Pros:

• I never have to worry that my OS is working for someone else by design.
• Never surprised by ads.
• Never surprised by updates that move/remove something in the UI.
• Never have to be worried about some new feature that windows is forcing everyone to use that accesses all my data and might go rogue and delete it all or upload it somewhere.
• BTRFS feels decades ahead of NTFS
• package manager makes it easy to try new programs
• I can try multiple desktop environments
• I can write scripts to customize my experience

Cons:

• Occasionally there is a program that only officially supports windows and I have to figure out how to get it working in proton or a VM. This happens much less now than 10y ago.
• A game might say it works on Linux, but I hit some issue that my friends on windows aren’t hitting, and have to determine if I’m just unlucky or if it’s something to do with proton/Linux.
• there are still some remaining kinks being ironed out with the x11 to Wayland migration.
• sometimes there’s a bug in a package and I have to downgrade it. But that’s not really even an option in windows.

All in all, there is nothing from windows I would say I “miss”. And it feels refreshing to know I’m out of the line of fire of msft.

As someone who uses Windows for work and Linux for pleasure: SMB, UNC paths, and ubiquitous network sharing. Being able to “cd \\server\c$” and expect that to work with 99% of programs made in the last two decades, is pretty great.

“Hardcode a few pre-selected paths and their credentials in /etc/fstab” just doesn’t cut it. Neither does autofs.

Windows? lol no.

The only thing I miss is GarageBand on Mac. It’s always been my fave DAW. I haven’t found a decent substitute.

Just pros, no one cons! Freedom is most important for me.

I don’t miss a single thing from Windows

The pros are that it cannot be used as leverage against your interests by the vendor, and it’s basically UNIX. But I mean, by that criteria, one should run BSD.

Tips:

• You will, at some point, fuck something up. Resist the urge to type in whatever console command comes from a Stack Overflow problem that’s similar, though not exact, to your issue.
• Keep a log of changes you make so you can identify what change may have made things worse or not done what you wanted.
• Have a data backup off the machine of anything you can’t bare to lose. Keep it for at least a year in case you lose the original data.
• Be patient with yourself and expect to feel like a noob at computers again.
• Don’t try to make your DE like Windows, embrace the changes and discover better or new ways to set up your desktop.
• Again, be patient and take your time. It’s like riding a bike for the first time.
• Ask Linux communities for help if you have a good, positive source of helpful individuals.
• Have fun!

My biggest pain points with Linux have mostly been audio related. Audio is serviceable for general users but whenever it comes to either professional audio work or high end consumer audiophile stuff, Mac and Windows unfortunately blow Linux out of the fucking water at this point in time.

Pros: OS doesn’t spy on you, better privacy, freedom, the OS will not tell you what you have to do. Just do whatever you want to do, change whatever you want to change.

Cons: Maybe gaming support, this is what I see people complaining. I don’t game myself, so can’t say much here. After using Linux for 20+ years, I personally don’t have any cons. The OS works perfectly fine for both professional and personal life.

Unlike windows or mac with their expensive licenses , once installed, Linux is yours

My main gripe with linux is still game and other software support.

Other than that everything I can think of is so much better than windows for me.

Pros: it doesn’t do anything you don’t make it do.

Cons: it doesn’t do anything you don’t make it do.

Pro: It just works and does what its told. Cons: I am concerned that long term viability of open source software in an AI and profit driven via job cuts world.

Miss from windows? Absolutely nothing. It just pisses me off. I have to manage Azure, Windows Server, Deployments, and other microsoft crap. It always just sucks.

Pros it’s not windows.

Cons its Linux.

You will curse it and praise it in the same breath for the rest of your life.

I’m mainly going into the negatives because the positives are fewer in number. Though those few do outweigh the negatives I’m about to write about. In my opinion at least

From what I’ve read it’s a lot better than what it used to be, but you can still bump into some weird issues that require more knowledge of your computer (compared to Windows) to get it fixed. Usually it’s audio, Flatpak permission issues or some application that comes preinstalled but crashes anyway. (i.e. Kontact on Fedora’s KDE spin). And in one case NetworkManager just disappeared on the family computer.

Gaming can be an issue, depending on what you like to play. AAA games with an important online component usually don’t work on Linux because of their anti-cheat. Not all of them of course like CS2, Rivals, and Dota 2. It was a bummer since I switched to Linux with the expectation that I’d still be able to keep on playing League, only to see it being unusable after a year. But if your friend group doesn’t play those kind of games (and I got lucky on that part), you’re fine. For example Peak and Gambling with Friends just worked on launch. I didn’t even bother looking at ProtonDB

I’ve seen a lot of people downplay the fact that you may not be able to play the games with invasive anti-cheat. But if that’s the game you (or your friends) like to play, that’s the game you like to play. No shame in that, especially if you don’t care/mind the anti-cheat. It’s your computer, you don’t have to be fully into foss to use Linux and you should (in my opinion) be able to weight the pros and cons yourself.

Another con (for people who just want to use their computer) or pro (for those who like to thinker around) is choice. There are so many distro’s with a ton of DE’s and ways of customising those DE’s where a new user will probably get stuck just deciding what they want to pick. Or you can just as easily look at something more technical and decide what compositor or init system you want to use. It’s a lot and for many users the deeper stuff doesn’t really matter to them.

I wasted* at lot of time tinkering with my Nix configs and my Arch install to not even use either distro anymore. It can get a bit much, especially if the thing you’re tinkering with is your main computer. Now I just have a separate second hand laptop to mess around with now so it doesn’t get in the way of actual work.

All of my most painful issues wouldn’t have been too bad if I just had someone to guide me in the right direction. This became really apparent when a friend of mine bumped into a lot of the same issues I did when he switched. He got his fixed fairly quickly since I was there to explain, for example, what was wrong with his fstab config and why he got into emergency mode because of that.

*It was a ton of fun looking back at it (and educational). But if you go into it with the idea that it’ll help you (in part) with productivity, you’re going to have some regrets with the time you actually spent on it in the moment