I had a laptop with a borked Windows installation. Unfortunately, it didn’t come with any kind of recovery partition or DVD. So, I took a chance on Linux and I liked it better.

I had heard it was ready for gaming, and I wanted to see for myself. It wasn’t, at the time, but I used it for a few months before I switched back to Windows for a bit. Then, after another year on Windows, I gave Pop!_OS a chance. That sent me on a full spiral into distro hopping, and I’m on CachyOS now - not switching from Linux again.

My Dad convinced me to try it, as a way to learn more about how computers work (ie without Windows). I installed Ubuntu and didn’t like GNOME, but once I saw that all the same programs I used on Windows were still available on Linux, I knew it was worth finding the right distro. I used Linux Mint for awhile because Cinnamon DE was nice, but eventually I needed a more up to date version of something (I can’t remember what) so I installed Arch with KDE instead. I’ve used it ever since.

My first experience with Linux was as a kid, when the family PC that was handed down to us breathed its last. Quite a bit of malware was on that machine, and it got left to sit in the garage.

I found Ubuntu and revived the Compaq, although the experience was limited, and me as a 10 year old didn’t really know what all could be done with a PC anyway.

Since then, it’s been a slow burn. 2022 had me dual booting Linux and Windows, and learning how to migrate everything over.

2025 and Windows 11 recall, AI everywhere, intrusive Big Tech had me pull the trigger and nuke the Windows boot from my machine.

Now I’m here. Enjoying a peaceful time on my hardware just like it used to be when I was a kid. The internet and the computer have the capacity to be wonderful again.

I initially installed Linux on my old Chromebook in highschool when they upgraded and let us pay to keep the old ones. I installed GalliumOS so that I could sneak in the old Chromebook to play Undertale during class, but eventually after getting tired of Windows BS I’ve installed Linux on all my computers

I can’t remember why, most likely because i got tired of MS and wanted to finally daily drive Linux. I was already working doing windows support so it was a personal challenge. That was about 7 years ago and thanks to that I’ve also setup my own server

I like learning and the thrill of tinkering, my computer's HD had died, remembered a system a teacher had commented about and also a friend suggested to recover some needed files, tested and was positively surprised.

I had to use a library that only works in a UNIX like OS. So I switched to linux and never looked back.

Because it is the least worst OS

because with Linux, I truly own my computer and have the freedom to do whatever I want with it

I had been messing with Linux for years and was already dual booting Manjaro for a while when Windows started uninstalling my AMD GPU drivers every 2-3 weeks for a month straight, tried what I could to stop it, but it kept doing it, eventually fed up enough I fully switched over.

Fix your title

I switched in the Windows 98/ME era, so quite some time ago. I was tired even then of Windows being an unstable mess. BSODs, headaches with DirectX and different versions, etc. I was/am mostly a console gamer so not being able to play games on my computer was less of an issue for me. So I tried then Red Hat linux which I scored some CD images of and never really looked back.

I have been tinkering with Linux before, but some software needed Windows.

I tried switching those apps.

• Corel to InkScape went well, I instantly liked it better.
• MS Office to LibreOffice: I just don’t need Excel that much, so it’s OK.
• Corel laser engraving to K40Whisperer: a breath of fresh air, simple and efficient.

Then, free from all those chains I installed EndeavourOS, and it’s been great.

I’ve used it since the 90s, but windows was always my daily driver. Linux always worked, but games could be spotty and there always seemed to be to be the random breakage for no reason.

But that changed a few years ago. Games “just worked”, device support became really good, and if I’m being honest - I became a gnome guy. That interface is very very productive, especially on a laptop with a trackpad.

And then windows just, started sucking. They break machines with every single update, it’s like there’s zero qa anymore. And the little things became more and more annoying - the pop ups “upgrade to 11, try copilot, OneDrive isn’t working omfg let me help you fix that” the “where is that setting moved to now” game, the extra clicks everywhere.

My dual boot setup found a windows drive that was never being used anymore. I didn’t switch, I just stopped using. Eventually I just deleted the partition and use it for extra space and playing around with other OSs.

During this process I distro hopped quite a bit and eventually settled on fedora workstation. It’s been good to me on three PCs.

My shift was primarily ideologically driven. I was sick of privacy encroachment, enshittification, and feeling like my computer wasn’t truly mine. Linux changed all that.

Privacy, no bloat (depending on distro), no Big Tech, freedom, no cost.

I was bored. Nowadays I would like to store sensible data (i.e. any personal data) on my laptop, so I use Linux

Sick of microsofts shit (popups, AI, random unknown settings changes that i dont notice until its too late and shit is broken) and i wanted to learn Linux and get some home server experience.

Windows 7 support ended and windows 8 was wet hot dogshit. I stayed because I liked absolute control and ownership of my hardware and software

on my main laptop for whatever reason Windows 11, about twice a year or so, would insist on killing my wifi. Just out right disable it and not even uninstalling and reinstalling drivers would work. It would simply just kill it and pretend it never existed. the ONLY fix was to completely reinstall the OS. so almost like clockwork twice a year I’d have to reinstall the OS. It was also absolutely destroying the battery on my laptop. I would get MAYBE 30min out of it.

So after reading some threads I decided to give Linux a go. I went nuclear winter on it and didn’t even bother dual booting, just wiped the computer completely and started with Mint. Stayed on that for a couple weeks until I completely messed up the install by trying to modify cinnemon a bit too much so then I switched to CachyOS and fell in love with it.

Since then I distro hopped a few times and I’m currently using NixOS. As far as the battery issue? I get about 4 hours out of it now instead of 30min.

I couldn’t find my Windows 7 key after reinstalling.

Linux porn sceenshots. I wanted to have a cool cyberpunk desktop and be Hackerman.

Was just generally annoyed at microsoft, but couldn’t leave because I play a lot of PC games. Then I found out these days gaming works relatively okay in linux so I switched.

My old desktop couldnt update to 11. But for my newer computer, Windows recall was a deciding factor. Fuck that shit. Also fuck their “ai” nonsense.

It’s nice that it’s free and doing little to nothing contrary to my interests.

About 20 years ago, I wanted to add recording studio capabilities to my gaming PC but I was a broke high schooler, so I installed Ubuntu Studio as a dual boot option alongside Windows XP.

Anyway, I installed Arch on my laptop about 3 years later in college using the Arch Book, which was essentially the same as the wiki’s install guide at the time.

I had a dual boot system with Windows and Mac (it was a hackintosh) as my home recording studio Pro Tools/gaming PC for about a decade, then my Windows install had to be wiped due to an issue I had, so I decided to just wipe the whole thing and go single boot with Linux Mint, so now I use Reaper for recording and Steam + Heroic + emulators are meeting all my gaming needs. I use the Xanmod kernel and the kisak-mesa PPA, and since making the switch I’ve upgraded essentially all of the parts in my PC, which is good because I first built it in 2013

Probably the same reason many people use it:

Heard about it from someone/online --> tried it in a VM --> Tried it on real hardware --> Liked it enough to keep it/ditch windows partition if they dual-booted.

In my case, I started with Mint in 2023 and eventually distro-hopped to ArcoLinux (RIP) then Arch (BTW). Trying out Endeavour now as my Arch-Arco install is a mess and I’d like something similar to Arco.

Oh as for the reason why: Sick of Microsoft’s shit and didn’t want to downgrade from Windows 10 to 11.

Sometimes I want to read the sources of the programs I use and learn how they work.

Customization and no bloatware. I also love tinkering and finding problems to solve, so Arch was the distro I went with.

Microsoft released Windows Vista, which was absolute dogshit on every PC at the time it was released.

This also just happened to be not long after Ubuntu was released, making it easier than ever to install Linux.

Installed it, quickly found out everything was easier to configure and tinker with in Linux…

Never saw a reason to go back. Used Windows 7 for a little bit, and it was better than Vista, but it still wasn’t anywhere near as easy to use as Linux

Because I wanted an OS that conforms to some standards, gives me freedom, and doesn’t give my data to a corporation

I switched because Linux is obviously way better in so many ways. No brainer.

I use Windows at work and it’s a joke. It’s security theater. Microsoft and similar capitalist entities are paid not for actual security but for liability protection.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_theater

About 2 years ago I started the process of moving away from big tech, slowly, starting with transitioning from gmail to Protonmail. Ramped up on Jan 20 after seeing big tech CEOs at Trump’s inauguration. Windows was the last thing I switched. I had kicked it down the list because I freelance with an audio focus, and Linux is sorely less equipped for audio than Windows or Mac. Said screw it about 2 months ago and made the switch, and I’m now completely free from walled gardens and big tech.

It hasn’t been an easy switch, but I’ve made it work, and in fact have improved my audio quality with Linux. There certainly are limitations, and some things take more effort, but I’ve come to realize a bit of extra work in exchange for freedom is far superior than convenience in a walled garden covered in surveillance.

I installed and ran gentoo in 2005 on a home server that hosted a file sharing repository and php forum for my friends.

In college I ran Ubuntu on my netbook for programming and internet browsing on.

Then in 2021 Windows 11 came out and refused to install on my 2017 laptop. So I threw my hands up and installed EndeavorOS in a dual boot configuration. After a few months, EndeavorOS broke my boot with an update. Threw up my hands again and installed Fedora and haven’t had an issue in years.

I felt limited with the Windows terminal and also to use better window managers

I had to switch to Linux because it wasn’t presented with any option besides Microsoft when I learned how to computer.

Well, "why" is just curiosity and wanting to explore new things. I had been learning some programming on Windows, but had heard rumblings about linux. I explored Red Hat, wasn't wowed. It was fine, but not enough to lure me away.
That was 26 yrs ago.

14 yrs ago, I created a dual boot on my laptop, with Ubuntu/Gnome. After about 2 yrs, I made Ubuntu my daily. A windows auto update tried to wipe linux off my drive, so I put Windows in jail, shrunk the partition as small as I could, and removed it from the boot sequence.
I don't distro hop, I used Ubuntu until earlier this year. It was always good enough, never awesome, but i learned things and felt a whole lote more secure than on windows.

About 6 months ago, I switched to Fedora/KDE. I'm sure I could find lots of benefits to other distros, but I never felt much need to shop around.
BTW, I absolutely love Fedora /KDE in a way I never felt about Ubuntu. Maybe it's just KDE vs Gnome. It just feels so much more comfortable.

Im going to do the opposite and exclaim why I did not sooner. So my career has been in IT and most users machines were windows. It makes it easier to run the same thing and deal with issues yourself that you will have to do for others. Add in I also found it best to utilize the oldest hand me downs for myself. This is mainly to handle the person who wants an upgrade. If their machine is older or less powerful than yours then that is their argument. In addition I did tech support for my wife who I could not convince to go to linux if I was not on it myself and I at one point was buying multiple machines to handle longevity. IE I would buy three of the same laptop ultimately (was good to have a bit of delay so that the last one would be in warranty longest). Anyway my wife just wanted to powerful of hardware as she is, well, spoiled and it was to expensive to double or triple that up. So I started just using whatever old laptops I could find including hers. Also my roles got to the point were I never dealt with users laptops at work although generally I had to use a windows one. So when windows 11 came I suddenly realized all the reasons I had for not moving to linux were pretty much gone. And well the whole screenshot everything and feed it to ai was beyond the pale. I have to say before that too I was getting pretty frustrated playing wack a mole with shutting down telemetry. So I already had used and like zorin in playing around in vms and such and finally just threw it on my actually sorta new/old laptop. So I encourage people who are new or hesitant to put it on their old machine (which is likely way newer than my new/old) but in my case I kept the old one for the few use cases I needed with and do most of the low hanging fruit on linux. Its a bit frustrating as I have been out of work so I won’t buy anything that is not strictly necessary but alls I need is a drive to move over the higher fruit.

I’m a developer and the dev tools on Windows sucked and ate my RAM.

Windows is constantly doing things I didn’t ask it to. I wanted something that didn’t do anything I didn’t ask it to.

I’ve always gave Linux a try for a week or so over many years but then crawled back to Windows. First time I’ve actually found it somewhat viable and I stuck to it for over a month was with Proton release but at that point there were still too many pain points while using it.

Then when Windows started pushing Recall I went to Fedora 38 and it lasted me for almost 6 months before I went back to W11 due to many issues related to just basic use on desktop due to buggy nature of KDE 5 with which I’ve lost patience.

Starting with Fedora 40 and with GNOME starting supporting VRR I’ve been on Linux since and had no real desire to go back since. So it seems that for my use case Linux finally got to the point where Windows is not a necessary thing for me, in fact I dread going back whenever I think about it as now there are things I would miss by switching back to Windows.

Also I use Windows 11 at my job and I really hate it, multi-tasking is so much better even with just single monitor on Linux vs Dual monitor on Windows… Also I just really like GNOME, even before I’ve even tried GNOME I’ve customized my KDE to be GNOME like before even realizing it. And yes, I’ve tried KDE 6 but it’s not for me. I plan to try Hyprland though as that seems more interesting but I dread moving on from Fedora as it works well for me so I don’t really have any need to disto hop.

Similar story to a lot of others here

Around a year ago I got fed up with Microsoft forcefully pushing unwanted and privacy-invading “features” on their users. It scared me to continue using it. I wanted more control and more protection for my privacy. So I decided to install Mint.

I’ve dabbled with Linux in the past and use it extensively in my job, but hadn’t switched significantly to it in the past. One of the biggest blockers being games. I bought a Steam Deck a couple of years ago so I was needing increasingly confident that Linux would work for gaming to some extent. It ended up working very smoothly and I haven’t looked back.

I still have my dual boot, partially because I haven’t bothered to remove windows fully. At this point there’s very little reason for me to not into windows. I’ve only encountered one game I’ve wanted to play that didn’t work in Linux and that was an old game with mods. I might be able to get it working if I really troubleshooted it, but it’s not that important.

Originally? To play with image AI models when they first came out.

Then I got that taste of freedom and Windows felt icky. Haven’t touched that side of my dual boot for non-work purposes in years. Even for work it’s a last resort.

Because I’m a fucking nerd and in '99 using Linux and LaTeX was the nerdiest thing to do. Stayed because it’s fucking awesome.

I remember the announcement of Windows Recall being the final nail in the coffin for me. I’ve been using both for years, but windows was my daily forever. With Win10 support ending, and my “old” machine still chugging along, I’d planned on using Win11 with a modified ISO to get around the TPM requirement. I’d been toying with the idea of going Linux as my daily, but once Recall was announced, that decision was basically made for me.

I am a developer and data scientist. I adopted Linux for work around 2017. Also switched all my PCs over around the same time

I’ve dual booted Linux on and off, mostly Ubuntu every few years over the last 20 years but it never stuck. Windows was acceptable enough for what I wanted, gaming, programming and audio production. Didn’t even mind windows 11 that much however one of their last big updates broke Bluetooth audio for me and apparently that was the last straw so installed endeavour os and haven’t turned back. Only issue is I haven’t quite replaced everything I could do on windows yet, can’t ignore it forever

Grew up on it. My dad set up a Ubuntu 4.10 PC for my brother and I when we were 3/5 (no internet, obv), and it stuck.

Used Windows for a brief time in highschool to be able to play online with friends.

Went right back to Linux when going to university. Will never change back, both for ideological reasons and because Linux is just better.

Next step: NixOS on a phone

My desktop PC ran Windows 10 and didn’t have the magic Windows 11 chip. I tried to do some easy things to get it to recognise my PC as having that chip anyway, but it didn’t work, and I was a bit afraid it’d run like shit with 11 anyway.

So I just decided to try something different and install Linux. First on an old little laptop I had lying around. I tried Mint first, then OpenSUSE - the first because it was supposed to be easy to newcomers, the latter because it’s German (and I liked the way it felt when I tried it on my laptop).

After trying it for a bit, I just decided I’d install it on my desktop as I didn’t want to use Windows 10 without security updates anyway. I’ve now been using OpenSUSE Leap for about half a year, and I’m quite happy.

Switched to Linux in 2002 because I hated using windows & was searching for a better computing experience. Instantly fell in love & have been daily driving Linux ever since…

Computers were either Windows or Mac, they couldn’t be anything else, that was a fact. Then I saw someone using Linux and had so many questions. How? I was given a Knoppix live CD, went home, and booted my home PC into Knoppix and it changed my perception of computers.

I didn’t change over immediately but eventually Ubuntu was handing out install CDs and YouTube was full of wobbly windows and desktop cubes. It wasn’t useful but it looked cool.

I still needed Windows for gaming, but for day to day it was so much easier to use Linux.

Eventually my gaming was exclusively on the Switch and then was I was looking to play certain PC games the Steam Deck was available, so I bought that.

I think Windows 8 was the last one I used and I’ve never had any desire to go back. Linux is just easier.

Because

• it works (pretty fundamental!),
• popular alternatives are pretty much evil.

So, I know you think the 2nd point is a hyperbole. That truly I’m exaggerating. Well, actually no, I’m not. I genuinely believe that closed source OSes are one of the biggest epistemological trauma Mankind ever experienced. It’s right behind fake as an organized political tool. Sure troll farms and political advertising take the cake… but honestly a locked down OS is very very close. Why? Well because it forces people who use a computer to assume the computer is a black box. It’s a thing they can use a certain way. That certain way might be good, lucky them, or bad but regardless they must find a way to make their entire life, professional and private, fit within that very small black box. They are trained, day after day, interaction after interaction, as a lifetime of servitude. The personal computer was supposed to be a “bicycle for the mind” but truly, between closed source OS and the “cloud” (someone else computer, for profit) Mankind has been trained to accept and use a computer as they have been told.

This is an absolute disgrace and should never be accepted. This was bad in the 70s… but nowadays everything around you is a computer. Your computer is a computer (duh) but your phone is a computer, your console is a computer, your headphones are tiny computers, your e-bike is a computer, your doorbell is a computer, your printer is a computer, your washing machine is a computer, heck a light bulb or a button on your wall might be computers!

So… when your entire life is surrounded by small black boxes you are taught never to challenge, your life is miserable.

That’s why I switched to Linux.

Why did you switch to Linux? I’d like to hear your story.

I had to do a job (translations) using MS Word 6.0, on a Win 3.11 PC . It was nearly a month of work and I and my gf urgently needed the money. But MS Word kept crashing and nearly obliterated all our work the day before our deadline. It was the most stressful day of my life.

After that, I installed LaTeX for DOS on that 386 PC, and wrote my university lab reports and later my bachelor thesis on it. It was running like a charm. We printed our own christmas cards using LaTeX’s beautiful old German Schwabacher font.

At uni, at that time I was working with a software called Matlab on Windows 95, and Windows always crashed after a day or two - it later became known there was an integer overflow bug in the driver for an Ethernet card. Well shit, my computations needed to run more than three days. So, I switched to a SUNOS Unix workstation which ran much better and had lots of high quality software, including a powerful text editor program called "Emacs“. I could not buy such a SUN computer for myself because its price was, in todays money, over 50,000 EUR and we did often not know how to pay 350 EUR of monthly rent.

The other day, a friendly colleague which was already doing his PhD showed me his PC, a cheap newish Pentium machine. He had installed a system on it called Linux, which I had never heard of. I logged on and started Emacs on it and I thought it must be broken: Emacs was running within less than half a second whereas on the SUN OS workstation, it would have taken five or ten seconds to start. All the computers software was free. I realized that this computer had a value of over 50,000 EUR of software for a hardware price of 800 EUR. I got an own Linux PC as soon as possible.

Yes that was in 1998. I am now almost exclusively using Linux since 27 years.

The exact shortcomings of proprietary software have changed since, and keep changing. But what is always the same is: Proprietary software does not work on behalf of you, the user and owner of the computer. Who writes the instructions for the computers CPU, controls it, and will use this power to favour their own interests, not yours. Only if you control the software, and use software written by other users, your computer will ultimately work in favour of you.

I did not switch to Linux. I simply never did Windows. I use Linux since the old days of Slackware where you really had to compile ones kernel. That was with kernel 0.97.

ElementaryOS was my gateway drug cuz it was so pretty, I switched to have an OS that made me happy instead of miserable. Dual booted for a while for gaming until I got an hdr monitor and ended up stuck on my (modded for privacy and performance) windows partition more and more, but followed Wayland’s development religiously until plasma finally launched HDR in beta.

I chose arch (btw) cuz I was tired of running Debian-based distros with custom kernels and I generally just don’t like apt, and I don’t see myself ever really wanting to switch again.
(Other than compulsively reinstalling arch to try whatever new shit catches my eye, that doesn’t count)

I’d just built my first PC and had no love for Win 3.1 which was rapidly becoming the default. I wanted to keep codíng having come from from Atari STs and had no desire to learn the windows APIs. An OS that came with C compilers by default was higher level than I was used to as I’d been doing 68000 assembler on the ST, but it was still low level enough.

IIt was also similar enough to the Sun IPCs and IPXs that I was using at university.

I was a long-time user of One Note and about 8 years ago tried to export some of my notes - which was nigh-on impossible to do regardless of whatever MS says. I realised that I didn’t like feeing I didn’t have full control or ownership and that set me off on a course if self-hosting and linux. I’m not completely there but certainly further on than I was then. I like using linux much more than OSX and certainly Windows (which I stopped using about 2012).

Fed up of Microsoft’s BS and it’s inconsistent UI/UX design. Made my very first PC build around last Christmas and have dual-boot of both Linux Mint and Windows 11 and I been mostly fine with Linux.

I just never switched away, my first computer was my dad’s old 2001 Sharp laptop running like lubuntu 12.04. I play around with Haiku and various BSDs sometimes, but I always end up with some Linux distribution as my main OS. Right now it’s NixOS on my laptop and OpenSUSE on my desktop.

I switched because Windows increasingly feels like it is not mine to use control and configure as I see fit. Functions and “features” are intrusive things that Microsoft wants, not me. They make it harder and harder to strip their bullshit out. Apparently I’m not the customer anymore but they still want me to pay for it.

Linux only ever does exactly what I want with total control, for free. It’s damn near perfect.

Originally it was because a class of mine had a program that only worked on Linux.

Had to create dummy emails, fake info for my 8 year old just so they could have their own kids logon. Despite it being a kids account MS still thought it was fine to show news and photos from Gaza. Spent an hour before nuking win 11. Running Linux mint, just works for us.

Starting of with some history… I have run Microsoft operating systems since MS-DOS 3.22 and Windows 2.11 (not a typo). I was one of the first in our high school to install Windows 3.0 on one of the school lab machines off of floppy disks when it launched. I have been an early adopter on almost all the Windows OS’s and had a powerful enough PC at the time not to be too bothered about Vista even. I work with Microsoft based development (Windows Server and nowadays Azure) so Windows has always been what worked in my career. That hasn’t changed.

That being said, my computing history started off on a Apple IIc, followed by the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Amiga later on. I installed Linux the first time on my 486sx with 4MB of RAM using Slackware with a pre 1.0 kernel. Linux never stuck then as I couldn’t run the applications i needed and games I wanted. I came back to Linux every 5 or so years but it never stuck for the same reasons.

This changes about 5 or so years ago. A chain of things happened over time and it started at home.

• I installed Ubuntu 20.04 on an old laptop and it seemed to have what I needed on it. Mainly browsing and so on - no high demands. The web had moved away from client side plugins and the web just worked.
• Windows 10 nagging to install Windows 11 on my HTPC, when the hardware was too old. Ubuntu 20.04 replaced that install, and the software just worked (browser + Kodi)
• Broadcom purchasing VMWare meant moving away from ESXi in my HomeLab - Proxmox turned out to be mature for what I wanted. I now have a 3 node Proxmox cluster.
• A hard drive crash in one of my Synology NAS boxes led me down a rabbit hole resulting in adopting TrueNAS Scale and ZFS.
• Windows 11 was getting on my nerves for the last couple of years at work. Last year I did the research and took the leap to install Ubuntu 24.04 on my new work laptop. A lot of tools I use are open source - they have reached a decent level of maturity. Microsoft tech such as Dotnet, VSCode, PowerShell and Azure CLI just work for what I need. LibreOffice does a good enough job replacing MS Office. A VM with Visual Studio and MS Office fills the gap - I boot the VM a couple of times a week as needed.
• I installed Ubuntu 24.04 on a secondary desktop last year at home to see if it would fill my needs at home amid the launch of Recall. This resulted in me wiping my main gaming rig a couple of months ago, installing Ubuntu 25.04 as main and a smaller partition with Windows to mainly support flight sims (MSFS and X-Plane - an area where software and hardware support is still lacking on Linux).
• The old laptop that started off with Ubuntu back in 2020 is now distro hopping - Fedora, Debian, OpenSUSE and currently running EndeavourOS. They are fun playing around with and familiarizing myself with but haven’t quite been work adopting fully so far.

The end result today is that I have one VM in Proxmox running Windows Server and a dual boot on my gaming rig running Windows 11 LTSC. Everything else is either Linux or FreeBSD.

It took a couple of months to get completely comfortable with the changes in workflow of daily driving Linux as my main OS, but it settled and it feel almost nostalgic to boot into Windows now.

After using win 11 for about a year I got tired of that shit. Every version since 98made the settings menu harder and harder to find whatever I was looking for and this is true for everything in that OS. Save a file? 5 clicks at least just to be able to pick WHERE I want it. Wtf.

It was driving me insane. Bazzite, easiest OS for what I use my computer for and not looking back.

Cause ‘muh freedom’

The younger users may not be aware of this… but privacy and freedom were big concerns about the internet since at least the early nineties. We knew that the moment of being ignored was only going to last a little while and it was commonly discussed. And it was already discussed about how insecure windows was and rumors of their back doors and the like.

In that light… when I first heard about linux in 1995 and gave slackware a try one weekend I knew that eventually I was going to switch. But I was/am a graphics artist and 1995 was too soon for doing that kind of stuff at the professional level on linux. But I knew the day would come, so I consciously started switching to open source apps instead of cracked proprietary apps.

Around 2006-2007 there was a lot of talk about projects like Ubuntu making linux highly functional for a graphics person and relatively “easy” to get running. By that time the only proprietary software I was using was Adobe, which I only cared about using while at work and a couple games. And even then, running adobe inside of virtualbox was an option. I dual booted and after about 1-2 months I reached the point where I finally was comfortable enough to not ever go back. After about a year and realizing I hadn’t booted into windows for about 4 months, I erased that partition. I’ve never looked back.

I was a Windows user as a kid in the 80s & 90s doing pirate installs of 3.11 and later 95 for friends and family. I got into “computers” early and was pretty dedicated to the “Windows is the best!” camp from a young age. I had a friend who was a dedicated Mac user though, and she was bringing me around. The idea of a more-stable, virus-free desktop experience was pretty compelling.

That all changed when I went to school and had access to a proper “Mac lab” though. Those motherfuckers crashed multiple times an hour, and took the whole OS with them when they did it. What really got to me though was the little “DAAAAAAAAAAA!” noise it would make when you had to hard reboot it. It was as if it was celebrating its inadequacy and expected you to participate… every time it fucked you over and erased your work.

So yeah, Macs were out.

I hadn’t even heard of Linux in 2000 when I first discovered the GPL, which (for some reason) I conflated with GNOME. I guess I thought that GNOME was a new OS based on what I could only describe as communist licensing. I loved the idea, but was intimidated by the “ix” in the name. “Ix” meant “Unix” to me, and Unix was using Pine to check email, so not a real computer as far as I was concerned.

It wasn’t until 2000 that I joined a video game company called “Moshpit Entertainment” that I tried it. You see, the CEO, CTO, and majority of tech people at Moshpit were huge Linux nerds and they indoctrinated me into their cult. I started with SuSe (their favourite), then RedHat, then used Gentoo for 10 years before switching to Arch for another 10+.

TL;DR: Anticapitalism and FOSS cultists lead me into the light.

Windows 95/98 sucked shit. I liked the games, but the kernels were terrible.

I dual booted or ran two machines Linux (RedHat 5.2 to 6.2, wtf was up with 7?), then whatever worked (usually Debian based) for a while. Mostly used Linux alone for years, but used Win7 for a bit. That one was okay, but Microsoft can’t build dev tools on their own OS to save their lives.

It’s been Linux Mint for a long time now on desktops and Debian/Armbian on servers.

Basically, I’ve been mainlining Linux since about '97 and it’s doing me just fine. Works great for my kids and wife. We’re a mostly Linux household. It saves me a ton of headaches. Easy to install, patch, and almost no other maintenance.

My laptop has been discontinued by the manufacture for a couple years now and with support for Windows 10 ending, I wanted to increase the lifespan of my device so I looked into Linux. The lack of ads, bloat, and spyware are also major selling point to me.

For me, Microsoft’s original sin was removing the Start menu and the Classic and Aero themes in Windows 8. I wanted something better than questionable UxTheme patches that broke with every major update, and it was during that search that I learned there is more to the world than macOS and Windows.

But it was the invasive telemetry and bloatware that finally made me take action. I’m sure the spike in blood pressure and heart rate whenever I had to undo the asinine default settings on every new install and major update was not good for my health. All of the debloat utilities felt like I was just putting lipstick on a pig.

The ability to customize the interface to my heart’s content also got me to learn about and appreciate the inner workings of Linux. I now have a couple setups on Chicago95 XFCE and a couple on AeroThemePlasma KDE. Despite how much I like the familiar UI of Windows, I wouldn’t ever look back to using Windows itself.

Because OS/2 was about to be discontinued.

I switched to Linux because of Linux gaming. Yes, I am completely serious!

Back in 2015 I had Lenovo laptop with only 2GB of RAM. Windows 7 consumed more than half of that and DotA 2 took over 2 minutes to load the map. The game was laggy. FPS was terrible even on low settings.

On another hand Ubuntu 14.04 consumed only ~350 MB of RAM. DotA on Linux loaded map in seconds. FPS was slightly better, but the game itself didn’t feel so laggy anymore.

Linux was (and still is) my only viable solution for gaming on low spec hardware.

Why would you assume I switched?

-edit- It appears my comment wasn’t clear… I never used anything else than Linux on my working systems…

Windows kept reinstalling edge and copilot

Got a laptop that came with Vista, but really could have only handled XP well (opening an app on a fresh install involved waiting and preparing for the app to lag when in use). Put Linux on it and had no problem with gnome2

The moment i saw windows 11 had telemetry. I was SO mad at windows at that moment. So i erased it from existence.

A lot of little things. Privacy, Big Tech surveillance, ads in Start, Onedrive bs, gaming compatibility on Linux.

Had to reinstall Windows XP one time too many

Purely to record / watch TV, films, etc.

I tried Windows Media Center (XP with some tweaks) and it was dire…

Found MythTV and decided I needed to “learn Linux” to get it done.

Now everything (except my work’s laptop) is Linux (Arch btw)

Commodore’s bankruptcy in 1994 was the end of the Amiga, which forced me to switch to something else.

At the time, the choice of hardware I could afford and operating systems that didn’t suck was extremely limited, a PC with Linux was pretty much the only practical choice and I’ve stuck with that ever since.

Saw a screenshot of enlightenment in a magazine and thought it looked cool

I didn’t manage to disable accessibility features in Windows anymore, due to a bug I assume

Because Linux had a choice of desktop environments to try out. What a playground.

My first peek was with Wubi. >2008 ish? Then Knoppix had a live boot. Then all the other live boots followed. Very important easy first step.

I’m now on Plasma, tweaked to suit me.

Apple stopped pushing security updates for my MacBook.
Now I can never use anything but Linux.

I switched January this year.

1. Windows 10 end of life was on the horizon
2. Programing on windows was a lot of hoops to jump through and i had heard Linux would be better
3. Didn’t want windows 11/copilot.

Tried dual booting Ubuntu and XP back around 2006, didn’t really see the point because gaming on Windows.

2020 got a Raspberry Pi and set up Retropie which gave me a good intro to Linux. Tried to get away from big tech in 2021 and was dual booting Mint and Windows 10. Ended up spending more time in 10 because gaming.

Got an old laptop from work and it was perfect to throw Mint on because no way it was going to handle gaming. Then I set up a media server, initially with the the Pi and then bought a cheap mini for it - and ran it on Mint. I’m primarily a console gamer now so gaming is far less of a concern for me on PC. Mint everything now.

I could distro hop or at least try something else, and maybe I will at some stage. But I’m too happy with Mint/Cinnamon to bother.

Back when I was a freshman in college, I had a regular laptop (Sony Vaio) and at the time netbooks were popular and my girlfriend (now wife) had got me one for Christmas.

Win 7 starter was garbage, XP was fine, but not ideal. I ended up trying out Ubuntu netbook remix since it was supposed to be lighter on resources. At the time I was a pre med student and wanted something for knocking out documents, and reading papers with enough battery to get me until I had to go to work. The iPad wasn’t out yet so that wasn’t an option.

I had a ton of fun getting it working, even the Broadcom chip was a fun challenge. Once it was working, I just really liked the look and feel. I preferred the Unix file structure to windows as well as the terminal experience, using bash vs powershell.

I ended up writing a few programs and apps for myself specifically for that netbook, and it quickly became my primary way of interacting with a computer. I eventually ported my Sony over which had the challenge of writing a couple drivers to get some things working with minimal compatibility.

Following this, I switched from pre med to software engineering and eventually graduated with a degree and I have now been working with software and using Linux ever since. Even now, I am the sole Linux system administrator in the company I work for and manage a handful of servers and deployments.

My first contact with Linux was via amateur radio. I didn’t want to hook my radio up to my main PC in case I wired something wrong, so I got one of those newfangled Raspberry Pis, circa 2013. Raspbian Wheezy was my first distro.

Not long after, my old laptop died and I needed a new one. Bought a Dell, it came with WIndows 8.1. Holy shit what an unusable pile. I hated that OS a lot. And then the laptop outright died. I was going back to school, I needed a PC to do school work on, and I’ve had flesh wounds I was satisfied with more than Dell’s warranty support. It took them pretty much an entire semester of “We’ll fix it in three weeks or so, when the one guy who does field repairs in your state will look at it”, “it’s fixed” it breaks almost instantly, before I finally demanded they replace the entire machine. Which they did, with a different, lesser, model. I am no longer a customer of Dell.

This left me doing all of my school work on a Raspberry Pi 1B, and then a Pi 2, for about 3 months. So I got a bit of a crash course in managing a Linux system.

Once I finally got a working laptop, Windows 8.1 felt more alien to me than Linux Mint did. It would actually have been more work to learn Windows 8.1 than Mint Cinnamon. So I became a full time Linux user.

I was using windows 2000 and suddenly got dozens of popups in internet explorer. I didn’t even use internet explorer, I used Netscape for all of my web browsing. I had dabbled a little with BSD and Linux so I just took the plunge. My local bookstore had a SuSE book with CDs so I bought it and never looked back. I’ve distro hoped a few times but keep going back to Suse.

This will date me, but I first developed a hatred for Windoze when they used their monopoly power and political payoffs to illegally crush Netscape. I switched to Linux in 2003 and never looked back.

1. fun, I like trying out new software
2. I love the philosophy of free software.
3. fuck Microsoft and windows.
4. It’s actually just better

(I switched last year)

I used them side by side for nearly two decades, don’t really remember what was my first distro or why I needed it, but when I tried Bazzite I finally realized I had absolutely no need for Windows anymore and finally got rid of it.

Around 1998 in middle school that’s what I thought all the ‘hackers’ were using.

I started dabbling in around 2000, getting sick of the instability of Windows, and it seeming like the next logical step of geekdom.

I tried a LOT of distros. Mandrake, Connectiva, Red Hat to Fedora Core, Slackware, Debian Woody, Crux, etc etc. I drifted in a Debian-centric circle until I finally landed on Arch. Lost my way for a bit during my IT career, supporting Windows I ended up just using that. But I’m back to Arch now as my daily, Debian for some networking projects, and a bit of Fedora from time to time when I need to spin something up quick.

1. I’m a lifelong contrarian.
2. I refuse to overpay into the locked-down Apple ecosystem.
3. Windows has become worse with every release.
4. I use Arch btw.

I think we used damn small linux cds to bypass computer stuff when I was in school, then I finally completely switched when steam dropped support for windows 7. I like tinkering, but I am very much of the philosophy that I just want my hobbies to work, so I never thought about linux until windows really started trying to harvest me.

i switched from ms dos to parabola because im afraid of the nsa getting their hands on my cp files.

I got sick of my devices spying on me

All schools here teach free software. No other choice for now

I heard two talks around 2001 or so. one by Wolfram, after which I swore never to use mathematica again. and one by stallman after which I switched completely to Linux and never went back to windows.

still on Linux 25y later. went from days when getting sound working was a challenge , to today when even obscure tablets work out of the box.

started with red hat. used Gentoo for about 5y. then debian for 10, and now arch.

went from the old “crux” and metacity, to openbox to fvwm to gnome to kde plasma

i remember the old days I was envious of Mac users for transparency and the present windows features, and I ran this utility called Skippy that would screenshot windows and present them… all these features are now built in to the wm now, so no tweaking needed

Same as most people. OSs have just evolved to become systems made to serve their creators rather than their “customers”.

Windows wants to steal all your data and then use it to shove ads in your face.

Apple also constantly tries to push their own products and services through the OS, not to mention continually pushing the boundaries of irrepairability and locking you in an ecosystem. And just being extremely expensive.

For fun, in the 90’s. Windows was cool still, but what Linux was at the time was just fashinating and I just loved it.

During early high school years I heard about this thing called linux and there’s something that’s ubuntu, and said, why not? downloaded the ISO, installed on my USB with rufus, had panic attacks installing the dual boot myself for the first time, and done. After 2 months I switched to Arch (best thing I did) and ever since I’m deep diving in this Programming-Linux-Cybersecurity rabbit hole that I’m quite enjoying.

Fast forward to now, I’m using LFS and compiling my own kernel. My main desktop is a T440p with 4 OSes installed (maybe adding Plan9 to the mix if it supports my system)

I’m planing to mess more with “my own” distro thing maybe installing a Linux system without GNU: Linux + sinit + sbase + ubase + musl

This feels like a fireplace for all Linux users to meet :D

When Microsoft announced the sunset of Windows 10.

I was still in uni at that time. Started with Ubuntu, disliked snaps and moved to Pop. Stayed there for last 5-ish (?) years. It does what I want it to do, I don’t care about switching distros now.

I switched while studying Cyber Security (it wasn’t a good course) probably because I figured a more techy OS is better.

Post subject:

Why?

Post content:

Why did you switch to Linux? I’d like to hear your story.

I feel like I’ve been click-baited.

Back in 1999 my windows laptop got hacked and my bank identity was accessed. On a Clean Windows I had Just Installed.That did it. I formatted my hard disk and installed first Linux Mandrake and finally settled on Debian Potato . Never looked back.

~2007, Compiz wobbly windows and the desktop cube was my gateway via Ubuntu, after a few years shifted over to Debian with XFCE

I used Linux for a good while 20 something years ago. Mostly for recording music and some gaming (you can say what you want, cube/sauerbraten/openarena/… I had a great time that I look back to fondly).

Then got back on windows around vista all the way to w11 7/8/10 all “ok” OS experiences imo.

11… man, this thing frustrates me so much. Everything you try to do is like getting gaslighted. Updates/reboots whenever it feels like, regardless of what you have going on. (My setup requires a few keystrokes at boot, if not the fan goes nuts)

Coming back to Linux feels like a breath of fresh air. Especially now that installing/using it has become a breeze compared to back then. It does what you ask. Why doesn’t big tech corp get that through its thick skull?

Also, my data is mine.

stickycomics.com/…/update_for_your_computer.jpg

When I first tried it out in a VM, it was just a pinch of curiosity. Some people argue for Linux, so, maybe there’s some merit to that? And, unlike MacOS, you can install it anywhere without all the hackery.

When I actually tried it (my first one was Manjaro KDE, and that’s what I stuck with for my first 1,5 years later when I decided to go for a real install), I was amazed at how smooth and frictionless everything is.

The system is blazing fast, even on a limited VM, there’s no bloat anywhere, no ads, no design choices to trick you into doing something you don’t want to. The interface is way more ergonomic and out of the way at the same time. Seriously, Microsoft, do learn from KDE, pretty please.

So, when I moved to a new home, I decided that my virtual home needs an upgrade as well. I installed Linux alongside Windows (on two different physical drives), and ran it as dual-boot ever since. Not that I address Windows that much (normally about once in two to three months), but it’s handy to keep around.

Later, I went into some distro-hopping and also got a laptop, which has become my testing grounds. After trying various options, namely Mint, Arch/EndeavourOS, Debian, Fedora, and OpenSUSE, I gravitated towards the latter, and I use it as my regular daily driver on both my desktop (Tumbleweed) and laptop (Slowroll). I love how it manages to keep the system both up-to-date and extremely stable, and has everything set up just right (except KDE defaults, what the hell is wrong with SUSE folks on that end? Luckily, it takes 5 minutes to change). So, there it is!

I heard that the Playstation 3 would be able to run something called Linux and I wanted to become some kind of Neo😅

Then I went on and off between Windows and Ubuntu until fully switching to Linux around 2020.

Running Fedora with Gnome these last few years.

I’ve used Windows since version 95. I even learned how to use version 3.1 back in the day (people actually used to take classes for using the PC!). Every new version after 98 was a pain in the ass, they’d get rid of a lot of functionality, change menus, and add crap no one asked for. XP might be a nostalgic memory now, but I thought the UI was horrible at first. Same with 7 and 10.

I first learned about Linux through forums, and then I found out about Canonical sending CDs with Ubuntu for free. So I gave it a try and I liked it. There was a lot of tinkering to do unfortunately. Stuff like the cheap ADSL modem I was given by my ISP weren’t recognized, so I had to dual boot. Eventually I found some file from one dude who had the exact same modem and knew what to do, and so I was able to go online in Ubuntu. (All of that ended up being very useful knowledge, though. If something happens on my computer, I don’t panic anymore, I roll up my sleeves and try to figure out how to fix it.)

I’ve been alternating between Windows and Ubuntu ever since. I switched permanently to Windows 10 a few years ago for some reason I don’t remember. And last year I switched to Pop! OS after finding out about Recall. I was pleasantly surprised by how far gaming has come in Linux, so the switch is permanent this time. I will switch distros, however, once I switch my hardware to AMD.

The final straw for me was when windows 11 removed the windows 10 start bar ability to move the start bar to the top of the screen.

Therapy

Back in the day I wanted to be a 1337 hAx0R so I installed Linux to get my wifi adapter into monitor mode so I could pwn wifi. Eventually I just didn’t leave Linux, probably in part because a few friends of mine ran it and refused to run Windows, we used to have LAN parties fairly regularly so yeah just convenient.

Copilot.

Lack of support for Win10. Also, I’m a contrarian who doesn’t want to be beholden to the whims of a multinational corporation.

I’d dabbled with Linux and multiple distros in the past and while I liked what I saw I had my frustrations. Various distros had their pros and cons and I wasn’t as technically capable back then.

After Windows 11’s unnecessary launch I gave Windows 10 LTSC a try. I don’t think it was LTSC specific but my experience was buggy as hell and would BSOD every other day. So I thought I’d force myself to use Linux and have used Arch or other flavors of Arch ever since. No sink or swim, I was just going to live with it and not deal with Microsoft’s bullshit anymore.

I had a not-very-computer-savvy friend with Windows 7 who didn’t want to upgrade to 11 but Steam and some other programs stopped working for him, so I tried out Mint as a dual boot option and told myself that I’d switch back to Windows when I needed to.

I ended up never booting to Windows again; everything I needed to run worked just fine in Linux, either natively, or with Wine, or with alternatives that were actually better than what I was using in Windows.

I bought my son a cheap little computer, basically a windows version of a Chromebook. When windows needed an update there wasn’t enough memory to perform it, and the computer would no longer connect to WiFi. I thought this was very dumb so I figured out how to remove windows and install Mint. Was impressed by how well it worked.

When I needed a new computer I bought a $150 thinkpad and installed Fedora. Been a fedora main ever since

I was not about to put up with windows co-pilot or recall and had already put up with enough ads and bugs.

I had been running Debian on my laptop for a year without a problem and then finally Windows 11 started doing this when I was trying to update:

<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/8028d18c-6140-4696-91cb-5c9e491847a3.png">

Click check for updates? Same result. Wait a week and try again? Same result.

I could no longer trust that the OS was secure from even 3rd parties, so I pulled the trigger and installed Debian 12 - later upgrading to Debian 13 when it released.

There just is never any going back now - Linux is just waaaaaaay too good.

Now I just need something similar to happen with phones.

My first Linux PC was a steam deck. The next year I got a laptop for school and thought I might as well install Ubuntu to learn a thing or two. The next year I broke my Ubuntu install and decided to graduate to Arch just because I had the opportunity. That year was 2024 and after November 5th I decided that technofascists and proprietary software could fuck right off because that was one thing about life that I could control at that point. I stopped using windows entirely a few months later.

Built a new computer and Microsoft was pushing thoes full screen win 11 ads. That was the end for me.

Had a 6-year old Macbook Pro that was increasingly difficult to use due to the small SSD-drive (I think only 128GB?). Coudn’t really update the OS without uninstalling most stuff due to this. In addition, I had started to get the urge to tinker with stuff again, but ran into roadblocks often (often following a guide to do something in the terminal only to get stuck at inatalling something from apt). Same time I got more and more fed up with Big Tech, so when I was buying a new laptop to replace it, the choice to avoid Apple and Microsoft was obvious. Having used a terminal on macOS, doing work on HPC-clusters (which obviously ran Linux) and moving an increasing amount of my workflow to Got Bash on Windows on my work machine (all three of which reinforced my level of comfortability with the terminal and desire to use it), the prospects of the terminal was more enticing than frightening.

Now I have been a full-time Linux user for three years, my partner, brother and mother have since switched, I manage some bare metal Linux servers for work and IT has finally agreed to allow me to ditch Windows for Linux (although they are taking their sweet time setting it up, so I am still waiting to actually get it).

I saw fvwm in a magazine and it had a really cool 3D look to it and I wanted that. I had never seen anything like that. We were very poor and I only had an old computer, a 486, so it was either pirate software (and there was no version of Windows in our language) or use Linux.

I ended up on Red Hat from a magazine and then later Slackware. I liked Window Maker so I stayed on that for two decades. Learning Linux gave me a constructive hobby, introduced me to free software philosophy, and gave me technology skills. We moved to the United States. When I was 15 or 16, I helped a college math professor install hardware on Linux. When he found out that I was dropping out of a very racist high school, he provided support and I ended up graduating from their college. Those Linux skills came in handy and helped start a career.

I have only ever used Windows to upgrade firmware on a laptop or to download an ISO so I could replace Windows. Like everyone else, I was enamoured with macOS back in the 2000’s but couldn’t afford one and when I finally could, it couldn’t do sloppy focus and that was a pet peeve of mine so I just returned it and got a used ThinkPad.

I moved back to Asia. Now I use sway on Debian and get to ride my bicycle to work and my kids grow up better than I did, so life is good.

It was a challenge I wanted to conquer too but also I increasingly felt like I didn’t own my computer. The software was increasingly cutting me out of the ability to modify and use it the way I wanted.

I spent a lot of time in Gentoo early on where patching software was an overlay and recompile away and it was great testing early amd64 bugs and pushing the limits with gaim and reverse engineering chat protocols.

I was doing some dual booting then but as i built a career in web development, it became more and more my solo driver. Running the same platform you’re developing for is incredibly convenient and Linux runs the web.

Now I can’t imagine running windows. Using it and helping people on it is just a miserable experience for me.

I really, truly, seriously hate modern implementations of AI and am willing to make concessions in my life to avoid using it. Windows 11 forcing Copilot was my last straw for using Microsoft.

I got a job writing software for Linux servers.

After spending my workday on a mature stable operating system, going home to Windows or Mac became frustrating, to me.

Various challenges required paid-but-still-kind-of-buggy software on Windows or Mac, that I had mature stable solutions for on Linux.

I spent many years installing free software recompiled for Windows (in cases where it was available) so that I would have the same quality of tools at home as I had at work.

Eventually Ubuntu and Linux Mint hit an ease of use that made me feel silly last time I went through the effort that comes with activating Windows.

It’s a long story. But back in the time, when there was a company called Commodore, I used Amiga computers, because I didn’t like Microsoft and MS-DOS. When Commodore went bankrupt and my Amiga started to fade away I was forced to buy a PC. And because I didn’t want to have Windows 95, I bought S.uS.E. Linux and that’s the way I am now. And I’m happy to be Linux user all these years.

I started a masters program and I was assigned an an office computer with MintOS that contained all the software and data for my research project. Unfortunately, my advisor couldn’t remember the password so my first task was breaking into the computer. You’d think being able to externally reset the root password would turn me away from Linux, but the ease and functionality of the terminal shell really made sense to me. Plus now I know how to better secure my Linux systems.

FreeBSD didn’t have working nvidia drivers for amd64 in 2006, so, Linux it was.

Switch implies I only have one computer … I have many, including several servers.

Ever since I have memory I’ve been a tinkerer and linux being OS enables you to do amazing things … along with open source software.

I (dont) use arch BTW … Windows on my gaming PC (because of antichieat amongst other compatibility foes) Mint on my personal tablet and Proxmox on my servers

win10 1709 decided to wipe some of my files.

Homework.

College used linux because I did computer science.
Topic: concurrency. College then gave us a programming assignment that required adding a code library, which I had never done before or even heard of, and thus did not understand.
Since this was a library that was platform-specific, they had made one library for linux and one for windows.
Way too late I got the gist of it but still couldn’t install the library.
Since the question contained the linux directory structure I was convinced that the windows library was broken and every other college student finished this task in Linux.
Thus I installed Linux.
Ten years later I understood and finished the assignment.

My heat was out and I needed a way to warm my apartment so installed Gentoo on my Dell XPS. /s

That was around the time Windows 2000 was coming out and I couldn’t afford a copy. I’d been dabbling for a year or two before. That was my first and last dual boot computer. MythTV really sold me on linux.

I have older hardware that would not be compatible with windows 11. I’ve recently started becoming a privacy nerd and thought this would be the perfect time to switch to Linux. I’ve been running Linux mint for a year and I will never go back, there is no reason to 😁 I wish I had done it sooner

I was tired of Windows 95.

Plus I was in grad school and was trying to avoid studying.

I wanted to code in C. I saw some tutorials for windows and found it very complex, but I saw one in linux where the person just gcc hello.c. And since then I’ve fallen in love

SSD died that had windows 10 on it. During the re-installation process I got fed up with onedrive and skype popping up every reboot despite being told not to start with windows multiple times. Attempt to disable, the next round of windows update brings them back. I didn’t even have the absolute basics up and running before I lost all patience for it. Downloaded several distros, setup like 10 different USB sticks to boot them all. Cycled through them for a bit poking around and testing out. Landed on Garuda Linux kinda by chance, but it has been great. It was so refreshing to have a computer feel like it’s mine again.

Tired of the constant pop ups in windows 10. The constant upselling of their product.

An OS shouldn’t get in the way of what you are doing and Windows was always popping up some bullshit.

Simple. Windows caused a lot of Problems I simply could Not solve.

Besides that Microsoft became Something I do Not want to Support much longer or willing to giveaway my privacy.

And yeah. Linux Runs better.

I learned to use linux decently in school. Used it for servers, etc at home.

Windows had its auto updatee, and eventually drove me mad enough to dual boot. When the updates started crash boot loops and I literally couldn’t use it anymore… I finally swore off Windows.

Its not all sunshine and rainbows, but i have had a much better time woth Lonux, and feel much better about it.

Looking at all the sheisty things theyve talked about and/or attempted, such as screen recording everything for AI, contemplating ads in file explorer, forced one drive integration slowing basic operations down… I have no desire whatsoever to return.

Because Windows XP was a hot pile of garbage.

One day, my network driver broke. None of the discs worked. None of those incoherent “wizards” Windows loves to use worked. Reinstalling Windows broke more things. I couldn’t get online for about 2 months.

One day I was at the bookstore and saw a Fedora Core book with an OS disc. I thought it was cool so I convinced mom to get it. Went home, blundered my way through the install and everything just worked.

I cannot for the life of me understand how XP is routinely loved by everyone. It looked like a muddy fisher-price toybox.

Switched from Mac (still on mac hardware via asahi alarm) for more feeedom and not having to deal with gatekeeper

Dark patterns, kajouling, telemetry, settings that reset on upgrades, and the overall feeling that my computer is not truly mine.

I literally just wanted a login with a password experience with no ads or sketchy telemetry from my OS. Like how Windows 7 worked or at least how I thought it worked.

I had a meeting at work with a product team lead at Microsoft. Went home and installed Linux that evening.

Because of the continual enshittification of Windows 11 with each major update.

<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/94b6927b-72ea-41a8-aefb-1a536ecef352.png">

My computer was getting older and slower and I couldn’t afford a new one and wanted to squeeze as much performance out of it as I could. That and, I heard it was all the rage with hackers and I fancied myself a bit of a hacker.

In high school in like 2007/8ish my friend told me you could get a free disc with an operating system called Ubuntu on it sent to you in the mail, so I requested one out of curiosity and put it on the iMac in my room, and fell in love with it. I still have the disc, even though I’m more of a Fedora person now.

Because windows has become spyware and enough shit works to be worth the hassle. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a constant struggle. I have many hobbies, and for some of them it’s really annoying to be on Linux. Programming is awesome on Linux, gaming is for the most part fine, music production gets a lot more iffy and some of the photography stuff isn’t really cooperating. But I’ll just have to endure it, I’m almost one year in and for the most part everything works in some way or another. I only start Windows once in a few months now.

Back in 2002 it was eye candy.

Compiz compositor. The 3D cube and wobly windows.

And still Linux can be the most beautiful UI of all OSes out there.

Always tinkered with Linux, since eeeearly Red Hat days, but took the first full move when I set up my home lab and needed to host some docker containers with hardware pass-through.

Turned out my hardware was a bit too new for the kernel I had to install so ended up teaching myself a lot in terms trying to get everything to work.

Because of that I got quite comfortable on the terminal and from then, the UI suddenly made sense, because I understood better the concepts underneath.

Run three boxes with various versions of Linux now, a couple more if you count dual booting, a couple more if you count Mac as some kind of Frankenstein UNIX.

I tried many times before, mostly pushed by friends nerdier than me. Always failed.

Now I am on Mint since a few months pushed just by myself not accepting AI slop force fed to me by my computer and having become very protective of my privacy since GDPR (I am the DPO at my company).

I must say it has become incredibly user-friendly (at least on Mint CE) and as a gamer, I am very satisfied with both performance and variety (I would have said GabeN be praised one month ago, but I am slowly moving my library to GOG/Heroic, for similar reasons, so the praise has to be shared).

I started by hating Microsoft even before Linux. It was the day I saw the 3.5” disks of Win3.11 didn’t have the tab to write them. My reaction was “those are OUR disks, not Microsoft’s”. I was using then DRDOS and later OS/2. Also I used an Atari STE. So not much love for Windows. And when I saw KDE (maybe 2.0) I installed Linux.

Went to Linux when I was a teenager, went back to Windows.

My return however is a lot more bittersweet. One of my cats died. The other cat went into mourning. Wanted to keep him company while doing my shit, so I took my old laptop and installed Xubuntu on it. While I was using it I realised that Linux had come a long, long way since I last used it and I could use it as a daily driver. Got a new laptop soon after and installed Mint on it.

Then Windows on my main PC started demanding I update. Realised I couldn’t afford to, both software and hardware wise, so I decided to go full Linux. Never looked back. Typing this on my Laptop running Fedora while I try kill time before an interview.

TL;DR: I came back to Linux because I wanted to hang out with my cat while he mourned.

I switched because freeBSD didn’t have drivers for my voodoo3 gfx card. I switched to FreeBSD from windows because I messed up my litestep config that was setup to pretend that it was an X desktop and I thought I might as well use the real thing. Dualbooted for a while for games though.

My dad was a software developer so growing up, there were Linux textbooks in the bookcases. Sorry if was inspired by my dad to try Linux in and off in my teens. Was fun a kid failing and then succeeding to install Linux and distrohop through the various flavors of Ubuntu and what not.

Then in university my cheap laptop was running poorly on Windows 10 say I started experimenting again with Arch, Mankato since I didn’t really need any fancy proprietary software.

Finally, now in 2025, just pissed off with Windows and decided I’d go all in with Linux on my desktop gaming PC. It worked well enough or my laptop and my home server, and really considered that it was not games that required anti cheat that I really loved, so I just dove in with Bazzite.

My old laptop was struggling with windows and it was losing support, so i consigned myself to finally unlocking the fourth greg within my soul: Open Source Greg.

cuz windows sucks major balls and i was sick of it breaking itself (and the spyware)

I had been thinking about it for a while. I had played with linux before on an old laptop, but not seriously, though I had been getting more frustrated with windows every time it updated it seemed. I then got the urged to play an old game of mine that i had picked up on a steam sale recently that i hadn’t played in years. It took hours of tinkering and web sleuthing to get it to run, then i played 20 min had to run to town, so I shut down my PC and bam. Windows update. Game no longer worked again. The next weekend I installed Linux mint, then Fedora, then the weekend Bazzite the weekend after that. The game I wanted to play on windows worked right out of the box on Proton. I’ve had less problems overall with Linux than Windows too. Most of the problems I did have early on were also self inflicted. Pro-tip don’t try to remove then re-install the lastest python manually in mint. It breaks everything apparently, luckily (unlike Windows) its very easy to re-install. It’s been about 7 months now.

Windows didn’t work, linux did.

3.11 and Slackware respectively.

It was easier for work.

Because open source, like the right to privacy and the diversity it can offer, always has something for everyone.

In the end, W*'s recent choices, such as ReCall, and the intrusions into our privacy, finally convinced me to begin my transition.

Until now, I had been observing opinions for the past five years.

The fact is that I am not a programmer or a specialist in these subjects, just a very small amateur, and Linux has long been off-putting.

Having the time and a computer to experiment is not that easy. But with an old computer, I finally have the opportunity to test Linux Mint… Others will undoubtedly follow.

I always say that to change operating systems, you first have to figure out how to replace proprietary software or applications with open source ones, because most of them are also available on Linux.

That’s what I did on my mobile, and now the next step is to choose a custom ROM such as Lineage or /e/OS, etc.

I don’t like corprofascism.

Mint rules so far. Been enjoying it for several months now!

I learned how far gaming on Linux had come, so during COVID I decided to try it out. I wiped my Windows 10 installation, and installed Ubuntu on it (later Pop!_OS, then Garuda, and Arch on other machines), and got to work figuring things out. I didn’t know if it’d stick, because I was still unsure of it as I wasn’t sure I’d get all of my games working. But, I got settled within a week, and over time things just got better. At that time I was so used to Windows’ bloat and other… “features” that I became blind to them. After more than five years using Linux, using Windows even for a few minutes is quite the shock!