Self-respect. I'm not going to tolerate my property being sabotaged against me in service of some other entity, and I don't understand why anybody else would either.

As soon as Windows 10 "telemetry" (read: spyware) started getting backported into Windows 7 almost a decade ago, I was gone.

Windows users in 2025 are nothing but cucks and simps for corporate abuse. They don't "just buy, have, and use a computer;" they are part of the problem.

it ran like shit, I never knew what was going on, trying to read the logs was a pain in the ass, I had to edit the registry for basic shit, they crammed ads into everything, I didnt use one drive, it eventually just stopped updating - it would try then fail without any useful info and say try again.

what a dumpster fire of an operating system and company. how they still have market share and are successful blows my mind.

Enshitification of Windows was my reason, I was quite patient, I let it slide when they backported telemetry to Windows 7, Windows 10 was still quite usable but the amount of bloat was getting on my nerves already. When I saw what shitshow 11 is becoming I jumped ship. I'm glad I did it early and didn't wait for Windows EOL.

I barely knew what linux was before I watched pewdiepies video on it a long time ago. Just knew that some people on steam would complain about games not running on it, so I never bothered to look into it, since that is basically all I use my computer for. However, over the past 2 years I have been becoming more aware of my individual footprint. Something I noticed was that I will complain about things I think are "wrong" with the world, and then not do anything about them. One of those things was Microsoft (or big tech companies in general). I hate them, yet I would be using their product/service. Literally giving money to something I don't like.

I honestly have never enjoyed learning about computers and coding, I've tried and it's never felt fun to me. I'm definitely not the "target" of linux I guess. When I turn on my computer, I just want to play some games or do homework/work with no fuss.

However, Linux is at a point to where I, someone who has no want or need to learn computers, can switch and mostly use it out of the box. So I just switched, because if I'm gonna sit here and shit on Microsoft for not doing what I think is right, then I need to stop using their product. Capitalism means as long as they make money, they aren't gonna change a damn thing.

Windows is such a horrible experience and MS is such a horrific company.

Windows 10 decided to update a machine in a client's office. The update took 4 hours and the employee could do zero during that time. A few weeks later a Win 10 machine at the same office crashed and would not start. I was left googling error codes from the BSOD. Nothing worked and I had to reinstall. I decided I needed to get my own work stack off of windows. I installed Kubuntu. 2 years later and I like KDE, I like the Debian base, I hate snap, but mostly I'm working and productive.

I've been absolutely seething over Microsoft's bullshit for years. Over the years of having less and less control over my own fucking computer, the parasitic privacy invasion, the dumbfuck constant bloat, the cartoon level evil of Microsoft in general, the constant degradation, forcing unnecessary features and ads, and generally just the sheer audacity. Honestly, I've just kinda been putting up with it for not much more than "it works for now and I'm just tired, man". However, then Microsoft started pushing ai and some updates that were literally bricking systems so I could no longer justify having a switch from windows being such a low priority; it was now a liability. I'm now running CachyOS and I'm quite happy with the switch. Everything just fucking works, not to mention the very noticeable performance boost. Fuck Microsoft.

Combination of three things:

Windows XP. What a pile of shit that was. The enshitification began here. This is where microsoft ID's started. Where music downloads only worked with Internet Explorer. Where microsoft began data harvesting, and they started lying about being able to remove applications you didnt want.

The second reason was indirectly due to Quickbooks shitty software requirements.

Quickbooks, and windows wanted you at a specific computer. I thought this was bullshit. I realized with Linux I could work anywhere, and deliver my applications via x forwarding. No one "seat" rule.

So I added a linux server to work, and quickly started using Linux full time.

Funny about what you said though. I use Linux because I do not want to tinker, I want everything to just work. Windows and the applications for it go against you, change on you, require licensing of you, and generally are a pain in the ass.

Through a MSDN I have free access to all windows software. I have free use of an Azure node and Virtual Desktops. But I won't use them for anything personal, only if someone will pay me. MS just sucks that much.

I am willing to remote into, push code to, admin any window device for money. But I do it all from a linux machine.

Privacy, freedom to choose whatever I want, focus on FOSS (I hate/dont trust proprietary software), and security features for hardening Linux (Landlock, SELinux, Bubblewrap, sysctl, hardened_malloc).

i switched to Linux in 2013ish to get away from my gaming habit and go all in on programming and computer science. that may not work these days as all the games i play work on Linux ha

My computer wasn't compatible with Windows 11, and it's not that old, dammit. The thought of throwing it out because of some arbitrary push for Windows 11 from Microsoft made me angry, so I finally installed Mint since it's the one I kept hearing is easiest for people who don't know anything about Linux. I've been using it almost 3 months now and I don't find it difficult to deal with at all, and the games I play work on it. The biggest hurdle has been compatibility with some school stuff, but I've been able to use LibreOffice and Google Docs when all else fails.

Computers aren't my hobby, running into errors when I just want to get shit done pisses me off. I've been dealing with a minimal amount of that on Mint, I imagine mostly because I'm not tinkering with a ton under the hood (mostly aesthetic changes so that it looks how I like). If you have basic troubleshooting skills for Windows then a lot of that transfers to Linux, even though the actual solutions will be different.

If something better than Mint came along I'd probably switch to it, but I don't know what that would look like, since Mint is doing exactly what I want: running my programs and not popping up with a ton of useless AI crap or ads.

Linux became so much less work to keep running than windows, even for gaming (if you've got an AMD gpu at least). I don't play competitive gaming in any capacity so I'm not missing pretty much anything.

I didn't move away from Windows, Windows moved away from me.

I would have been happy to stay on it if it hadn't continued to get shittier and shittier.

I had an overwhelming feeling of corporations telling me what they are selling and that I just have to deal with it. Apple, microsoft, adobe, all subscriptions that lock you in and hold you hostage.

Maybe I am just being over the top, but I miss feeling like I OWNED something. With linux? I own my laptop again.

I hated Windows Update. There were other reasons, but this was the main one.

I got tired of having an OS that is working against me. That is not a healthy relationship. With Linux you can really see there is a shift in the mindset. User experience is prioritized and you are allowed to do what you want wherever you want to. This means for example things like running a live iso, installing the OS and surfing the web at the same time is possible. I can remap the super key, and other keys. Oh, tiling Window manager exist like hyperland. Omarchy. And how about tabs in the file explorer. Why did not Microsoft implement it 20 years ago like when it came to Linux.

For me it was Windows 7 end of life. I always liked to tinker, and at the time I didn't wanted to spend the money to get a macbook, so I tried Linux, eventually moved completely to it and never looked back.

Windows is terrible.

Largely privacy, data ownership, performance, and a general shift towards foss and self hosting.

Honestly, I grabbed linux because I wanted something that worked and wouldn't change.

Windows keeps changing, a lot. Now getting to the point where none of my computers could handle 11. So I just said screw it, kept my hardware and now I run Ubuntu

Was not as disruptive as I thought

Microsoft spyware mostly. I feel stressed using a surveiled and monetized system for personal stuff. Also cause I have always loved Linux utilities and it's teminal.

I had also mostly finished switching over my software stack to FOSS. So most things just felt easy to move over.

If you want an OS that lets you own the machine you bought, Linux is the most viable option. Conversely, Windows is not an option. I don't consider an OS where you are the product to be one that works for me at all, much less one that "just works".

Linux users seem to enjoy problem solving and tinkering for fun

Like with any OS, those are a subset of users, but not all. The thing is, Linux users spent the last 30y building a set of tools that enable you to use as little effort as possible to do very powerful things with your hardware, and yes, with great power comes great ability to break everything. But in the last 15y, there are distros designed for people who want an OS that "just works", that don't require you to know or use the risky tools that could break things, and they're getting better every day.

Why did you switch

I wanted to use Linux for the last 15y, but gaming was a sticking point. Around 5y ago, thanks to valve, it is no longer a sticking point. I do all my gaming on Linux.

what was your process like?

I first switched to fedora on my laptop about 12y ago. I didn't do a lot of gaming on my laptop, so this was fine. Eventually I switched to Manjaro. Around 5y ago I put Manjaro on my desktop. Then eventually switched both to endeavor.

I'll admit, I create problems for myself by refusing fully featured Desktop Environments. But I always learn something more about my machine in the process. As a result, I believe I can now simply do more with less effort on Linux than I could on windows. I have bash scripts on keybinds that open custom UIs for various things. I can seamlessly access multiple servers on my network running various services. I don't ever have to worry about some update overhauling my UI and sneaking an AI in the background. Any experimentation I do with AI is on my own terms, and none of my data gets shipped off without my consent.

What made you choose Linux for your primary computing device, rather than macOS for example?

I used a Mac 20y ago. It was solid. But eventually the cost outweighed the hardware capabilities. And then they deprecated every graphics API but Metal. Now there's relatively nothing in the way of gaming on Mac. On top of that, it's just as bad as windows when it comes to doing what some company wants it to do rather than what I want it to do. So I don't consider it an option that works for me.

Final straw?

So it was contradicting itself and would not update no matter how many times I would hit "check for updates" over the course of a week.

So not only was the system not functioning correctly, but I could no longer trust it was going to be secure from third parties.

I had intended to switch for some time before then for a litany of reasons but this definitely convinced me to stop wasting any more time and I moved myself and family over less than a week later.

Because I can tell it to do whatever I want. I get to control the device I own. Pretty basic. Same principle for my others devices, so deGoogle Android phone, earbuds with open source firmware, keyboard with open source firmware, Zigbee for IoT, etc. My stuff should do what I want.

Windows Updates

Got an update while finishing a large project for work. Tried to postpone updates, Micro$oft said no and reboot anyway. Rebooted and waited 2 hrs for the "Please Wait" to go away.

Oh yeh and also the in your face OneDrive adware. I swear, every single time I update, the laptop keeps asking if I want to sign into onedrive.

Because of Windows.

I was already somewhat interested in Linux (as a long time Windows user) when I started studying Computer Science, mainly for it's core philosophy of freedom and openness.

Given that most courses used Linux as the default OS I installed Ubuntu on my laptop to dual boot it with Windows, and began getting familiar with it.

Over the years I started using Linux more and more, making it my main OS, with Windows still installed for the few programs I couldn't use otherwise. Over time this set of programs became smaller and smaller, until it was just games.

Last year I bought and assembled a new PC to replace my laptop for daily uses, and given the higher specs and better support (AMD GPU instead of Nvidia) I see no reason to have Windows on it at all. Everything I need runs perfectly fine there.

I use Arch, btw.

I didn't want to deal with the spyware of an OS. Recall looks nightmarish and I don't want ads in my OS.

It was fun! Not only do you have this new-fangled OS to just fuck around with, but it gives you more access to the system and you can actually learn how it works? Amazing.

Eventually it just became so ingrained in my personal workflow that I wouldn't be able to function without it.

It's significantly easier to use and I wanted to create a maximally ergonomic setup that I designed the ux for.

windows wouldn't let me choose, linux did, also when linux has an issue it's never because someone was doing something malicious, on windows it nearly always is.

Linux requires tinkering and Windows doesn't? Is that some alternate-universe version of Windows? In my experience, the difference is social/psychological. When Windows fucks up, "everybody uses it," so the blame falls on the masses, not the user, who was just going along with what's normal and expected. People sort of mentally elide memory of the Windows fuck ups, because that's just how Windows is.

Linux is different and weird, and you have to stray from the herd to use it. Straying from the masses is scary, because when Linux fucks up, it's your fault for being contrary. That threat to one's place in the social order is quite memorable. Hence the reluctance of Windows users, who hate it, to even consider trying another OS that they know nothing about.

I never switched from Windows. I never used Windows as my main OS. I had an Amiga, then learned Unix on SunOS, so I was used to being weird. Once I got a PC, I used FreeBSD. It did require a lot of fiddling back in those days, and when I got tired of that, I switched to Ubuntu, which was amazing in that it Just Worked(tm). (Aside from manual installation of the Windows driver for the PCMCIA WiFi card with NDISWrapper.)

(I still do tinker with it, and sometimes break it, but the base OS has been rock solid. I noticed the other day that my main PC was installed with Ubuntu 18.04, and upgraded to 24.04.)

They baked AI into the operating system and had that recall thing where they basically took screenshots of your screen every few seconds. Linux doesn't do that.

Privacy concerns for the most part. Also for better desktop performance and less bloat on my existing hardware. I was not going to buy a whole new laptop just for macOS, and also gaming on macOS is not nearly as viable.

I would like to somewhat dispute this idea that all Linux users enjoy fixing problems for entertainment. Don't get me wrong, I can and do solve problems in Linux, but once I have a setup that works, I just use my machine normally rather than constantly tinkering with it.

As for how I went about the switch, fortunately, my laptop at the time had 2 NVMe slots, so I installed a second drive and dual-booted between Windows and Linux for a while until I had set up replacements for all the programs that I use regularly.

I want meaningful errors I can troubleshoot. "Oopsie poopsie" error messages tell me nothing.

Honestly, from curiosity and messing around with stuff, playing with Crunchbang on an old Win9x PC. (this was eons ago as Crunchbang wasn't BunsenLabs yet at the time)

Yes, really, the last time I actively ran Windows for any reasonable length of time was with Win9x, specifically 98se.

I messed around with Win10 LTSB for a bit on a laptop (this was in 2016, so when Win10 was still new and LTSC was still called LTSB), but eventually went back to running Linux, and given Windows' current trash-fire state, I'm not touching it on my hardware outside of a VM ideally, or a dedicated burner box if a baremetal install is ever needed for anything.

I got Windows 7 hacking to a point where it was basically a weird Linux and then had a moment "why bother fighting the OS, it will not get any better".

Avoiding studying for exams in 2007.

0: i tinkered with linux as a kid. didn't get it. no games?

1: in uni i went back to trying it out. mostly over microsofts policies.

2: i was surprised that the green and orange variety of it-just-works-linux were super comfy to set up.

3: in my dual boot phase a windows update messed up the boot loader.

4: i decided to wipe the win-partition with a wire brush, and never looked back.

I had used Lubuntu to rescue an underpowered laptop back in community college. At university, I was on the campus tech support team... and ended up "the Linux guy" for the few foreigners who had installations (I knew how to run apt and that's about it). Out of uni, I ended up in a career supporting RHEL. Of course Raspberry Pis skyrocketed in popularity as well, so I got to sink my teeth into a Debian-derivative and blow up a few installs without having to worry about change management.

When time came to build a system in 2025, I figured I'd try it as an experiment. I stumbled at first and learned Debian does not play well with new hardware, but after switching to Linux Mint it's been nearly painless. Most of the software I had been using in Windows was already open source (because I couldn't afford to buy software), so almost everything migrated 1:1. Excluding Winamp... :(

About 10 years ago a friend discovered Linux during his studies and suggested I try it out.

I haven't looked back ever since.

I like to tinker, I like to have a level of control (or at least the option) of things I own, I like to learn, I like the idea of open source, and from Windows 2000 on I didn't like the direction it was going.

When I started on windows, and even with the textual pseudo-GUI's of DOS, once you got it working you could customize the hell out of everything(or it didn't pretend otherwise), and it would just continue to work until something physically broke or I broke somethin; with a tweak I would generally just undo and get back to it.

Windows is nothing like that now. My phone is more customizable, smooth, enjoyable and stable than Windows(OOBE, anyways). Its arguably better at things like, idk, working with scanners, which Windows insists are dark magic only the manufacturers can help you with(TWAIN was literally cleaner, and still is, when you can lift the hood to find it); I'm not saying its all-that-weird to need a driver - what's weird is refusing to look for an entire device-category until a third-party app tells you how, when EVERYTHING ELSE is basically plug-and-play, including the printing functions of networked copiers or fax machines.

Rant from this-specific-day's bullshit at work aside, my first experiences were with an Amiga and some Apple ii's, OS2Warp was an experience that barely struck me as much-different than what I was used-to, and I've messed-around with Macs as much as much as anyone.

What's weird isn't moving away from Windows, basically the most overtly Black Mirror-esque OS of what's out there today. What's weird is how hung-up people are on it.

Every brain-controlling or addicting substance or species on Futurama has more to offer; Windows, like facebook, is trying to be the ads injected-into dreams. Who the hell wants that?

Windows 10. It just didn't run on hard drives, when I turned off constantly scanning the drive and the firewall, it refused to update because the update service requires the firewall. Then I forgot how I did it so I never booted into it again.

Windows 7 was the last offline Windows and the last one that was tolerable

Back in the early 2010s, I bought a new PC with Windows 8 on it. Hated the way it looked and the way it worked. I wanted my Start menu and Aero and Classic themes back. Led me to learning about Linux. But uxTheme and Classic Shell kept me happy for a couple more years.

Then I got a laptop with Windows 10. Felt my heart rate spike as I went through the settings and found out how much more hostile to user choice and privacy Microsoft had become. When the semi-annual updates kept undoing all my hard work debloating Windows, I decided it was time to begin using Linux in earnest.

At first, I had a dual-boot setup and jumped around between Ubuntu, Deepin, Arch, etc. Found myself booting into the Windows partition less than once a month, at which point I moved it out onto its own drive. Distro-hopping went on for about a year, after which I decided that Debian met all of my needs. Continued DE-hopping for about another year until settling on XFCE with Chicago95. Brought me enough joy to make a standardized setup in a VM, which I have since cloned to all of my computers except for the Windows laptop I keep around for work.

Because if my operating system is going to break in stupid ways I want it to be my fault or at the very least something I could fix if I knew shit about fuck. Seeing as I don't know that the main perk is Linux keeps getting better as windows keeps getting worse.

I have told this story several times.

In late 2013 or so, I bought a Raspberry Pi 1B as part of my amateur radio hobby. I did all my actual work on a Windows laptop, the Pi was pretty much just a toy, and I learned a little about Linux with it.

Mid-2014, the display in my aging laptop died. I was going back to school that fall, I needed a laptop. So I ordered a high end Inspiron from Dell. And Dell sold me a lemon. That laptop would just...shut off and never turn back on again. And then I'd call Dell's tech support. They'd send a tech out within a week or two. He'd throw a part in it, and then it would last somewhere between days and seconds. After waiting over a week to get a tech to come out and fix it, it didn't finish booting before it died again. I finally got them to replace the laptop outright, with a system that lacked many of the features I had explicitly ordered.

I am no longer a Dell customer.

That whole time, I needed a computer, and the only thing I had was that Raspberry Pi in addition to my Galaxy S4. It was real fun typing up homework in LibreOffice on a single core 700Mhz ARMv6 and 512MB of RAM.

I finally got a running Dell, after an entire semester, loaded with Windows 8.1. Windows 8.1 was a total pube fire. Linux felt more familiar at that point, so I tried a few different systems, discovered Linux Mint, and 11 years later I don't have any computers that run Windows.

Back when AI models were first coming out (before..well all the worst of it happened), AMD self hosting only worked on Linux.

Spun up a few distros in a VM, picked my favorite (EndeavourOS), then installed it on a new drive so I could cleanly dual boot. Got hooked and haven’t looked back in like 3-4 years, and don’t touch Windows at all anymore.

Also don’t touch AI anymore, really.

Originally I switched just because I didn't have a Windows install available and Linux was convenient enough to just download and stick on there. But then once I got used to using it I massively preferred it. I'm the opposite of what you're describing, I don't want "problem solving and tinkering", I like Linux because it basically just does what I want it to do. Windows does what Microsoft wants it to do lol.

Basically, im getting old and weird and less willing to abide corporate fuckery.

It was a couple of years ago. Continuing enshittification of Windows pissed me off enough to look into it (10/11 restricting of options, CoPilot, various bloat etc).

2 years later, i'm running Mint on my laptop, Arch on my desktop, a server with OpenMediaVault and a miniPC with Batocera. My computer life has never been better!

The last Windows OS I used was XP, around 2004-ish. Even back then, it was obvious to me that, because it was closed source, that they could one day start acting against my interests, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I saw open source as an insurance policy - it prevents vendors from acting maliciously against their users. In that very quaint, old time, nobody believed that MS would ever do something like that, but it didn't matter - the fact was that they could, so inevitably, they would.

I'm quite proud of how prescient I was when I look at what they're doing today. No evil is too great to stop a greedy businessman.

Anyway, I decided to just be brave and create a partition on my main drive and install Ubuntu on it. All I needed to get my work done was OpenOffice, LaTeX, a browser, a compiler, Python.... Everything worked better in Linux than Windows so even though I was dual-booting, I practically never used Windows again after a couple weeks. Later on, I switched to Debian, and the next laptop that I bought, I just wiped the hard disk and used Linux for the whole thing. I kept the recovery partition because I was paranoid but obviously never needed it.

Today, there's no doubt in my mind that Linux is the best OS. Sure, Macs have better batteries, but if I'm doing productive work, then I don't really need more than an hour away from my charger. I could maybe agree that the BSDs are better, but I've never tried them.

I'm about to pull the plug on Windows because MS says I need to replace my PC to install Win 11. Nothing wrong with my PC at all, it runs fine. So I've flashed a usb stick, checked the Linux distro will run ok, backed up my data and am ready to go. Just have to get a day free of distraction...

I got my first PC in 1983 I think it was. Second-hand, running MS-DOS. I've done a lot of computing since then, at work as well as home, almost always Windows. I've had Linux on an ancient laptop for a few years, various distros. I like to tinker, so that aspect of Linux doesn't put me off at all.

It was 20 years ago and Microsoft was terrible and Windows was awful. Later on I used Windows 8.1 somewhat out of necessity until it was deprecated and went back to Linux because Microsoft is terrible and Windows 10/11 is awful, but now with all kinds of invasive telemetry.

Windows said they were going to force AI into the OS, so I left.

I installed Bazzite, it was easy and just worked, but I decided I didn't like immutability. So I installed Garuda, and it was also easy and just worked, even with an Nvidia card.

So now I'm on Linux and run a bunch of windows games with proton and they also work.

poverty; i couldn't afford a windows license.

Tldr: GNU/Linux is easier to use than Windows.

Let me tell you, I am a user that does not want to fiddle around with my operating system. I want my operating system to be basically invisible and just run the programmes that I like to use, even though I am tech savy. I became "tech savvy" because I needed to troubleshoot my computer constantly, thanks to Microsoft Windows.

In my free time I liked to play video games, and I didn't know about Proton until 2021. When Windows 11 rolled around, I was already fed up with the constant Win10 trash, forever reinstalling and fighting the system to just behave normally. With Windows 11 and the stupid TPM, where Microsoft could disable my computer and turn it into literal e-waste, that was the final straw that broke the camel's back. That was 2021. Then I installed GNU/Linux on all of my computers, no dual boot. I once experimented with it in 2010. And ever since then it has come a very long way. In 2021, basically 80% of my games worked through proton. The nicest surprise were the programmes that I found. I got in contact with many of the "flagship" FOSS projects, and I was delighted. They worked all so well, so much better than any of the proprietary ransomware that constantly extorts you for money. I exclusively use those for work as well now. And by now, all of my games are supported by Proton. Literally every single one. Ever since installing, I haven't looked back. Because GNU Linux is so much more simple, the programs do not need to be updated individually, they can just be updated normally through Flatpak or Apt for example. The system doesn't need constant reinstalling, and it doesn't have any sort of Windows rot. The system and the programmes on it do not require any internet to function.

So in short, I love GNU/Linux because it made the computer frictionless. You didn't need to fight it in order to be productive with it and to do the things that you want. And all of those years I looked back and I thought to myself how little my computer actually worked on windows. The "worst" maintanance with GNU Linux that I ever had was I needed to install a driver for the Wi-Fi/Bluetooth card of my Microsoft Surface tablet. That's it. No registry, nonsense, with disabling bundled viruses, no forced one drive, no forced ads, no slow down of the system over time, actually being able to uninstall programs, and many more things, make GNU/Linux superior in my book.

Productivity: once your Linux machine does what you want, it does what you want. It doesn’t ask if you’re sure you don’t want ai cloud storage telemetrics shoved up your hinders every 2 clicks.

Bloat: No explanation necessary.

I have ADHD: I get shit done on Linux. You can turn off whatever you want and it stays off. Windows (especially 11) is a bs distraction minefield by default. And it’ll actively work against you to keep it that way.

I've (mostly) moved over from macOS.

Generally I actually prefer macOS to Linux (I've settled on Kububtu mostly), but I've become increasingly dissatisfied with Apple over the past few years. The cost of their services and products creeping, being able to see business decisions that falsely cripple cheaper devices, and general all round shittiness that I no longer wish to be a part of.

I had a series of iPhones from a 3GS in 2009 up to a 13 mini, but grew tired of having to jump through hoops to make iOS do what I wanted from it - a feeling exacerbated by using iPadOS on my iPad mini. So last February I grabbed a Pixel 9 and put Graphene on it. hell of a learning curve, but one that showed me that there were better, more equitable ways to achieve what the interconnected Apple ecosystem can do. It might not be as polished, but it's significantly cheaper, and uses equipment that won't be rendered obsolete and unable to be upgraded or used in some way.

Then Tim Apple pulled that stunt giving Trump the big gold trophy and I knew that Apple was no longer a company that shared the least of my values. Not that I really believed that before, they're a multi-trillion dollar company, after all, but of the available options they seemed the least shitty. But not any more.

So now I only use macOS on my M2 Air. When that eventually falls apart I'll replace it with something I can put Linux on.

Let's just say that ME deserved its "Mistake Edition" moniker

I was not "techy" Jumped about 15 years ago. My (then) laptop was old and that Windows thing was very slow and needed many restarts. My much smarter work colleague showed me his Ubuntu. I installed as dual boot and in less than 12-months had stopped using Windows and installed Ubuntu as the sole OS. Since then, have tried many others, including Puppy. Now on Debian. Still not techy,or in any way competent with the terminal, but linux just works, even for me.

I moved away from MacOS in the past few years to finally full-time Linux after using it recreationally since the early 2000s. I’ve only really used Windows on work computers (or school back in the day).

Windows 98 ate my college photos and music when a virus made my HDD take a click of death dump.

Fuck you to whoever wrote that virus. Since then I gave various linuses a go and I did so for a while each just learning how to be as lazy as possible while using linux. Later I had to run windows for some cad software. But after it corrupted my Linux several times I gave it the boot into its own drive which is only startable using grub. Grub sits on the Linux drive. My home drive is a big ass Linux formatted drive that mounts into Home/username. That way even if my Linux takes a shit I can reinstall it and boom back to where I left off....solo much further than anything windows could ever imagine. I could even have several linuses all going to the same home folder without any problem.

I was a Windows user since 95, but I was increasingly feeling that my Windows PC was not my PC. That my personal information was being sent to some MS server. Then they started pushing recall and shoe horning in copilot. The sledgehammer that broke the camel's back was when my perfectly good PC was deemed not good enough for an upgrade to Windows 11. I went Linux and am never going back.

Curiosity at first, but now all the stuff I usually do is easier from linux ssh, sshfs etc. WSL on windows is niftyish.

Curiosity. It came with a book at the library.

Also Money. You make a lot more if you know Linux.

Freedom. 24 years ago, I figured that there had to be something different that I could customize. I had experimented with BeOS but then I came across Gentoo, and Linux in general. I crushed and burned many times experimenting with Slackware, SuSE (and later OpenSuSE), as well as Mandrake, but Debian became my thing. I did some time with Solus, but I'm a Debian guy. Netboot, put it together as I want, and what not.

I'll admit I'm a lazy bastard who likes the convenience of things just working. I also really like using Solidworks for CAD drafting. The things Microsoft has been doing with breaking its OS in stupid and privacy-invading ways pushed me over the edge now. It's been a struggle to learn the intricacies of Linux in order to set up whatever distro I'm trying at the moment. I'd still rather struggle with a difficult to master OS at this point than go back and let Windows 11 get worse with AI bullshit and sell out my privacy for greater shareholder value though.

In my experience so far all I can say is I prefer mutable distros that make it easier for me to install and run a VPN, even if it makes it hard for me to access my local NAS because of it.

I was always curious but never moved over completely because I had this idea that it was difficult to run things (games, etc). I had a laptop with dual boot with Ubuntu for the longest time, then I started to use WSL to code.

The thing that made me finally switch was the steam deck. It showed me it was possible and now we don't have a single machine with Windows at home.

Thinking about it now, I don't know why everyone kept recommending to use Ubuntu, it was probably one of the main reasons why it took me so long to switch.

Linus Torvalds pointed a gun at my head and said "give up Windows, or else..."

I got really frustrated with Windows 10 after couple years working in the hell desk, and decided to try something else for personal use

I started using Linux in addition to Windows years ago, but I switched full-time because I found that Linux actually runs faster on the same machine hardware, and if you have a stable distro it actually breaks things less often.

I've had windows go to do it's update, and sit on the update screen for ages, never seeming to finish. No process bar, nothing, just that stupid screen saying "we're doing updating, thanks for waiting" or whatever (cycling through several messages without saying what it's doing, is it stuck?) I would have to hard reset my windows machine when it did that.

And windows has so much stuff running in the background, either pre installed things running or who knows what services. I didn't use edge or IE but they would still be running there in the background in task manager.

Not to mention the other issues like having to go find software I wanted to download, hunting for a real, valid, non-virus link to download, then run an installer, and click click click through the installer. Oh it needs some version of Microsoft visual C++ runtime that it didn't include automatically? Good luck finding the right vcredist to install to make it work, you're on your own.

Linux has none of that nonsense.

You want to update? You either click the button or type the command, put in your password, it gives you a list of exactly what it's going to update. You confirm yes and it goes and giving you a progress bar and tells you what it's doing each step of the way. No guessing if it's stuck or broken. If it does break, it gives you an error message you can actually Google for a result for.

You want to install new software? For most of what I've wanted, I can just go to the distro's software repository and download things directly from a trusted source. The builds are signed and verified so I can trust they're real and not a virus rather than having to go searching online. All dependencies are also automatically installed with the correct versions to make everything just work.

And there are no installers, you click the buttons to install and what you want installs with no extra stupid menus or anything, if you want to install 10 things in one go you can.

Also there are standard paths for everything, you can pretty much Google "Linux how to" and you'll get sane results for most distro's.

And games run faster on Linux with less overhead from background things competing, there's no background update crap kicking in to nuke your game performance. I've been running steam and the free epic games stuff on Linux full-time and Linux only for probably 5 years and I've had minimal issues, VR also works. Sure there may be some setup involved but there are many guides and instructions out there, and it mostly amounts to installing things and maybe a little bit of configuration.

Which, on Windows you still often need to install things to get stuff to work anyways, so really the argument that windows "just works" has worn a little thin with me. I'd believe you if you told me that a Mac just works, I've not used one.

I've used Windows for decades, I know that "just works" is a lie. It works no better than Linux imo, and depending on distro, some Linux just works better than Windows.

From my decade of Linux I would suggest: Debian or Ubuntu for a rock solid stable distro. Probably go Ubuntu since you'll find way more help easily Googleable, but snap causes some difficulties.

Garuda is my current Arch based distro, so far no breakage after about 2 years of use, great for gaming. Would not recommend arch based for your first foray, I ran archlinux itself for about 6 years but it would break from time to time (fixable, but still not beginner friendly.)

I'm tired of shit randomly not working, mainly audio. Most of the stuff I need to do is Linux okay now so I'm moving my laptop to something with kde, probs nobara. Or debian with kde. My desktop will probably dualboot kubuntu (bc unfortunately rocm is the least annoying on that) and windows 11 because I unfortunately like playing r6 siege with my friends.

My backup laptop runs Bunsenlabs os bc windows dies of death.

Edit: 50/50 on kde or openbox. Want to try kde, I've been using openbox for ages though.

Freedom. No company tells me what I can and cannot do with MY machine.

at some point windows removed the focus stealing prevention setting. So I moved to KDE plasma, which has global AND per app focus stealing prevention settings.

My desktop is too old to run Windows 11.

Irritated enough to learn

ideological reasons. windows creeps me the fuck out. i've been using linux since the slackware days. sure i've been on win 3.1 and all the way up to XP as my OS because of gaming, but I have dual booted with linux since around 2003. I haven't had Windows installed on any device since 2013 - and frankly, I am so fucking happy with fedora and the steam deck finally kicking the door down and making linux 100% viable for everyone.

But yes, I'm too old now and I really can't be arsed to deal with the constant patchwork of the olden days and there is no way I would ever look back at anything since switching to fedora 2 years ago. It's insanely good (finally). Not even mint could deliver an equally flawless experience after all these years in comparison. I actually just dropped mint from my last holdout device earlier this week, replacing it with Fedora.

The Year of Linux Desktop is finally here!