Linux

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 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

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.

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

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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 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 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 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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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

https://www.stickycomics.com/wp-content/uploads/update_for_your_computer.jpg

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.

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.

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.

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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_theater

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.

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 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.

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 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.