people are surprisingly opinionated about it.

Getting repeatedly burned by soulless multibillion dollar comanies tends to do that to a person.

Of course there are.

It also shouldn't be surprising that something like Lemmy, an open-source project originally aimed at tech geeks and still used by a LOT of tech geeks, is filled with Linux users. Linux is an open-source project used by a lot of tech geeks.

Linux at home. Linux, macOS, and Windows at work.

i love windows 3.1 and 95 does that count?

I have an 2025 M4 Pro 16” MacBook Pro, an iPhone, and an Apple Watch. But I also have a 2012 iMac that’s running Fedora

I like both Macs and Linux. I see them both as having their places. macOS is a form of UNIX/BSD after all, so they interoperate particularly well.

I use everything.

Windows 10 still on my main desktop, although there is a Zorin nvme setup inside, just need to make the final change. Got a 3070 rtx a few years ago I barely get to use.

Windows server 2022 for my DNS/pinhole setup

Windows 10 LTSC for my seeding/downloading

Zorin on my main laptop

Zorin on my kids old renewed 12" MacBook air.

Windows 11 on my kids desktop with a local account. (he's my guinea pig)

I just used opencore legacy patcher to put sanoma on a 2012 27" iMac that was meant to be recycled. Just ordered kit to take it apart and upgrade the hdd since it's slow as fuck.

I have bazzite on an old Lenovo gaming laptop

Windows 11 for work

Husband uses genuine MacBook pro from 2016 or so

Truenas scale for my home file server and Plex media. Old secondhand AMD ryzen 7 3700x and as much ram I could find from recycling old devices. 4x 20TB drives I bought refurb in 2024 when I rebuilt it all, had had this thing almost 20 years, just upgrading as needed

Truenas scale (second) for my backups with Veeam, secondhand AMD ryzen 5 4500 and 32G recycled RAM.

Proxmox server for testing fun things.

I love dabbling in everything and keeping old hardware alive. Nearly all my hardware is from clients that needed their devices wiped and recycled. I destroy their data and save what I can for fun/education. Things that are just too old or unreliable or unsupported for businesses are great.

I wipe and reload many I can't use, give them away. I think that's all my stuff.

I still use Windows 10 for my gaming rig. I only use Linux for servers. Rn the only server I have is my media server; it's running off an old Samsung Galaxy S7 phone with a 2TB microSD card running Slackware.

Unfortunately. At least for work-purposes.

I don't have a computer - I just use my phone for Samsung Dex and my tablet (which I think might actually be Linux-based or something. I'm a tech noob).

Otherwise, Windows for work.

Windows and Linux.

There are Windows and Microsoft communities but they aren't very active

I use Linux (though dual boot Windows for Fusion 360 and a lot of Windows at work), but if someone asks me about switching to Linux I don't ram it down their throat. It's good and all but it's really not for everyone, and despite what people on here would have you think it's certainly not as easy to use as Windows. You're much more likely to run into a difficult problem and not know how to fix it though it's changed a bit since you can just get Claude to take a look at things now. Windows can have annoyances but generally you can live with them.

Linux, I think, is for people who are quite technical and people who aren't technical at all (and just need a web browser). For the people inbetween Linux can be a struggle. It's improving incredibly quickly but the out-of-the-box experience is still pretty terrible (looking especially at KDE here).

Been a Mac user for 15 or so years. Then hackintosh and then when that died went to various Linux distros for my desktop but I use a M1 MacBook pro for work still and an M3 MacBook Pro for personal use. Tho I’m falling out of love with apple I enjoy the usability of macOS (at least past versions). Really wish Linux had that level of polish.

I use all 3. Mac and Linux on my personal computers. Strong believer in use the tool that works best for the situation.

Battery life was the saling point for the Mac, software is whatever, I try to avoid all locked in features and software. Prefer Linux due to flexibility. Windows has annoyed me with all the crashes, slow performance, and increasing need to dump shit on us. Only use it personally when a game doesn't work on Linux.

At work, its just windows. I use WSL when I need to do some coding outside of a browser. Most of the time its noticeably slower than it would be on Mac or Linux but not my computer, so its whatever.

What is your question? I do use Linux at home, and nothing else. But at work, I have to use Windows or macOS if I want a salary. macOS is better than Windows because it's a unix like lunix.

I'm basically only on windows these days because I have a windows mixed reality vr headset and I don't know how well that would play with Linux.

Work: windows laptop. It's fine.

Home: dual-boot. More windows time than Linux generally (I'm almost afraid to "admit" that on this forum, ha)

Macs are my daily driver and have been for decades. You'll have to fight me to take mine.

I use Linux for VMs and NUCs and servers. Less than I did a decade ago, but that's only because I have less energy to put into random projects as I get older. Gone are the late-night hackathons until 4am. I support mostly Windows at work.

Use and support windows systems at work. I'm at a small business that uses some ancient software that is only Windows compatible.

At home am fully switched over to Linux.

I’ve used Macs for 20 years (fuck I’m old)

I did get a Linux PC last year though and it’s great too!

Yes I use a MacBook to remote into my Linux boxes. Because Apple hardware is just so much better than anything else you can buy, and zsh terminal is fine. I would probably put Linux on it if I could, though to be honest the ergonomics and vertical integration with MacOS is just very good, and I'd have to really consider tradeoffs. Like swapping and memory management on MacOS is just magic on Apple silicon. I have a thinkpad with Debian as my "utility knife" laptop, and it has 8GB more, slower RAM, but my M2 MBP is significantly smoother even on stuff like FreeCAD which it is basically a RAM/swap stress test.

I use a Mac. It’s like Linux (UNIX actually, OS X is based on NextStep which was based on UNIX) but with corporate backing. It’s as user friendly as Windows. And the AI has an off switch. Siri can be disabled.

I like it. I feel like Apple is the last real computer company left that makes their own software. I don’t know how “real” the company is, though. The iPhone is straight up jank. Always hallucinating text on the keyboard after you type it. Changing what you say to appease some unseen overlord. But I don’t want to use a phone made by an advertising company either. That’s dystopian AF, topped only by the legions who will defend it. But I’m not sure it’s entirely worse.

I use all three. Hopping between them made me appreciate the effort that went into commercial systems a lot more, from UX to compatibility to forward thinking.

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20040513-00/?p=39353

Well Darwin Law applies here too

Apple/macOS is my main 'home' for work, creation, and general use. At work, I also deal with Linux a decent amount running a few k8s clusters. At home, I use a Windows gaming machine but literally only use it for gaming.

I went from windows before the millenia to going mac in the aughts to back to windows but im linux now. mac was awesome when they bragged about being larger and more powerful with more ports and was big on the command line and had a server version and such. I honestly should have moved to linux years earlier but I sorta was worried about losing what you get day to day for work and my wife. My wife is still on windows. I have been trying to get her to change but she won't and im finally. that tears it you can come along when you want but im not going to be keeping up with windows stuff anymore unless its work related.

Commodore Basic represent!

Yeah, we can just STFU about it.

I've used all three OS, and I flat out prefer windows. I realize it's a minority opinion here and that's fine. People can use whatever OS works for them and as long as they are happy, good on them.

Mac for personal, Linux for work. Been that way for over 20 years. They tried to force us to switch to new windows machines (we’re a linux shop) and i said i’d quit first. They tried to sell the WSL crap… i showed them how my 8 yr old machine ran circles around their new windows laptop. I’m still running linux. Every ounce of my being hates windows. Mac just works. Linux (for me) just works. Linux can be a bit fiddly at times. But once it’s working, it just works.

I think there's plenty of non-Linux people here, you just don't notice them because they have interesting things to talk about instead of their OS testing hobby.

My PC still runs on Windows 10 and my phone is still Android 16. I just don't care enough to bother changing cause I haven't had any issues with my current setup.

Used both, never will again unless forced to.

I remember Windows — it was ok for its time I guess, but I didn't like it as much as AmigaOS.

My main, high spec audio production laptop is running Windows, my work device is a Mac, I have a Chromebook for when I'm working out, and I have an old Dell running Linux mint which has become my main beater laptop. I guess you can say I'm ambidextrous.

I'm late to the thread but I'm a freak who has all three.

Grew up on Windows, went full Linux in my teens, got a M1 MacBook Air last year and use it daily.

My current computer lineup now is a M1 MacBook Air running macOS, and a 2015 MacBook Air 11" dualbooting Debian 13 (GNOME) and Windows 10

They both get used daily or near daily. I am stupidly productive on the M1 MBA, especially with a portable USB-C monitor. The 2015 MBA is this beat up old thing that is stupidly portable and therefore convenient. It's so cute.

Ok so I don’t have any MAC machines and my primary daily driver for the past 10yrs has been Linux.

I’ve only got one Windows 10 MS Surface Pro laptop and I have to say that my Windows 10 Pro is unlike everyone else’s because I know exactly what to turn off and what to rename safely.

I prefer Linux but I don’t evangelise. Use what gets the job done the quickest.

Personal and work laptops are Macs. I’m also playing around with a Linux Mini PC as a potential future homelab but I’m already thinking why not get a used Mac mini that will be less of a bother.

Planning to get a small gaming PC with a ready to use Linux on it though, like the Steam Machine. Windows can suck my ass.

I've self hosted for a while but never used linux desktop. Just this week I just set up dual boot on my laptop with the intention of using it 90% Linux 10% windows 10. Its been great so far & I'm enjoying the learning curve finding alternatives to what I'm used to (some of which I'm sure I can't run on Linux - Traktor & several other more obscure things). Lots to learn but good fun & the lack of AI horseshit plus the OS not spying feels liberating.

The very first software I installed (Brave) recommended to use terminal which didn't bother me in the slightest but it may be intimidating/offputting for mainstream.

I use windows 11 at work & at a friends who needed help. It's absolutely loathsome, everytime I open anything there's stupid irritating notifications & popups getting in the way when it tries to “help". Windows 10 will be the last version of Windows in our house

At home, I've mostly switched stuff out to Linux that I use as "servers", but I've had to go back and use Windows on one or two bc I just can't figure out Jellyfin or Plex on Linux. I've been an IT admin of mostly windows stuff for years and a casual Linux user at home. Network drive don't work well on Linux, idc who you are, it's just more "natural" on Windows.

However, I smh back too Windows 10 build 1909 to omit some telemetry and prompts about setting up backup, Cortana, and anything else that uses to interrupt my applications running bc of constant forced updates and reboots. I've done down and disabled so much, my base Windows idling was ~100 processes running (down from ~150) and 2GB RAM! I trust SMB and UNC for the NAS and media players, that Linux couldn't cleanly do for me.

I want something that is not only easy to set up, but easy to troubleshoot (for me) while also being "secure". Sorry to any hard core Linux CLI fans, but, I don't have the patience to waste time at home learning it. That "NAS" running Windows is also blocked from the outside world so nothing reports back to MS on the off-chance I missed something.

I do, however, take time at work learning tools and systems in my "test" envs at work so I can eventually utilize at home, vs trying to learn things at home that's useful for work (like in my home lab).

both yeah, windows for VR and mac for work

Windows / Android here

I'm still a windows user, but that's mostly just because I have a bunch of work programs on my computer that I was supposed to get rid of when they gave me my crappy work laptop, and I'm worried that if I switch over I won't be able to reinstall them and I'll have to work on the crappy laptop for the rest of my career.

You post doesn’t reference any OSes I don’t use.

iPad. It works, and it’s convenient. If people love or hate certain OSs, that’s fine.

Had been an Apple customer since the early 80s. Switched to Linux some 7 or 8 years ago.

I don't consider myself opinionated about tools (computer or otherwise). I just know what tool works best for me for the task at hand. For years, it used to be Mac/Apple. it is no longer the case.

Mac at home, Mac/Linux at work. Though I suppose Linux has its foot in the door at home also via the Steam Deck. I haven't spent too much time on its desktop though. Mostly, I do stuff on a MB Air at home and a Mac mini at work.

I seldom use Windows anymore. I have an old gaming PC that ran it, but the Steam Deck is generally more powerful, so it's been resting idle for a while now. There are a few people at work who use Windows, and I occasionally have to do some IT stuff for them on those machines and I hate it!

Oh yeah I'm still using Win10 because tbh I'm too lazy to get into linux

I’m a windows and Mac user.

And Linux too, but mostly for servers only.