and linux for 8. Linux works better than windows and it allowed me to improve my tech skills beyond a desktop machine.

My values

Freedom.

I started using it 'cause I was working with a lot of Linux nerds and they convinced me to try it out. I liked the politics of the GPL and the potential in the Free ecosystem.

25 years later I refuse to use anything else. Windows & Mac are built to take options away from you, to force you do use your hardware their way, and I hate it. My machine does exactly what I want it to, with hundreds of keyboard shortcuts and a solid UI built atop transparent subsystems. Windows ties my hands while pushing ads and AI into my eyeballs. Mac only "Just Works" if you're using it precisely the way that want you to and exclusively with other iShit. No thanks.

Linux works better then Windows 11. If you don't need Windows for specific software needs, I recommend Linux. If you do need Windows, buy a license off of ebay for cheap.

All games work unless they block you with anti cheat, which are usually the big AAA games like cod/battlefield.

Coding is better on linux.

I fucking hate windows 11

20+ years ago I grew tired of having to constantly buy upgrades or find cracks for Windows and a friend suggested i check out thi s new OS that was coming out called Ubuntu. I believe it was around 2004 when I installed the first distro and I have never looked back. I find it amusing that all my friends and family think im some super hacker because I use linux lol.

I just like a working, customizable PC that I'm in control of. KDE Plasma Desktop is everything Windows should have been, and it's actually for me to control, it's free, and it doesn't push BS on me. Fedora btw

Freedom. Having my computer not actively work against me.

microslop started being cringe. tried linux on a whim. never looked back.

I switched to Linux full time because I didn't like Windows Xp. Windows has only gotten worse since then and Linux has only gotten better.

Im a hater and spite is a powerful motivator

I got tired of Microsoft. I had seen that Linux was now good enough for what I wanted to so, so I decided to jump ship.

It wasn't a quick decision. I only transitioned from Windows because I finally got around upgrading the PC.

So far? I mean, there was the kerfuffle with the AUR recently. And I still haven't figured out a few issues here and there. But damn it just works and there is no worrying about updating or not updating or anything like it.

It's better.

i like having a usable desktop and a nonblinking disk access led within 30 seconds, including bios and bootloader.

It was the night of December 24th, 1996. I turned on the family PC, then running Win95, and found my D:\ drive corrupted. Windows had no tools nor docs how to resurrect a corrupted filesystem. I cried, and two days later installed SuSE on a spare disk.

Some 20 years later, I restored about half of the disk lost in 1996, because Linux had the tools, and the docs, and encouraged me to learn.

I am old, I have used windows for around 20 years. I am also a geek. I tried Mac OS a long time ago - not geeky enough and the hardware was too expensive for me back then.

Tried Linux several times. It was fun, but I had too many issues, up until now.

In my opinion if you plot user friendliness over time for Linux and windows, the Linux is going up on the friendliness axis, slowly but steadily. Windows on the other hand... Goes somewhere. Every good idea MS devs have is countered by 3 terrible (for users) from the marketing department.

I want to be the owner of my own PC. I want to control everything, windows was good enough a few years ago, but it is not anymore, the cloud integration plus AI bulshit, plus bloatware.

No, thanks.

The Windows key that I had been using for years stopped working. It was an old Win 8 key that I had updated to 10 then 11. Had to refresh the OS due to a random corruption and my Windows key wouldn’t verify. When I contacted Microsoft support they told me that since I don’t use a Microsoft account my registration wasn’t backed up. They don’t accept upgrades from Windows 8 anymore, so I would have to buy a new key. Instead I found a new OS.

I am using Linux since the 90's, so my reasons might be different from "to leave Windows".

I started coding at an early age, so for me, having access to all my tools free-of-charge was a big plus. Add to that the possibility of read the source code of everything, the learning potential was mind blowing.

Fed up of all my apps appearing with copilot in them. Fed up of apps like notepad becoming fucking laggy. Its bloody notepad for Christ sake.

I don't care about AI. I don't want it. Every time I uninstalled it all, it just appeared again a week later.

Then I found cachyos and realised I could play all the games I play. Never looked back.

I enjoy not feeling spied on. Not feeling my data is being sold on.

Same reason as with Google Android. These genocide supporting companies take the liberty to collect and sell my data, manage my hardware and frequently break core functionality with updates to push their slop on me, while adding ads to EVERYTHING. Most updates are not even about security. There is like a 100 reasons, really. I could sum it up as "annoying".

I started running foss apps and loving how small and efficient they were in comparison to what I was used to. At one poit I realized that everything I was using could be used on linux, so I migrated and never went back!

Ah, well, it is less shit than alternatives

Windows: too much ads, AI, telemetry, and just nonsense bullshit in general. MS is a malicious company and this is malicious software.

MacOS: too much Apple bloatware. It mostly stays out of the way but the fact that I can't uninstall it makes me very angry. Also the vast majority of software requires a connected Apple account. The bigger problem is the overpriced and intentionally irreparable, unupgradable and disposable hardware which is inseperable from the software.

Linux: mostly just stays out of my way, requires no account for anything. You know, the way operating systems used to work.

Skype and OneDrive. They just WOULD NOT GO THE FUCK AWAY. My hard drive died, so I already lost everything OS related, and re-installing windows 10 was already infuriating me, and then every reboot, even after disabling them, skype and onedrive just kept popping up at boot. I used windows to download i think 8 different distro ISOs, gathered a gaggle of flash drives and set them all up. Then I tried them all out until I landed on one that did everything I wanted it to and haven't looked back. I kept that windows drive for about 6 months before I realized I was never using it and the storage space would be better served reformatted to btrfs for the linux system to use.

My old windows install was so cooked thst I had successfully made an illegal CON file (cygwin?) on NTFS, which Windows would refuse to delete because it should be impossible to make such a file.

After a completely fresh install, the settings app refused to launch after a day and of course sfc/dism did jack all.

Said "screw it" and dual booted Fedora because my previous experience with Ubuntu sucked snd I saw that video of Linus saying he never used Debian or Ubuntu because it didn't used to be user friendly to install. Searched up his preferred distro and it was Fedora.

Kept Windows around for a couple of months for one game until one day windows overwrote grub after an update.

Nuked it again and installed only Fedora. Found out the game now had solid support in proton so I literally did not miss anything from Windows.

Because Windows works as dumbest os for now

Sound randomly staying off, micro sometime works, sometime not, if I try to touch sounds its sometimes just slutter all the system. I checked on viruses by free and paid subscriptioned and-viruses but founs nothing. So the best way to heal was to reinstall system. And I am do this. CachyOS going great, more faster and stable for several years even with bleeding edge updates

When the internet was new, hip and cool in 1997 it was the best way for a poor student to really get knees deep into networking and hosting. I just haven't seen much reason to try anything else.

I did use OS X for work when doing iOS development a few years.

And in a perfect world I'd rather run a UNIX certified operating system. Linux support is just so good at the moment that I can't really be bothered.

Values, works better (for me) than any other os, gaming/fun, audio/video editing, code.

i didnt like w10 with already pre-installed software, from games to random shareware. Didnt like that there where starting to test ads in the start menu or that OneDrive had decided to start operating in the background without notice.

I already had a mac, but didnt like that I could play most games, mainly used it as a work pc for design work. So then I searched and learned that linux was having many changes with proton and wine, and decided to give it a go, and I think its been 3 or 4 years since then. There are things, like graphic design work that I needed to re-learn, but it hasnt affected me greatly. I fully recommend it for most people. Running Mint

To give Microsoft the finger.

Tried Linux out of curiosity. Found it better than Windows for all my use cases. Stuck with it and never went back.

What's the option? Windows? Keeps getting shittier all the time. Now with AI Slop and bugs. No thanks. Mac? Their walled garden, making it so you can't upgrade your existing computer? No thanks. My last mac was a 2015 that let you upgrade things but it was a pain. They've since removed that so they lost me as a customer.

With Linux, I have a Framework laptop that let's me upgrade everything. It's easy to take apart, there are hardware switches for the mic and webcam.... it's very user friendly. Linux doesn't have any telemetry. The only AI that gets installed is if I install it myself, it's not intrusive. I've been using Linux for a long, long time but the Desktop experience has been lacking in the past. It's gotten way better recently and the last thing I would boot into windows for was Fusion 360. I spent some time learning FreeCAD and since 1.0 it is way better and now I don't need to boot into Windows anymore. Steam has made leaps and bounds with proton and now I can even game on Linux which is pretty huge. Is Linux perfect? No, but it does everything I need it to.

Because window is genuinely more of a pain to use in 2026.

Pissed off on windows 11. Couldn't change things I needed or wanted. Didn't allow for basic shit. Kept on giving me ads and other fucking annoying things. Broke a lot slow and pathetic. Wanted a fucking proper start menu back again the place I been using it for last 30 fucking years. Updates took forever and ever and often broke everything and have to reinstall. Can't disable auto update ad settings kept resetting each update.

I just wanted a simple computer that just worked. Turned on and just worked every time. Nothing changes without me changing them. Simple and intuitive.

I tried windows again as a duel boot. It wiped broke my Linux partition because micro crap hates people. Never ever going back unless it's a dedicated machine for the 2 games I rarely play that work slightly better on Windows.

Rather never play games or use the Internet then switch back to windows.

EDIT : got me so mad my Grammer and spelling went out the window. Lol

My initial reason was computation freedom. It got so much better in years, I just take the rest as a great bonus.

Windows 11 was stress. I was spending far too much time keeping it the way I want it - stable, no cloud, no AI. A four hour call with MS tech support (that went in the most idiotic circles) kinda sealed the fate of my new desktop build (old one had a failing MB, no choice but to finally upgrade hardware) and switched both it and another desktop the next day.

Much less stressed now, even when things go weird and wonky.

For me, I got fed up with Windows 11 updates resetting my settings and even reinstalling copilot. I felt like I had no control over my computer, so I put Linux on it to get some control back.

Because I have self-respect.

Privacy performance and fun

It does more of what I want, with less time and work to maintain, more reliable and lower cost than the commercial alternatives.

I subscribe to the philosophy that information should be free, and that computing should be a collaborative effort, driven by community. The world is better when we all work together to improve it.

These days, I’m less gung-ho about the technical merits of free software; I just prefer using systems that feel like they’re trying to work for me rather than exploit me.

Because of Microslop. Who needs more reasons, huh?

It gets out of the way and let's me do my thing. Wether it's work or gaming.

Both Aurora on my laptop and Bazzite on my desktops, have been easier to use and maintain than Windows and OSX.

No ads, no nagging, no maintenance. The included gui and cli app stores give me everything I need. I freaking love it, it's pure bliss. Best computing experience I ever had.

~3 years running Ublue distros. 100% happyness.

Windows is slow, buggy, and overall shit software, even on high end computers.

What can I say? I wanna be the very best, like no one ever was. To catch them all is my real quest, to train them is my cause.

I was tired of listen the computer fan

So people won't shout at me online.

I didn't choose Linux, Linux chose me...when windows got unbearably enshittified.

Although admittedly I'd been using Linux for years beforehand, just not for gaming.

I've been a lifelong Windows user since Windows 3.1, and truly feel that Windows 7 was when Windows was at its peak. Windows 11 was the straw that finally broke the camel's back, with all of the constant pushing of Copilot and Office 365 and ads in the start menu and so forth. Fuck that, I bailed out about 2 years ago.

I've dabbled on and off with Linux since Ubuntu used to be distributed on free CD-ROMs, but never stuck with it for long, but things have come a massively long way since those days, and now Linux is very usable as a daily driver for many people. I feel like it brings my computer back under my control instead of someone else's, and isn't always trying to sell me out in the background. I eased into it with Linux Mint, and Fedora 44 with KDE is now my distro of choice.

I still have a Windows 11 installation on a spare 256GB SSD, but I only ever boot it up about once a month just to let it update itself in case I need to use it for something I can't figure out a way to make work on Linux.

Windows showed me one too many ads in the start menu.

Also, I found a distro I like and can stick with forever.

It was just an extension of my interest in computers since I was young ^ ^ This new, completely different OS fascinated me when I was growing up, and led to me installing Ubuntu on an old laptop. I never made an actual jump to it until I was a few years older, and had Windows slowing down my laptop that I used for work. I jumped onto the Manjaro train that was happening at the time, and eventually ended up installing Arch on my main PC (´･ᴗ･ ` )

I didn't choose Linux. Linux chose me.

But in all seriousness, back in 2015, I got a PC that came with Windows 8. It had the horrible, completely unusable Metro UI. But my main gripe with that OS was how it forced me to use Microsoft’s solutions over everything else. Quite often, the PDF files I opened would launch in the Metro PDF reader instead of the one I had chosen. Usually, this kind of things happened after a Windows Update, which 'accidentally' reset my default application choices - including the PDF reader - and, as a final spat in my face, added an Internet Explorer shortcut to my desktop.

I started to feel as if I had no control over my PC anymore; it was Microsoft deciding what software I should use. Then and there I decided it was time to give Linux a chance. I had already noticed how Valve was pushing the gaming industry toward Linux, and I thought, those guys can’t be completely wrong.

I care what my computer does the same way I care about what my brain does. Since my computer is just an extension of my brain it needs to be transparent and ownable.

1. FOSS. I'm a software engineer and making the world a better place and helping others is why I love my job and what I study. FOSS is the thing that can make tge world a better place and help others.

I also have a plethora of technical reasons, but I'm sure others will cover them. Just this ideological and philosophical reason is enough for me to be using Linux.

Obnoxious Windows 10 "upgrade" nag screens on Win 7. If you think you can push me, I'll push back harder. That, and Snowden showing the world that American tech is backdoored all the way to hell and back.

Running a singular OS—I like that I can run the same system on my current four computers—two servers, one desktop, and one 12 year old Microsoft laptop.

Selfhosting—It started with an interest in Jellyfin and Qbittorrent, which led to running my own server(s), progressing to wanting to learn more Linux and run a singular OS for all devices. I think this point is focused on an interest in selfhosting.

Control—I don't like customizing my systems, its a waste of time, but I enjoy having complete control and ownership over them.

Trust and Privacy—I don't want to use any software that doesn't respect the user enough to show the source.

Freedom—I believe media, software, and information should be open access to all.

At the time, I needed a system able to handle editing a couple hundred pages document without issues. Windows with word couldn't do it, Linux managed it gracefully despite not even being at 1.0 (and it also handled the network much, much better).

I've been using it ever since.

It's a compromise.
It supports modern hardware well enough and the environment is good enough.
I do like the cleaned up state of BSD better, but the missing hardware support is pretty much killing that.

Also, all the machines I'm developing for and controlling are running some kind of RT Linux.
So I don't have that much friction between systems.

A lifelong Windows user, dabbled in MacOS too, windows 11 was absolute dogshit, did some research and saw loads of videos about bazzite so dual booted into it, liked it so decided to make it my main OS, I also love learning about computers

I swap PCs regularly and I hate how long it takes to install windows.

Also windows borked a games drive once and I never forgave it.

Then I learned all the privacy stuff.

I've used Linux for over 20 years, it just works and gives me the freedom I want, so there's no reason for me to use anything else.

many reasons, already told by others, but the one that made me jump was that it does not install apps without me telling it to.

I got sick and tired of windows turning onedrive back on and moving my files.