Personally, I’m not brand loyal to any particular OS. There are good things about a lot of different operating systems, and I even have good things to say about ChromeOS. It just depends on what a user needs from an operating system.
Most Windows-only users I am acquainted with seem to want a device that mostly “just works” out of the box, whereas Linux requires a nonzero amount of tinkering for most distributions. I’ve never encountered a machine for sale with Linux pre-installed outside of niche small businesses selling pre-built PCs.
Windows users seem to want to just buy, have, and use a computer, whereas Linux users seem to enjoy problem solving and tinkering for fun. These two groups of people seem as if they’re very fundamentally different in what they want from a machine, so a user who solely uses Windows moving over to Linux never made much sense to me.
Why did you switch, and what was your process like? What made you choose Linux for your primary computing device, rather than macOS for example?
I’m 70% there. Game is 100% since i use just the Deck. Browsing and casual also 100%. As a graphic designer i still have to keep Adobe around for now, but i’m also testing out alternative as Gimp, Krita, Kdenlive, Da Vinci and more. I’ll soon upgrade my ssd and use the extra room for a dual boot on my desk. On my portable i already use Mint.
It’s interesting how nobody is saying “because it’s free software,” which is kind of the entire point of Linux.
Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t switch for that reason either. But it’s telling how conditioned we’ve been to not even recognize a free culture exists.
No, some people said “poverty” as a reason. That’s fair. To be honest Windows is ok, it just kind of sucks. If I’m only paying like $150 for a machine, I am ok with them having Windows on it, but I would probably install Mint, but you know what maybe not, the computer is going to kind of suck a bit, maybe its going to be ok.
I had an overwhelming feeling of corporations telling me what they are selling and that I just have to deal with it. Apple, microsoft, adobe, all subscriptions that lock you in and hold you hostage.
Maybe I am just being over the top, but I miss feeling like I OWNED something. With linux? I own my laptop again.
Originally I switched just because I didn’t have a Windows install available and Linux was convenient enough to just download and stick on there. But then once I got used to using it I massively preferred it. I’m the opposite of what you’re describing, I don’t want “problem solving and tinkering”, I like Linux because it basically just does what I want it to do. Windows does what Microsoft wants it to do lol.
The last Windows OS I used was XP, around 2004-ish. Even back then, it was obvious to me that, because it was closed source, that they could one day start acting against my interests, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I saw open source as an insurance policy - it prevents vendors from acting maliciously against their users. In that very quaint, old time, nobody believed that MS would ever do something like that, but it didn’t matter - the fact was that they could, so inevitably, they would.
I’m quite proud of how prescient I was when I look at what they’re doing today. No evil is too great to stop a greedy businessman.
Anyway, I decided to just be brave and create a partition on my main drive and install Ubuntu on it. All I needed to get my work done was OpenOffice, LaTeX, a browser, a compiler, Python… Everything worked better in Linux than Windows so even though I was dual-booting, I practically never used Windows again after a couple weeks. Later on, I switched to Debian, and the next laptop that I bought, I just wiped the hard disk and used Linux for the whole thing. I kept the recovery partition because I was paranoid but obviously never needed it.
Today, there’s no doubt in my mind that Linux is the best OS. Sure, Macs have better batteries, but if I’m doing productive work, then I don’t really need more than an hour away from my charger. I could maybe agree that the BSDs are better, but I’ve never tried them.
Self-respect. I’m not going to tolerate my property being sabotaged against me in service of some other entity, and I don’t understand why anybody else would either.
As soon as Windows 10 “telemetry” (read: spyware) started getting backported into Windows 7 almost a decade ago, I was gone.
Windows users in 2025 are nothing but cucks and simps for corporate abuse. They don’t “just buy, have, and use a computer;” they are part of the problem.
To be fair, most people who use Windows are ignorant of any of this stuff so while I guess they are technically part of the problem (debatably), it’s not knowingly. With that in mind it seems unwise to tar them all with the same brush and set them up as the enemy if we hope to convince any of them to abandon it.
Yeah, @grue@lemmy.world, it’s really messed up to say, “You’re an idiot!” to an idiot’s face. These people need help, not punishment. Saying the victims are “part of the problem” is insane. The only targets you should be allowed to judge are those who know about everything (both Microsoft’s antics and Linux) and still choose to not move; anyone else is not on the enemy’s side or anything near that dramatic, geez.
cucks and simps
Lmao!!! So true. But most people don’t know why they are actually these things.
I got tired of having an OS that is working against me. That is not a healthy relationship. With Linux you can really see there is a shift in the mindset. User experience is prioritized and you are allowed to do what you want wherever you want to. This means for example things like running a live iso, installing the OS and surfing the web at the same time is possible. I can remap the super key, and other keys. Oh, tiling Window manager exist like hyperland. Omarchy. And how about tabs in the file explorer. Why did not Microsoft implement it 20 years ago like when it came to Linux.
I didn’t appreciate MS’s anti-consumer practices (subscription fee for an OS, invasive telemetry and tracking, fucking ads in the goddamn Start menu), etc.). I installed Mint a couple years back and have almost zero regrets.
Yeah Apple is greedy but Microsoft hates their customers… it’s like it’s run entirely by fast food employees who don’t want to see you walk in the door…
Windows users seem to want to just buy, have, and use a computer
That’s just not how I would describe Windows. It’s more like a digital bilboard with spyware that also runs programs. It actively prevents you from just using “your” computer.
Yes, but most people haven’t realised that yet. They’ll buy whatever is sold to them and use it till they experience some malfunction and then buy something new and repeat the cycle
linux just feels better, quicker, more powerful from a user standpoint. also it doesnt spy on everything you do and use it to create a profile of you that will be used for god knows what, now, or in the future.
it ran like shit, I never knew what was going on, trying to read the logs was a pain in the ass, I had to edit the registry for basic shit, they crammed ads into everything, I didnt use one drive, it eventually just stopped updating - it would try then fail without any useful info and say try again.
what a dumpster fire of an operating system and company. how they still have market share and are successful blows my mind.
Windows is such a horrible experience and MS is such a horrific company.
Avoiding studying for exams in 2007.
😂🤣😂🤣😂
I enjoyed your reason.
Enshitification of Windows was my reason, I was quite patient, I let it slide when they backported telemetry to Windows 7, Windows 10 was still quite usable but the amount of bloat was getting on my nerves already. When I saw what shitshow 11 is becoming I jumped ship. I’m glad I did it early and didn’t wait for Windows EOL.
Same.
I had been dualbooting between win10 and linux for quite some time, but at some point near the win10 EOL, I realized I had not booted to windows in ~8 months or so. Decided it was time to nuke the windows partitions.
Pretty much exactly same for me. While I am of the tinkering kind I prefer my gaming machine to game when I wan’t to game. Once linux became stable enough for my choice of games I had no need for windows and used the second ssd for game storage.
I barely knew what linux was before I watched pewdiepies video on it a long time ago. Just knew that some people on steam would complain about games not running on it, so I never bothered to look into it, since that is basically all I use my computer for. However, over the past 2 years I have been becoming more aware of my individual footprint. Something I noticed was that I will complain about things I think are “wrong” with the world, and then not do anything about them. One of those things was Microsoft (or big tech companies in general). I hate them, yet I would be using their product/service. Literally giving money to something I don’t like.
I honestly have never enjoyed learning about computers and coding, I’ve tried and it’s never felt fun to me. I’m definitely not the “target” of linux I guess. When I turn on my computer, I just want to play some games or do homework/work with no fuss.
However, Linux is at a point to where I, someone who has no want or need to learn computers, can switch and mostly use it out of the box. So I just switched, because if I’m gonna sit here and shit on Microsoft for not doing what I think is right, then I need to stop using their product. Capitalism means as long as they make money, they aren’t gonna change a damn thing.
Yeah, I feel this sentiment very strongly. Complacency is what they want, because then you just mindlessly participate in the system. It’s difficult to not participate in the system by default since it’s like “hey man, I just
worklive here”. So not only do you need to be educated in wtf these systems even are, why they’re bad, and how to best engage/disengage with them, you have to actively make an effort to change with energy not a whole lot of people have these days. Some may see this reaction to Microsoft as silly and overblown, but people getting rid of windows could literally save their life due to the systems of surveillance built by Microsoft aiding increasingly dangerous and malicious political actors.That’s a good point. I guess even if you had to go through a few additional steps, it wasn’t very difficult for you, so it’s worth it.
I am kind of in the same boat as you, except I haven’t yet tried Linux. I’ve just been reading up information about it and I also mostly use my PC for gaming and some work, but work is mostly in a browser anyway. I hecking despise Microsoft now for Windows 11 and just had to battle their forced updates that nearly bricked my computer and I’ve finally had enough. May I ask, which version of Linux did you find worked “out of the box” for you?
I use POP!_OS. Works pretty much perfectly for me, although they just came out with a new cosmic desktop which I am not using (but looking into), so you might have a different experience than me. I have some issues like FPS in deadlock slowly degrading (I think if I use steam overlay) or sometimes games with third party launchers (like Mass Effect) just wouldn’t work until I tinkered around. These aren’t dealbreakers for me though. Most games work out of the box for me. If you’re really worried, you can always dual boot it with windows just to be safe, that’s what I did. https://ostechnix.com/dual-boot-windows-and-pop-os/ here is the guide I followed. If you don’t want Pop OS, I’ve heard decent things of bazzite as well for gaming.
POP and Mint seem to be the most recommended ones so I think I will start with one of them and see what happens. I’m not terribly opposed to tinkering a little bit and I generally try to avoid games with 3rd party launchers, so I’m sure it’ll be fine. The only thing that concerned me was reading about Nvidia being a bit finicky (stuck with a 3070, but probably switching to AMD when this AI craze eases) with Linux, but I’m sure it’ll be fine.
Kind of excited to dive in tbh, and that doesn’t happen too often anymore, lol. Thanks for the reply!
