Linux

I woke up one day, and copilot had been installed on my PC overnight. I didn't like that lack of control. This was, coincidentally, a weekend that my wife, kid, and dog were all gone. Since I knew Win10 only had a year left, and I had the time, I figured it was as good a time as any.

I downloaded Fedora and Kubuntu. Spent a bit of time with each, and went with Kubuntu. For a few days. It had issues waking from sleep, and I had to do some kind of tweaking with every one of my games to get them to work.

I don't mind tinkering with stuff, but i just don't have the time to make my computer my hobby. So, I switched to Mint. Everything just works. So, I put it on everything else. I guess the one time I really had to dig into terminal stuff was getting a wifi driver for my living room PC off git. Other than that, super easy.

Now, I'm coming up on a year of Mint. Couldn't be happier.

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

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!

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.

I don't like corprofascism.

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

It's basically a pattern of:

Me: I have a problem and I need help fixing it

Other: ok but what's the problem

Me: I can't do this for some reason

Other: you're wrong for wanting to do that when you can just do this instead besides you're dumb and stupid and wrong and you should just deal

So I'd just keep changing things until my computer did what I wanted. I'd be fine using a Mac or windows if and only if it was ok to ask for help (meaning that I got to a point with a problem where I can't move forward anymore myself and the only 2 options are to give up or ask for someone to contribute something that makes it so I can make progress)

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.

It was easier for work.

Windows didn't work, linux did.

3.11 and Slackware respectively.

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

Because it is the least worst OS

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 couldn't find my Windows 7 key after reinstalling.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

I got sick of my devices spying on me

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:

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.

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.

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)

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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Why?

Post content:

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

I feel like I've been click-baited.

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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

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.

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 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.