Asklemmy

You must get a completely different view than "normal people" here. I use Alma Linux 9 (RHEL9 clone) because it's what we use at work, and I've known RedHat since 1999. I use it because it generally is exceptionally stable, and can easily go 6 months without forcing a reboot. It also is much less likely to spy on me, and does most everything I need a computer to do.

Also, using XFCE for my DE means I don't have to relearn something every release version (XFCE has stayed the same all through v4 more or less, which is like at least since 2012. Some new icons here or there.

No forced cloud integration, my account is local, the way I like it. I also am much less concerned about malware (maybe this is unjustified in 2023, I guess IDK).

I got fed up with Microsoft with the rollout of Win10, and switched to Scientific Linux 7 at that time (RHEL7) and just migrated this year to Alma 9 and a new PC. I actually ran the same workstation for 12 years before that. Somehow, even with updates Linux doesn't seem to bloat the way Windows did / would. I.e. I haven't had a Linux install get slower over time for no reason like every Windows install.

Void linux with swaywm. Its blazingly fast and I lime to tinker

This week it's arch, though I do dual boot win11 specifically for iracing and iracing alone as that doesn't let me run it under proton.

Fedora and Arch right now. Fedora is what I main and Arch is just for ricing and testing things. Been trying out VanillaOS recently and I really like it. I use Void and Gentoo on occasion when I feel like tinkering.

I'd still be on Windows 2K if it weren't for everything. Stayed with 7 as long as I could. Given up caring now.

Debian Testing with XFCE. When I need Wayland (for testing my app), i use Sway.

1. Performance. I'm stuck with an old computer right now.
2. No reliance on quirky black-box packages. It is less 'wrapped' unlike Mint, and more 'wrapped', unlike Arch. Compared to Arch (btw), Debian has some distro-management apps, like update-alternatives and synaptic. Also, it breaks less often, provided the system is used properly.

Also, I use Debian Stable on a VPS, because you don't want to sacrifice security to bleeding edge.

I use Solus OS . Pretty much the perfect distro for me , I have tried so many distros (ubuntu , mint , endeavour , fedora etc) but no one felt as smooth and snappier to me as solus . Eopkg(it's package manager) might be limited but has all the softwares I need m so no complaining from my side . Also I like how fast it is . Solus is a rolling release distro and is still very stable , never encountered any problems with it . I was afraid that it may die and started looking for alternatives ,sadly never found one as good as solus to me . But thankfully Solus's founder and buddies of budgie's lead are back and making sure the project isn't dead.

Fedora, because it works well out of the box, and I like GNOME.

Windows for when I'm gaming and anything else Popos. Linux is getting more support than ever for games thanks to valve/steamdeck though so I find myself switching back to Windows less and less

Ubuntu guest, Windows host. Windows - good enough for most things. Ubuntu - open to neglect, unlike Arch. Easy to work with, i3wm is amazing. Allows me to do actual “work” without having to learn how people program on windows.

I'm using Linux Mint on my laptop simply because it's the one I'm most comfortable and in love with.

Windows 11 because I'm a gamer

Arch linux - Love the bleeding edge side of it, as well as the AUR, and wanted something with a bit more learning potential than Fedora, which is what I was previously using.

I use a wide variety of machines, but my main desktop runs windows because I pretty much do nothing on it but play games. I have installed arch on another drive but for me an OS is either one or the other, so I mostly stick with windows because, like I said, games just work on there. That being said, I am in love with arch from using it on my school laptop and would love nothing more for everything made for windows to just work on arch.

Edit: Because another comment mentioned it, another reason why I stay on windows is for VR

Garuda Linux on my laptop, because I need a system that can play my absurd steam library, emulate like a champ, compile a wide variety of things easily, and support an array of random other tasks like media dumping and ham radio programming. It's treated me well thus far.

Ubuntu at home (with sway), and unfortunately macOS for work (with its badly-broken and nonsensical window management)

Both Windows 11 and Arch Linux with KDE. I am using my PC mostly for gaming and drawing. Since almost all games in my steam library work without tinkering and Krita and Aseprite work like a charm I rarely use Windows 11 at the moment.

I just use Ubuntu 22.04 on my personal home-built PC. It just works, and I'm not interested in too much tinkering. My wife's PC also runs Ubuntu 22.04, I have a ton of raspberry Pi's with standard raspbian on them. And my work laptop runs Windows 11 and it is decent enough.

I'm happy. I can run Steam with all the games I want pretty flawlessly, with some minor tinkering sometimes. But it is a solid experience.

Arch Linux and Windows 10 dual boot.

Generally, I like Linux because it's FOSS and I can use i3wm. Arch Linux specifically because the AUR makes installing software really easy. Almost everything I use is available there.

I keep Windows for programs that don't work under Wine. I haven't touched this disk for some time because all of my Windows programs work on Wine now.

Mac. I tried linux and while the future is promising, I had too many things go poorly for me to fully adopt it at the moment. Windows has been going downhill for a long time now, but I think windows 11 is the true point of no return. So I use mac, which feels like a nice middle ground between the two in terms of features, usability, etc.

Windows because my favorite games don't work on it and neither does any of Adobe's apps.
I'm thinking about buying a used mac because I'll need it for crossplatform testing of apps.

Void Linux on my Thinkpad and Thinkstation. On Pinephone and Pinetab I'm running postmarketOS. I really like postmarketOS and using apk, so if I were to get a new laptop or every change the distro on my laptop or desktop, then I might try Alpine. On raspberry pi 3, it's raspbian. I use that mainly to run pi-hole and pivpn.

I distro hopped for a little while, but then settled on Void. It does what I need and was easy to get set up how I want. It's a rolling release and I haven't ever had any big issues with upgrading. The worst issue I've had was when they recently removed pipewire-media-session and switched to wireplumber. After checking a couple posts on reddit and on void's documentation, I got it set up the recommended way without any trouble and audio is working fine.

edit: wanted to add that my Thinkpad also has OpenBSD as a dual boot option, but I haven't booted into it in a long time. One day I'd like to try a BSD as a server(not on a laptop, of course.) Also, the Thinkstation has Windows 10/Void dual boot, but I never boot into Windows.

I had a windows 7 desktop that I muddled through the process of setting up a dual boot with Ubuntu. I could not get certain programs to work that I needed to use for work, so just left that partition in place and went back to Windows 7. Partly because I'm not OS tech savvy and not certain how to remove it and partly because I have a new computer that is Windows 10 and is my daily driver now. The Windows 7/Ubuntu computer is now just sitting in the spare room running an RTL-SDR dongle using Windows 7 as an AIS feeder. I'd set that up on the Ubuntu partition but haven't had a chance to learn how to do that yet.

I have three laptops.

My late-2010s home laptop runs Debian 11, because strangely nothing else will boot anymore.

My late-2000s ThinkPad runs Arch, because I like pacman and a ThinkPad like that needs a hackery OS. BSD, Slackware, Void and Gentoo would also fit, but I prefer Arch.

My mid-2000s MacBook runs GNU Guix. Not really sure why I picked it, but it's a working system on fussy hardware, so I'm happy. However, being a Mac, this doesn't really count as a PC.

Windows 10 I have to use it at work, so I am also using it at home, Tried to switch to Linux about 20 years. But it did not meet my primary use case back then (mostly gaming), so I switched back. Nowadays I am on my PC so scarcely that it does not make any sense to me to use this limited time to get used to a new OS.

Fedora 36 on both my desktop and laptop. (that's GNU/Linux). Its not the latest because I have outdated hardware. Occasionally dual booth Windows for Valorant and FL Studio.

As to why. I enjoy an Operating System where I can change everything. For me this is Linux. I customize to the point where everything works then I don't touch it. I used to be obsessed with changing stuff. But this way I have it the way I like it. If anyone is curious, go check out !unixporn@lemmy.ml

Arch Linux

• AUR
• Up to date packages + AUR, so no need to manually install things or search for third party repositories
• Arch wiki
• I started using it and it works
• etc.

Windows 11

• laptop ¯_(ツ)_/¯