Linux

My old windows install was so cooked thst I had successfully made an illegal CON file (cygwin?) on NTFS, which Windows would refuse to delete because it should be impossible to make such a file.

After a completely fresh install, the settings app refused to launch after a day and of course sfc/dism did jack all.

Said "screw it" and dual booted Fedora because my previous experience with Ubuntu sucked snd I saw that video of Linus saying he never used Debian or Ubuntu because it didn't used to be user friendly to install. Searched up his preferred distro and it was Fedora.

Kept Windows around for a couple of months for one game until one day windows overwrote grub after an update.

Nuked it again and installed only Fedora. Found out the game now had solid support in proton so I literally did not miss anything from Windows.

i didnt like w10 with already pre-installed software, from games to random shareware. Didnt like that there where starting to test ads in the start menu or that OneDrive had decided to start operating in the background without notice.

I already had a mac, but didnt like that I could play most games, mainly used it as a work pc for design work. So then I searched and learned that linux was having many changes with proton and wine, and decided to give it a go, and I think its been 3 or 4 years since then. There are things, like graphic design work that I needed to re-learn, but it hasnt affected me greatly. I fully recommend it for most people. Running Mint

For me, I got fed up with Windows 11 updates resetting my settings and even reinstalling copilot. I felt like I had no control over my computer, so I put Linux on it to get some control back.

Because window is genuinely more of a pain to use in 2026.

Tried Linux out of curiosity. Found it better than Windows for all my use cases. Stuck with it and never went back.

Windows 11 was stress. I was spending far too much time keeping it the way I want it - stable, no cloud, no AI. A four hour call with MS tech support (that went in the most idiotic circles) kinda sealed the fate of my new desktop build (old one had a failing MB, no choice but to finally upgrade hardware) and switched both it and another desktop the next day.

Much less stressed now, even when things go weird and wonky.

I didn't choose Linux, Linux chose me...when windows got unbearably enshittified.

Although admittedly I'd been using Linux for years beforehand, just not for gaming.

It gets out of the way and let's me do my thing. Wether it's work or gaming.

Both Aurora on my laptop and Bazzite on my desktops, have been easier to use and maintain than Windows and OSX.

No ads, no nagging, no maintenance. The included gui and cli app stores give me everything I need. I freaking love it, it's pure bliss. Best computing experience I ever had.

~3 years running Ublue distros. 100% happyness.

Because Windows works as dumbest os for now

Sound randomly staying off, micro sometime works, sometime not, if I try to touch sounds its sometimes just slutter all the system. I checked on viruses by free and paid subscriptioned and-viruses but founs nothing. So the best way to heal was to reinstall system. And I am do this. CachyOS going great, more faster and stable for several years even with bleeding edge updates

What's the option? Windows? Keeps getting shittier all the time. Now with AI Slop and bugs. No thanks. Mac? Their walled garden, making it so you can't upgrade your existing computer? No thanks. My last mac was a 2015 that let you upgrade things but it was a pain. They've since removed that so they lost me as a customer.

With Linux, I have a Framework laptop that let's me upgrade everything. It's easy to take apart, there are hardware switches for the mic and webcam.... it's very user friendly. Linux doesn't have any telemetry. The only AI that gets installed is if I install it myself, it's not intrusive. I've been using Linux for a long, long time but the Desktop experience has been lacking in the past. It's gotten way better recently and the last thing I would boot into windows for was Fusion 360. I spent some time learning FreeCAD and since 1.0 it is way better and now I don't need to boot into Windows anymore. Steam has made leaps and bounds with proton and now I can even game on Linux which is pretty huge. Is Linux perfect? No, but it does everything I need it to.

To give Microsoft the finger.

Decades worth of windoofs hate. Finally did the full switch a few months ago. I have been using windoofs for gaming only anyway and professionally I already had plenty of Linux experience.

Linux isn't great either though and can be a real pain in the ass. Recently had to fix few lines of code in the kernel, because I had no audio. But the fact that one can do it in principle is already a huge win over windoofs. And although some games stubbornly won't run (stable), a lot do without having to tinker much, thanks to Wine, Proton, and a couple of startup parameters.

Professionally I mainly use Ubuntu, for gaming I did so at first as well but switched to CachyOS recently.

Skype and OneDrive. They just WOULD NOT GO THE FUCK AWAY. My hard drive died, so I already lost everything OS related, and re-installing windows 10 was already infuriating me, and then every reboot, even after disabling them, skype and onedrive just kept popping up at boot. I used windows to download i think 8 different distro ISOs, gathered a gaggle of flash drives and set them all up. Then I tried them all out until I landed on one that did everything I wanted it to and haven't looked back. I kept that windows drive for about 6 months before I realized I was never using it and the storage space would be better served reformatted to btrfs for the linux system to use.

I care what my computer does the same way I care about what my brain does. Since my computer is just an extension of my brain it needs to be transparent and ownable.

Pissed off on windows 11. Couldn't change things I needed or wanted. Didn't allow for basic shit. Kept on giving me ads and other fucking annoying things. Broke a lot slow and pathetic. Wanted a fucking proper start menu back again the place I been using it for last 30 fucking years. Updates took forever and ever and often broke everything and have to reinstall. Can't disable auto update ad settings kept resetting each update.

I just wanted a simple computer that just worked. Turned on and just worked every time. Nothing changes without me changing them. Simple and intuitive.

I tried windows again as a duel boot. It wiped broke my Linux partition because micro crap hates people. Never ever going back unless it's a dedicated machine for the 2 games I rarely play that work slightly better on Windows.

Rather never play games or use the Internet then switch back to windows.

EDIT : got me so mad my Grammer and spelling went out the window. Lol

What can I say? I wanna be the very best, like no one ever was. To catch them all is my real quest, to train them is my cause.

Windows showed me one too many ads in the start menu.

Also, I found a distro I like and can stick with forever.

It was just an extension of my interest in computers since I was young ^ ^ This new, completely different OS fascinated me when I was growing up, and led to me installing Ubuntu on an old laptop. I never made an actual jump to it until I was a few years older, and had Windows slowing down my laptop that I used for work. I jumped onto the Manjaro train that was happening at the time, and eventually ended up installing Arch on my main PC (´･ᴗ･ ` )

Because of Microslop. Who needs more reasons, huh?

I've been a lifelong Windows user since Windows 3.1, and truly feel that Windows 7 was when Windows was at its peak. Windows 11 was the straw that finally broke the camel's back, with all of the constant pushing of Copilot and Office 365 and ads in the start menu and so forth. Fuck that, I bailed out about 2 years ago.

I've dabbled on and off with Linux since Ubuntu used to be distributed on free CD-ROMs, but never stuck with it for long, but things have come a massively long way since those days, and now Linux is very usable as a daily driver for many people. I feel like it brings my computer back under my control instead of someone else's, and isn't always trying to sell me out in the background. I eased into it with Linux Mint, and Fedora 44 with KDE is now my distro of choice.

I still have a Windows 11 installation on a spare 256GB SSD, but I only ever boot it up about once a month just to let it update itself in case I need to use it for something I can't figure out a way to make work on Linux.

The main reason is to use an open-source system. The secondary reason is to achieve greater digital sovereignty and reduce dependence on US technology companies.

Windows is slow, buggy, and overall shit software, even on high end computers.

So people won't shout at me online.

I didn't choose Linux. Linux chose me.

But in all seriousness, back in 2015, I got a PC that came with Windows 8. It had the horrible, completely unusable Metro UI. But my main gripe with that OS was how it forced me to use Microsoft’s solutions over everything else. Quite often, the PDF files I opened would launch in the Metro PDF reader instead of the one I had chosen. Usually, this kind of things happened after a Windows Update, which 'accidentally' reset my default application choices - including the PDF reader - and, as a final spat in my face, added an Internet Explorer shortcut to my desktop.

I started to feel as if I had no control over my PC anymore; it was Microsoft deciding what software I should use. Then and there I decided it was time to give Linux a chance. I had already noticed how Valve was pushing the gaming industry toward Linux, and I thought, those guys can’t be completely wrong.

Control. I want to control what my PC does and when it reboots. With Microsoft Windows and Apple macOS both I don't have control, these US-based corporations can do to my PC whatever they choose to. With those operating systems I don't feel in control.

I switched to get away from the windows telemetry that started to freak me out, but i stayed for the customization that allows me to completely make it my own, and the fact that linux doesn't do shit in the background without me knowing it and just does what i actually want it to do. I tried using windows again in a dualboot configuration when i wanted to play gta online, plus i ended up needing hdmi 2.1, but i just couldn't do it, it was too frustrating and annoying to use. I bought a dp to hdmi adapter and figured i'd rather give up on anti-cheat games like gta online if it means i never have to touch windows again.

Nix provides me the tools to create coding environments much easier and faster than usual. So I went a step further and now I run NixOS.

Freedom.

I've been dabbling for years, but my old computer couldn't run Windows 11. That delay made me wait long enough to see all the recall shit, so my new computer has been Linux since day 1, no dual boot.

I never bought into the ecosystem. My first laptop had os/2 warp, then I moved to slackware for years. After that onto FreeBSD when I became a sysadmin. I was turned onto Ubuntu by one of our developers (12.04) and then ended up on Debian when I started gaming. Played guild wars and bf1942 for years until ea used anticheat that was Linux compatible, but disabled it, then moved away from games with a community so toxic it requires software to stop cheaters. I even had an employer pay for a windows xp cert for me and thought it was the jankiest operating system I'd ever used. It was impossible to update everything, the command line was neutered and it t was so slow compared to everything else I used.

Currently I run proxmox and debian on home servers and cachyos on my laptop and gaming computer. I buy computers with no os, or build from scratch where I can and only choose games based on Linux compatibility. I don't have a need for windows because I've never used it for anything besides software testing. I never understood how windows and a FreeBSD clone became the two biggest players in the market.

Windows is like McDonald's. No one really likes it, but it's ubiquitous, you know you're not going to like it, and you're going to regret it as soon as you bite into it, but you expect that, so you choking it down doesn't seem so bad. It's convenient and a lot of other people eat from there, so you try to convince yourself that it's acceptable for dinner and eat it anyway.

Originally when I started the move to Linux in 2015, I did it because Windows 10 was wholly incompatible with my ISP. I lived through dial-up, HEO satellite, HSPA, LTE, fixed wireless, and currently fiber. During the period with dealing with HEO satellite, every provider at the time in the US (WildBlue/Exede/Viasat, Hughesnet) had alright speeds at best paired with a very aggressive soft monthly data cap (10 GB, eventually 26GB in like 2018), that would revert the speed capabilities back to 32-96kbps. Upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 10 was largely a mistake for many reasons, but one of them was the sheer frequency, size, and aggressive nature of how Windows 10 tried to download and apply updates automatically. Windows 10's frequent auto updates would easily eat several gigabytes each month of the tiny data cap. The rest of the amount of idle networking Windows 10 did also didn't help during throttled periods, eating up most of the bandwidth available from just one workstation. Knowing that Windows 10 wouldn't be another Windows 8 and that Microsoft would go forward with 10, I decided to seriously look into alternatives.

Eleven years later, I have virtually no restrictions in hardware nor networking. Despite that, I still use Linux exclusively. Nowadays, there is little to no compromise in using a Linux-based system for many general tasks. Certain niches vary in usability on Linux, especially if the niche is cemented in certain proprietary software. Modern Linux-based systems (both distro and desktop environment) are just more polished than the experience to be had on Windows 10 or Windows 11. Many common frustrations when using Windows (device driver installation, printers, drawing tablets, HDR, system updates, software updates, system maintenance, lack of dark patterns, error message clarity, etc.) are things that a modern Linux system deals with a lot less, to a lesser extent, or just not at all. After spending many years learning both Windows and Linux, Linux systems are just more functional and easier to use.

What started off as a kid as mild interest in something "different." Different in the sense that it was different than that of what I grew up using. Anywhere from the lame old school Mac computers in primary school, to the Windows PCs that were everywhere. I did go to school for a degree in Cyber Security; and of course got my hands on some different Linux distros over the years, so between my younger years of tinkering, and schooling I had exposure to Linux early on.

Fast forward a bit, years and years pass by and I was a Windows user because that was just readily available and accessible and what I had primarily used for most of my life; and I was getting fed up with what Microsoft was doing and pushing. That being said, I initially switched from Windows 10/11 to Arch Linux out of hatred for Microsoft.

Well, my reasoning has changed drastically. It used to be because I hated Microsoft and all of their shenanigans. Now I use Linux out of love for Linux. Sure, I still hate Microsoft; but that is a naturally progression the further I get into my niche.

I love open source, and my beliefs on open source has permeated through other beliefs. I think that the collective of human knowledge should be effectively "open source" and available to all. We shouldn't be limited on what we want to learn just because of a corporation or business entity says they arbitrarily own a subset of knowledge.

Anyways, tldr; started as hate for Microsoft, and turned into genuine love for Linux and Open Source Software.

Running a singular OS—I like that I can run the same system on my current four computers—two servers, one desktop, and one 12 year old Microsoft laptop.

Selfhosting—It started with an interest in Jellyfin and Qbittorrent, which led to running my own server(s), progressing to wanting to learn more Linux and run a singular OS for all devices. I think this point is focused on an interest in selfhosting.

Control—I don't like customizing my systems, its a waste of time, but I enjoy having complete control and ownership over them.

Trust and Privacy—I don't want to use any software that doesn't respect the user enough to show the source.

Freedom—I believe media, software, and information should be open access to all.

A lifelong Windows user, dabbled in MacOS too, windows 11 was absolute dogshit, did some research and saw loads of videos about bazzite so dual booted into it, liked it so decided to make it my main OS, I also love learning about computers

It's a compromise.
It supports modern hardware well enough and the environment is good enough.
I do like the cleaned up state of BSD better, but the missing hardware support is pretty much killing that.

Also, all the machines I'm developing for and controlling are running some kind of RT Linux.
So I don't have that much friction between systems.

I got sick and tired of windows turning onedrive back on and moving my files.

Obnoxious Windows 10 "upgrade" nag screens on Win 7. If you think you can push me, I'll push back harder. That, and Snowden showing the world that American tech is backdoored all the way to hell and back.

At the time, I needed a system able to handle editing a couple hundred pages document without issues. Windows with word couldn't do it, Linux managed it gracefully despite not even being at 1.0 (and it also handled the network much, much better).

I've been using it ever since.

I'd been using Windows forever and always stuck to the "rule of two": I skipped Vista and Windows 8, and was holding out to see if a Windows 12 was going to happen. When it didn't, I jumped ship to Linux. 11 took everything I hated about 10 and made it all worse, and that's without even considering all the telemetry. I'd already started using open source software, so that only made it easier to switch.

And for the record, my hardware was plenty new enough to install 11. But boy is it zippier with Linux! Just goes to show how much bloat Windows has. I have to use 11 on my work machine and I hate every minute of it.

many reasons, already told by others, but the one that made me jump was that it does not install apps without me telling it to.

I tried it because even with most of the bloat disabled Microsoft still kept threatening to downgrade me to windows 11, so having heard most games were working through proton and knowing gimp and Firefox run natively I figured it was worth giving it a try.
I stayed because with KDE it feels like an "unlocked" windows, windows with all the annoying parts stripped out, delimited, or fixed. Installing it was simple, customising it was extensive and easy, games run better, GIMP loads faster, installing programs from the bazaar is trivial, and it doesn't run into any more bugs and errors than windows did, so it's just a net upgrade. Weirdly bugs are often easier to diagnose and fix with the help of a search engine too, because the questions and answers tend to be a lot more in depth and informative than you get with windows.

Much better than Windows 11, the only other choice I had.

I'm just grateful it exists.

I was tired of listen the computer fan