Linux

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.

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.

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.

Because OS/2 was about to be discontinued.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

Had to reinstall Windows XP one time too many

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.

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

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

Windows kept reinstalling edge and copilot

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.

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

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.

Fix your title

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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 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.

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

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).

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.

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....

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