Linux

Privacy concerns and a growing view of closed source software as malware.

I saw a post from r/unixporn on all and thought it looked really cool.

So it was 1995, and a new version of Windows came out. Sadly it didnt run on our 486 so we upgraded to a new computer with a Pentium processor (a week before the Pentium Pro was released). My parents got their new machine and i was left with with Windows 3.11.

A friend of mine from school, a few years older, had just come back from a computer show down in Green Bay with a box fully of floppy disks (like 70). That weekend i brought my computer over to his house along with a few other friends and we all installed Slackware. At that point we were all using the Universe of Wisconsin's dialup service and were able to get online, do some Gopher, IRC and MUDing.

The only other time i ran a non *nix OS would be when work gave me a Windows machine or when I was gaming (Quake, Ultima Online). Otherwise it has been Linux and BSDs since 95

I switched once in college just because I could. But then I switched back when Windows 7 was released.

Then I switched again at work because our product ran on Ubuntu server, and I hate PuTTY with a passion, and it was just easier to manage Linux from Linux. But I switched back again when we were acquired by a larger company that required us to use more productivity tools that didn't run well on Linux at the time and had to to "just work" (Skype for Business, Zoom, etc).

These days I spend most of the workday in WSL via Windows Terminal. At home I run a handful of Linux VMs atop an ESXi hypervisor installed on an old desktop. But when I'm not working, I generally just stay as far away from computers as possible.

Windows is a spying machine if you don't work hard to change the default settings

It was fun to play with Linux. And it was easier to develop on. The terminal is amazing.

Back in the days of Vista, I had been dual-booting and using Knoppix (Live CD) as needed for a while. My main daily use outside of games was all open source that was available on Windows and Linux, OpenOffice (would recommend LibreOffice now), Firefox, Thunderbird, etc.

Windows used to get dreadfully slow, unless you reinstalled. Or maybe I was fixing something. Reformatted the hard drive, set up the Linux partition (Ubuntu 6.06 IIRC), Synaptic, tick all my usuals, apply. Come back a little bit later, fully up to date, do some logins, Linux is fully usable. Even installed Battle for Wesnoth in case.

Boot over to Windows, update, reboot, update, reboot, install drivers, more reboots. More drivers, more installables, more updates, more reboots

It was bedtime, off finish off later, and I ended up using Ubuntu as my main for a week.

After that week, I found I only booted to Windows for games. Never looked back. That week is the week I flipped from 60%/40% Windows/Linux to 60%/40% Linux/Windows. Since then Linux only gets better, and I use Windows less and less.

For vim, terminals, and keyboard-driven window management. It's nice to have full control and feel like a first class citizen instead of a product. Or like the developer actively thinks you're an idiot.

About the reason for switching, it was something pretty small, actually:
Windows' UX getting increasingly worse for keyboard-centric usage (it slowly but surely got to my nerves e.e" ). Added with my HDD with Win10 dying after 6 years, being impulsive and loving to learn new things, I set to test new systems, in search for the ideal UX for my needs. Then, the Linux distros fitted like a glove, even more so with how customizable they could be, and they became my main systems (Mint currently). Still, ever since stopping using Windows as my main system family, I don't shy away from testing other systems. Even got the chance of testing Vista (surprisingly functional despite its infamy) and Macintosh 7 (I got very lucky in finding someone with such a computer).

And as mentioned before, a good part of Linux is being customizable. And surprisingly (from an outsider's perspective), you don't need to know coding most of the time! You just need to know how to do troubleshooting (which Linux programs more often than not facilitate by showing the error in detail). Also also, from an ADHD point of view, it is good for non-linear learning, since small things you learn in one activity can help immensely in other activities, potentially even helping with non-Linux systems.

But as a cautionary tale, not all things work on Linux, so it's always good to have a back up system or system installation ISO around. And given Linux's open nature, you either have companies working behind them, such as Canonical, Red Hat and Microsoft (this last one with their "Azure" server system), potentially deteriorating their systems for the sake of profit, or systems made from users to users, which then depend on the devs being interested in continuing development, so don't expect your favorite distro to be supported or viable forever, and be ready to make the jump to other distros if you need to.

It came down to right-to-repair/upgrade. I've been a mac user my whole life. The 2012 MacBook pro was the last model that users could upgrade themselves. I got a decade plus out of those machines because I could upgrade them. They actually still run quite well, but Mac no longer includes those models in their software updates and no longer allows users to easily upgrade any of their laptops manufactured since. That was it for me. Got a System76 laptop and made the move. Couldn't be happier.

So I still technically use Windows, but only because I need it because of some software for school, but I still use Linux most of the time. It's mainly the small yet super annoying things in Windows that caused me to switch. Like how everything has to automatically try and back up to OneDrive until you dig into the settings and disable it, or how it constantly badgers you to use insert Microsoft product here instead of what you want to use. Plus as a computer science student, and someone who spends a lot of time in the terminal, Powershell and the Windows command line feel so old and incapable compared to the Linux terminal (WSL has helped with some of that, but not all of it.) It's just small issues that cause big issues when you run into them, because it just makes simple things harder to do than they need to be, usually for the sake of pushing their products.

I switched for two reasons. First, I don't like how Microsoft is trying to attach everything to an online microsoft account. I prefer local control of my OS. I know there is a workaround for this, but it isn't worth the effort.

Second, I am Cheap. My latest hardware is a decade out of date, and linux makes better use of the limited resources that I have.

My experience with windows:

• Requies a monthly reinstall just to squeeze better performance.
• I pay for a licence and I still don't own a copy of windows
• unnecessary services running in background without my concent, and I had no control over them, eating up resources.

My initial experience with Linux:

• I need to study it to know my way around.
• applications behave as intended and are reasonable with provided resources.
• I initially started out with a destop environment which came with some extra software I didn't need (subjective).
• experience was quite stable.

My current outlook towards Linux:

• My system is configured and equipped with tools I only need. No bloatware.
• Gives me a better idle temps than windows.
• FOSS has lot of talented software which got limitless potential. Your imagination is the limit.
• Better security and no surveillance.
• Nvidia drivers, and its respective tech needs to be fully adopted for Linux.

I bought a laptop just as Windows Vista came out that could barely run it despite being labeled as "made for Vista". Once I installed Ubuntu on (Gutsy Gibbon) on it everything worked much more smoothly...even World of Warcraft through Wine, which was why I wanted a new laptop in the first place. I haven't played WoW for years, but I never wanted to go back to Windows.

I had a 3-4 year old gaming laptop, and a mandatory windows update would corrupt the hard drive forcing a fresh install. I say mandatory because it installed no matter what I tried. Disabling updates in settings and registry never would prevent this update from wrecking my computer. I could get a few days to a week of use and then it would crash and require a fresh install.

I installed Ubuntu to see if it was a hardware issue, and it ran great. Years later when I finally got another computer I tried windows again, but quickly realized how many things I hated about windows. I deleted my windows partition and have never looked back since.

Windows XP was the last Windows that I wanted to use. When it became totally obsolete, I upgraded to Linux Mint. I will never go back to Windows. I did not even start off using Windows. MS-DOS was my first operating system.

I actually like Windows. Not because its a good OS (it isn't) but because my software works with it, and it works with my hardware.

Only problem Windows 11 has decided thaty hardware isn't compatible anymore thanks to no security chip and because it requires a mandatory account to use.

The security chip is me being stubborn, but the mandatory account is an issue because I know people who live off the grid, and not entirely by choice.

So I wanted to find an alternative and Valve is showing that Linux is good enough that they can ship thei Steam Deck to mass market, without Windows.

I've jumped 4 distros since starting this. POP_OS, Manjaro, EndeavorOS and Fedora. What I've learned is 3 things

1. Linux has become stable, no matter what OS I used the experience was the same software was the same. And most if not all of it just worked. Its not Windows with exe installs (unless you're using Wine/lutris) but its similar to android/iOS that I was able to get into it easily enough

2. which distro you want depends on the software you need and how up-to-date the packages need to be. Ubuntu (and any is based on it) has packages that are too out of date for me.

3. find a desktop environment that you like, since it really narrows down which distro you use. I like KDE plasma and if the distro doesn't game with it pre-installed or an installable option I won't use it.

The end result was some productivity software shuffling fusion to freecad, Vegas to resolve etc. But almost everything I needed was installed out of the box, or installable without extra packages. With flatpak and community repos filling in the blanks.

Currently on Fedora, and it's the closest distro to user friendly Linux I've used. Manjaro is a close second, but how the manage aur and their own packages caused me to destroy my install with no hope in recovery. Thankfully I was able to save my files.

Proprietary software just feels gross, low quality, and opaque. I want to feel like I've actually got some kind of control over the computers I own. Windows was feeling more out of touch with software developers. Installing a compiler in Linux is super easy compared to Windows.

I switched because Windows XP reached end of life and I had no interest in Vista. I was also pretty familiar with Gnome 2 and XFCE, both of which provided a very similar desktop experience to XP but way more customizable.

I need tools that powerful and less memory hungry on old device, especially thinkpad, WSL2 with Windows kills the HW, so in the end I ends up using fedora... because it's near EL standard (I work with Red Hat Enterprise Linux), and it's useful to be near the workflow I need.

Linux KVM with Windows better than WSL2 on Windows.. so.. I use Linux in the end.. and never looks back..

I was trying to get some work done, I don't even remember what it was, and literally every tool that did exactly what I wanted was only available on Linux. Every time I looked stuff up, people just said, "oh yeah, type this into you command line and it works!" And I finally decided fuck it, and wiped my work laptop and installed Ubuntu.

I switch to Kubuntu in 2020 because Microsoft discontinued Windows 7. Then I switch to Debian to learn more about how Linux work, and after that I moved to Siduction to get the up-to-date packages. I still rice KDE to look like Windows 7 to this day :P

I’ve been using Linux since I was 14 like over a decade ago. I was forced to by my moms crazy boyfriend and when I had the chance I immediately installed windows. Long story short I absolutely hated it and switch back to Linux within 6 months, haven’t looked back since.

We had to do a presentation in the first year of secondary school, and somehow I ended up with Linux as my topic. I found it immensely interesting after doing the (admittedly limited, but hey I was 16) research, and decided to try it out after I found out that I can have both Linux and windows at the same time.

Long story short, I loved the sheer choice of distros, working with the terminal (which is so much easier than GUI working for a lot of things), how looks can be insanely customized with so many desktop environments, how you can install all (okay, most) packages you need from the terminal, how the updates are all handled by the package manager, then I found out about free and open source software as a concept and so on and so on.

Now I have only linux on my laptop, and windows on a desktop for gaming. Once you get used to it, it's honestly very awkward to go back to windows.

When I was 5/6 years old, I loved computers, but I wasn't necessarily a hobbyist. I learned almost everything on my own. I used to heavily modify my Windows desktop back then with skins and Stardock programs to make my desktop look like Mac OS X. I was a big fan of Apple's user interface (iOS/iPad as well, both the skeuomorphism and, well, the flat design a little bit).

So when I was 9, I saw Linux. I decided to use wubi and Ubuntu, tried this brand new OS.

It was awesome. I could modify it as I wanted to. I slept on my primary school classes. Ricing at the time felt great, you had so much control over your own desktop.

I have no idea why I stopped at that point. I think Windows 8 looked cool enough to me, but now I think it's one of the worst OS I've ever used. But games just worked there, honestly. Linux felt more like a toy, while Windows was my comfort zone.

Eventually a few years away from a decade later, I did use Debian 7 for hosting stuff like my bots in GCP. Having used Linux to customize the DE and the exposure to the terminal really helped a lot in making things more familiar to me.

Then I thought why don't I just use Linux desktop again. I started distro hopping. I finally found home in KDE Arch Linux, Proton-GE, the AUR, and Arch Wiki. I rarely do ricing if at all, only because I finally found the setup I'd rather be comfortable with than changing it frequently for no good reason.

I still use W11 to this day on my laptop but only because of school requiring me to use Visual Studio among other things. That's where Docker, WSL2, scoop, MSYS2, and several open source projects to improve QOL comes in. I can be comfortable with Windows and continue to use Linux without any annoying differences in my workflow. I also just use Vim on everything, and the CLI when I want to do productive work.

I've rarely held my mouse on the computer and neither did I work hard to memorize anything. You'd start getting intuitive with everything the moment you start to try understanding the rationale of how stuff is designed to be.

I was having issues with windows, and hate the look of windows 11 so I decided If I was going to have to re-install and deal with a new OS's problems I might as well deal with linux issues and learn something new.

I duel booted, and two months later thought back and found I hadn't gone into windows since the install.

A year and a half later and I can say that the issues I've had on linux have been easier to fix than windows. Two separate problems I've had on both. Linux was easy and took about ten minutes, windows took a day, and a month each.

with windows I get esoteric error codes that mean something generic like "failed to update windows" when it stops at 3% for two hours and crashes. The solutions for it including two magic fix all commands (didn't fix it), restarting it 'correctly' (nope), and copying a regedit value from another computer (did work). This all coming from the end of a random windows 7 forum post. My computer was on windows 10.

On linux it told me my arch keyring corrupted. When I googled the error I got an explination and the arch-update-keyring command. This worked.

With a swap file (167gb for some reason on windows) I got a greyed out GUI and twelve re-starts, 4 to get the screen up, 8 to make it work. On linux, I copy pasted commands.

Apologies for the rant, jt's early, but this is why I switched and stayed. I also like customization, alot

I was learning OpenGL at the time and I was frustrated that I could not play a game using OpenGL (When I use a technologie in programming, I love using software that use it) because none of the games in my library supported it. So I discovered Ubuntu 16.04 and I immediatly loved it. I also reinstalled it seven times because every time I broke it and I didn't know how to fix it.

What realy chocked me at the time is how easy it is to install C++ dependencies for your project. You just use the package manager and boom, you link it to your project and your done and if for whatever reason the package is not available in your package manager, you can build it manually very easely.

However, there where some downside too. VSCode didn't exists at the time (or I didn't ear of it) and the only proper IDE was kdevelop which I never liked. Hopefolly, when VSCode came it was realy cool, but not as cool as when I discovered NeoVim. The gaming too was bad, Proton didn't exist, Wine was not as advanced as today and DXVK was not a thing yet. You could only play games that where 5+ years old and only at 15/20 fps with a lot of glitches.

Linux nowoday serve all my needs, I only need to start Windows when I deploy and test some program to it or when I play a game that is not well supported on Linux and I only do it in a VM with single GPU Passthrough.

Every time I boot into Windows, it tries to force me to sign into a Microsoft account. I have to unplug my Ethernet cable to get past it. I just got over it and installed Mint instead. I almost never boot into Windows unless it's for something specific.

Was bored one day and wanted something to do

Windows kept annoying me. Somewhat ironically, the last straw for me was right after I tried linux for the first time using a live usb. Upon trying to go back into windows, BitLocker locked me out for changing secure boot settings. I thought, no problem, I'll go online and get my recovery key. I go online to discover there's no bitlocker recovery key. After some investigation, I found out if your OneDrive is locked down (for me because I went over my storage limit, something that only happened because windows insists on uploading all of your personal files to onedrive) you can't get your recovery keys. I deleted the stuff but had to wait a full day before onedrive was unlocked and I got my recovery keys.

So, in summary, windows locked me out of my computer that I own because I tried another OS, then didn't give me the option to unlock my device because I used too much storage in the cloud service they made me use. No thanks, I'd rather have control over the device I paid for and I own rather than it being controlled by some massive corporation.

And I gotta say, when you actually learn how to interface with your device on a deeper level, having complete control over everything is super nice. Also, the unix-style command line makes way more sense and is far easier to learn than the windows command line IMO. While a lot of newer Linux distros don't need you to use the console, it is really nice to know how for more advanced usage.

Windows xp was really bad, and a little thing called Ubuntu was gaining traction. So I guess just curiosity for what else was out there.

If something is happening, you know it does and you might have made it happen yourself.

Also, you are in full control. Use your machine (here OS specifically) however you want, and make it yours, and not a company's (Micro$hit im talkin about you mfs).

You use what YOU want to use, and not what they want you to use (cough edge, just accept that you're dogsh... cough, please).

When I was at uni a professor asked the class to raise their hands if we were using Windows and then MacOS. Then he asked who was using a REAL operating system. Everyone looked confused. He proceded to order all to install linux if we were to follow his class. My First distro was Ubuntu for about a week... I distrohopped for a couple of years and eventually I use arch btw.

Windows is just constantly trying to distract you from work. It's slow, hogs resources, kills my battery.

After tinkering a lot I have found a workflow that works great for me on Linux and I couldn't have found that with windows.

To be honest though. To switch to Linux I'd say you'd have a reason. If you don't work a techy job and don't plan on doing so and don't have much interest in it, you'd just have an easier time with windows.

But let me tell you once you go into Linux with an open mind and willingness to learn, you'll love it.

Because Wikileaks, Anonymous, Julian Asange, and Edward Snowden. Privacy (in digital data) are our own RIGHT to have as human has right to wearing any clothes so our bodies are not visible by public, and our government do not have to dictated what right clothes we should using or HAVE RIGHT to remove it from us.

In other perspective, people don't realized that their own data can HYPNOTIZED them and create mental health issue that can't be known only by our own mind. Consciousness is very fragile things. Still people pretend not aware and understand that..

For me, I had a netbook in 2008 and Windows 7 starter was a paywalled and slow mess, and Ubuntu 8.10 ran like a dream AND ran Windows apps! And looked cooler and the terminal was pretty awesome to use.

It's still that way, Windows 11 runs like shit and only lets you customize so much and makes decisions on when you update and what services you can have running and numerous other minor complaints, meanwhile Linux is free, fast, works well and doesn't get in your way.

I switched because I read Linux is secure and needs less resources, and also because of the open source philosophy. And because it's free! Hahaha Sometimes I donate a little to different open source developers. Let's help the community.

A variety of reasons really. Privacy concerns, not having full control over my system with Windows, ads being pushed on my computer that I can't turn off easily, Linux is more fun to use and learn about in general. Last but not least is community. The community around Linux is fun to be a part of and makes me want to learn more so I can contribute in any way I can to the projects that I like. Once you start really checking out Open Source software and what it represents it's hard not to care about it.

I didn't want to pay for windows.