Personally, I’m not brand loyal to any particular OS. There are good things about a lot of different operating systems, and I even have good things to say about ChromeOS. It just depends on what a user needs from an operating system.
Most Windows-only users I am acquainted with seem to want a device that mostly “just works” out of the box, whereas Linux requires a nonzero amount of tinkering for most distributions. I’ve never encountered a machine for sale with Linux pre-installed outside of niche small businesses selling pre-built PCs.
Windows users seem to want to just buy, have, and use a computer, whereas Linux users seem to enjoy problem solving and tinkering for fun. These two groups of people seem as if they’re very fundamentally different in what they want from a machine, so a user who solely uses Windows moving over to Linux never made much sense to me.
Why did you switch, and what was your process like? What made you choose Linux for your primary computing device, rather than macOS for example?
Linux does what I want it to do. Windows doesn’t.
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.
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 better”.
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.
That’s a good point. I guess even if you had to go through a few additional steps, it wasn’t very difficult for you, so it’s worth it.
Yeah, I feel this sentiment very strongly. Complacency is what they want, because then you just mindlessly participate in the system. It’s difficult to not participate in the system by default since it’s like “hey man, I just
worklive here”. So not only do you need to be educated in wtf these systems even are, why they’re bad, and how to best engage/disengage with them, you have to actively make an effort to change with energy not a whole lot of people have these days. Some may see this reaction to Microsoft as silly and overblown, but people getting rid of windows could literally save their life due to the systems of surveillance built by Microsoft aiding increasingly dangerous and malicious political actors.I am kind of in the same boat as you, except I haven’t yet tried Linux. I’ve just been reading up information about it and I also mostly use my PC for gaming and some work, but work is mostly in a browser anyway. I hecking despise Microsoft now for Windows 11 and just had to battle their forced updates that nearly bricked my computer and I’ve finally had enough. May I ask, which version of Linux did you find worked “out of the box” for you?
I use POP!_OS. Works pretty much perfectly for me, although they just came out with a new cosmic desktop which I am not using (but looking into), so you might have a different experience than me. I have some issues like FPS in deadlock slowly degrading (I think if I use steam overlay) or sometimes games with third party launchers (like Mass Effect) just wouldn’t work until I tinkered around. These aren’t dealbreakers for me though. Most games work out of the box for me. If you’re really worried, you can always dual boot it with windows just to be safe, that’s what I did. https://ostechnix.com/dual-boot-windows-and-pop-os/ here is the guide I followed. If you don’t want Pop OS, I’ve heard decent things of bazzite as well for gaming.
POP and Mint seem to be the most recommended ones so I think I will start with one of them and see what happens. I’m not terribly opposed to tinkering a little bit and I generally try to avoid games with 3rd party launchers, so I’m sure it’ll be fine. The only thing that concerned me was reading about Nvidia being a bit finicky (stuck with a 3070, but probably switching to AMD when this AI craze eases) with Linux, but I’m sure it’ll be fine.
Kind of excited to dive in tbh, and that doesn’t happen too often anymore, lol. Thanks for the reply!
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.
Windows users seem to want to just buy, have, and use a computer
That’s just not how I would describe Windows. It’s more like a digital bilboard with spyware that also runs programs. It actively prevents you from just using “your” computer.
Yes, but most people haven’t realised that yet. They’ll buy whatever is sold to them and use it till they experience some malfunction and then buy something new and repeat the cycle
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 dabbled with Linux on and off several times over the last 20 years but never stuck with it for long, usually because of some giant pain in the ass getting some piece of hardware to work properly, plus I like to play games too and that used to be a huge stumbling block.
Microsoft’s escalatingly shitty behavior around Windows 11, combined with how much desktop Linux has matured with things like Proton/Heroic Launcher/Bottles solving most of the compatibility problems finally pushed me over the threshold for a full switch to Linux.
I’ve been running Linux-only (first Mint, then Fedora) on my laptop for about 2 years now without problems, and finally took the plunge on my desktop PC about a month ago. Massive props to Proton for making this feasible now. I have Windows 11 installed on a spare 256GB SSD that I had just in case there was some kind of show-stopper that I needed to go back to, but haven’t booted back into it since making the switch except for one time to check that it works.
Once the gaming problem was solved (I’m not worried about kernel level anti-cheat because I’m not into that type of game), the last thing tying me to Windows was Adobe Lightroom. I do miss Lightroom and I’m not as skilled using the FOSS alternatives to that product, but I just decided ‘fuck it’, Adobe are assholes with them making Lightroom subscription-only anyways.
It is so nice not being nagged to use one drive or sign in with a Microsoft account and have bullshit slop content shoveled at me by my operating system any more. Seriously, fuck outta here with that no-local-accounts horseshit.
Anyway, not going back any time soon.
I just felt increasingly like I didn’t have control over my system. And Gnome 2 was looking sick to me at the time, I loved the look. 👌
Started with Ubuntu for a few years and now I’ve been on Arch for over a decade I believe.
Ubuntu is great, I’ve heard good things about Arch. Arch people are similar to vegans: they’re really annoying, they announce themselves, they preach to people… they tend to have good opsec and own some sort of mask and bolt cutters… they like taking pictures of their pets…
I moved from Ubuntu for the same reasons I moved from Windows, to be honest. I felt like I was losing control of what my system was doing. All this bullshit being forced on me that I didn’t like. I wanted to be able to pick my own DE without uninstalling something else first. Major upgrades would fail sometimes, etc.
Installing Arch was a challenge I was willing to take on. Learned a lot.
I don’t share the trope about Arch Linux users being annoying per se, but the joke about “Arch btw” is just fun to participate in lol. But I don’t think Arch users preach that much. I see way more preaching about Fedora and NixOS, e.g. And like, Mint. 😆 Meanwhile Arch users are just silently enjoying themselves. 🤷♂️
So you’re saying you don’t own a Guy Fawkes mask?
Not what I was saying, no, but it is true, that I don’t own one. 😄
Windows from 3.1, MS DOS before that
Come W 8 I was getting grumpy, started dual booting Ubuntu.
Not able to overcome my own apathy, dual boot as in 95% of the time Windows
Come the W 11 announcement some time ago I grabbed another NVME, installed Linux Mint and said fisk it and never went back. Only distro hopped to LMDE haha
Fuck Terminal :)
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.
Windows was becoming increasingly bad for people that use mainly keyboards, and my laptop’s HDD nearly dying and me having to use a Linux distro to recover files I couldn’t lose gave me an window and interest to try out a distro closer in UX as Android, thus I found Ubuntu almost 5 years ago.
My dad played (and still plays) heavily modded Cities Skylines. After upgrading his RAM to 32GB, he’d run afoul of Windows 7 Home Edition’s 16GB limit. I offered to check out Linux on my own computer to see how well Cities Skylines played. I never went back.
Irritated enough to learn
Its more why don’t I use osx anymore and why did I use windows so long. After osx came out in the new millenium and when the apple warranty was tops I was a total mac person. And yes because it was something that just works out of the box and with the warranty you did not need to worry about anything for at least 3 years. This made the extra cost worth it. It was more out of the box than windows because you could, for example, burn a disc right out of the box. I stopped doing macs when they blamed their magentic cable sheaths coming off as from use and would not cover it (at one point you could come in with a mac with a cracked screen and they would not blink and get it replaced for ya. no questions asked. Although not specifically spelled out it effectively was an accident warranty to.) So with the warranty not being any better than a windows machine the extra cost was no longer worth it. Concurrently mac went down this simplicity path (the iphonification of macs) wereas previous to that they use to extol their power and greater number of ports. Basically my last mac was the last version of the mac book pro that had a dvi slot and lots of ports in general and was large and powerful. Now linux at that point had gotten much better than it used to be in the first decade of the millenium, but yeah. It was not exactly out of box. Zorin os had just started but again was not quite there. In addition much of my work things were windows and I had this sweet solution for computer support with my wife where I got thre laptops that were cheap in a bang for the buck way and it was a nice solution for tech support for my wife. So I was on windows. Also portable apps made windows really easy to update and migrate hosts. Eventually my wife wanted to much of gaming machines to the point we got her a desktop so my tech solution was sorta out the window but there was work and the portable apps thing (I at one point voted for portable apps as the best open source enabler). Zorin had gotten much better (out of box linux distro) and I was aware of it and played with it (along with other things like puppy) but inertia won out. Then windows 11 came along and it was a no go. Especially when I was already aware of a linux distro that was as out of the box as osx and maybe a bit better really (which keep in mind was more out of the box than windows). So I finally said enough is enough and installed zorin on my old laptop. What sucks is app image is so close to what portable apps brings and it has some related projects that have the components of it but just is not packaged nicely all together in a one and done.
