Linux

Cause 'muh freedom'

The younger users may not be aware of this... but privacy and freedom were big concerns about the internet since at least the early nineties. We knew that the moment of being ignored was only going to last a little while and it was commonly discussed. And it was already discussed about how insecure windows was and rumors of their back doors and the like.

In that light... when I first heard about linux in 1995 and gave slackware a try one weekend I knew that eventually I was going to switch. But I was/am a graphics artist and 1995 was too soon for doing that kind of stuff at the professional level on linux. But I knew the day would come, so I consciously started switching to open source apps instead of cracked proprietary apps.

Around 2006-2007 there was a lot of talk about projects like Ubuntu making linux highly functional for a graphics person and relatively "easy" to get running. By that time the only proprietary software I was using was Adobe, which I only cared about using while at work and a couple games. And even then, running adobe inside of virtualbox was an option. I dual booted and after about 1-2 months I reached the point where I finally was comfortable enough to not ever go back. After about a year and realizing I hadn't booted into windows for about 4 months, I erased that partition. I've never looked back.

My laptop has been discontinued by the manufacture for a couple years now and with support for Windows 10 ending, I wanted to increase the lifespan of my device so I looked into Linux. The lack of ads, bloat, and spyware are also major selling point to me.

I was a Windows user as a kid in the 80s & 90s doing pirate installs of 3.11 and later 95 for friends and family. I got into "computers" early and was pretty dedicated to the "Windows is the best!" camp from a young age. I had a friend who was a dedicated Mac user though, and she was bringing me around. The idea of a more-stable, virus-free desktop experience was pretty compelling.

That all changed when I went to school and had access to a proper "Mac lab" though. Those motherfuckers crashed multiple times an hour, and took the whole OS with them when they did it. What really got to me though was the little "DAAAAAAAAAAA!" noise it would make when you had to hard reboot it. It was as if it was celebrating its inadequacy and expected you to participate... every time it fucked you over and erased your work.

So yeah, Macs were out.

I hadn't even heard of Linux in 2000 when I first discovered the GPL, which (for some reason) I conflated with GNOME. I guess I thought that GNOME was a new OS based on what I could only describe as communist licensing. I loved the idea, but was intimidated by the "ix" in the name. "Ix" meant "Unix" to me, and Unix was using Pine to check email, so not a real computer as far as I was concerned.

It wasn't until 2000 that I joined a video game company called "Moshpit Entertainment" that I tried it. You see, the CEO, CTO, and majority of tech people at Moshpit were huge Linux nerds and they indoctrinated me into their cult. I started with SuSe (their favourite), then RedHat, then used Gentoo for 10 years before switching to Arch for another 10+.

TL;DR: Anticapitalism and FOSS cultists lead me into the light.

Got a laptop that came with Vista, but really could have only handled XP well (opening an app on a fresh install involved waiting and preparing for the app to lag when in use). Put Linux on it and had no problem with gnome2

Windows kept reinstalling edge and copilot

The moment i saw windows 11 had telemetry. I was SO mad at windows at that moment. So i erased it from existence.

Had to reinstall Windows XP one time too many

Copilot.

Therapy

My first Linux PC was a steam deck. The next year I got a laptop for school and thought I might as well install Ubuntu to learn a thing or two. The next year I broke my Ubuntu install and decided to graduate to Arch just because I had the opportunity. That year was 2024 and after November 5th I decided that technofascists and proprietary software could fuck right off because that was one thing about life that I could control at that point. I stopped using windows entirely a few months later.

Had a 6-year old Macbook Pro that was increasingly difficult to use due to the small SSD-drive (I think only 128GB?). Coudn't really update the OS without uninstalling most stuff due to this. In addition, I had started to get the urge to tinker with stuff again, but ran into roadblocks often (often following a guide to do something in the terminal only to get stuck at inatalling something from apt). Same time I got more and more fed up with Big Tech, so when I was buying a new laptop to replace it, the choice to avoid Apple and Microsoft was obvious. Having used a terminal on macOS, doing work on HPC-clusters (which obviously ran Linux) and moving an increasing amount of my workflow to Got Bash on Windows on my work machine (all three of which reinforced my level of comfortability with the terminal and desire to use it), the prospects of the terminal was more enticing than frightening.

Now I have been a full-time Linux user for three years, my partner, brother and mother have since switched, I manage some bare metal Linux servers for work and IT has finally agreed to allow me to ditch Windows for Linux (although they are taking their sweet time setting it up, so I am still waiting to actually get it).

I got a job writing software for Linux servers.

After spending my workday on a mature stable operating system, going home to Windows or Mac became frustrating, to me.

Various challenges required paid-but-still-kind-of-buggy software on Windows or Mac, that I had mature stable solutions for on Linux.

I spent many years installing free software recompiled for Windows (in cases where it was available) so that I would have the same quality of tools at home as I had at work.

Eventually Ubuntu and Linux Mint hit an ease of use that made me feel silly last time I went through the effort that comes with activating Windows.

win10 1709 decided to wipe some of my files.

Switch implies I only have one computer .... I have many, including several servers.

Ever since I have memory I've been a tinkerer and linux being OS enables you to do amazing things ... along with open source software.

I (dont) use arch BTW ... Windows on my gaming PC (because of antichieat amongst other compatibility foes) Mint on my personal tablet and Proxmox on my servers

I learned to use linux decently in school. Used it for servers, etc at home.

Windows had its auto updatee, and eventually drove me mad enough to dual boot. When the updates started crash boot loops and I literally couldn't use it anymore... I finally swore off Windows.

Its not all sunshine and rainbows, but i have had a much better time woth Lonux, and feel much better about it.

Looking at all the sheisty things theyve talked about and/or attempted, such as screen recording everything for AI, contemplating ads in file explorer, forced one drive integration slowing basic operations down... I have no desire whatsoever to return.

Simple. Windows caused a lot of Problems I simply could Not solve.

Besides that Microsoft became Something I do Not want to Support much longer or willing to giveaway my privacy.

And yeah. Linux Runs better.

I had a meeting at work with a product team lead at Microsoft. Went home and installed Linux that evening.

Because of the continual enshittification of Windows 11 with each major update.

My computer was getting older and slower and I couldn't afford a new one and wanted to squeeze as much performance out of it as I could. That and, I heard it was all the rage with hackers and I fancied myself a bit of a hacker.

Always tinkered with Linux, since eeeearly Red Hat days, but took the first full move when I set up my home lab and needed to host some docker containers with hardware pass-through.

Turned out my hardware was a bit too new for the kernel I had to install so ended up teaching myself a lot in terms trying to get everything to work.

Because of that I got quite comfortable on the terminal and from then, the UI suddenly made sense, because I understood better the concepts underneath.

Run three boxes with various versions of Linux now, a couple more if you count dual booting, a couple more if you count Mac as some kind of Frankenstein UNIX.

I started by hating Microsoft even before Linux. It was the day I saw the 3.5" disks of Win3.11 didn't have the tab to write them. My reaction was "those are OUR disks, not Microsoft's". I was using then DRDOS and later OS/2. Also I used an Atari STE. So not much love for Windows. And when I saw KDE (maybe 2.0) I installed Linux.

Windows didn't work, linux did.

3.11 and Slackware respectively.

It was easier for work.

Because open source, like the right to privacy and the diversity it can offer, always has something for everyone.

In the end, W*'s recent choices, such as ReCall, and the intrusions into our privacy, finally convinced me to begin my transition.

Until now, I had been observing opinions for the past five years.

The fact is that I am not a programmer or a specialist in these subjects, just a very small amateur, and Linux has long been off-putting.

Having the time and a computer to experiment is not that easy. But with an old computer, I finally have the opportunity to test Linux Mint... Others will undoubtedly follow.

I always say that to change operating systems, you first have to figure out how to replace proprietary software or applications with open source ones, because most of them are also available on Linux.

That's what I did on my mobile, and now the next step is to choose a custom ROM such as Lineage or /e/OS, etc.

I learned how far gaming on Linux had come, so during COVID I decided to try it out. I wiped my Windows 10 installation, and installed Ubuntu on it (later Pop!_OS, then Garuda, and Arch on other machines), and got to work figuring things out. I didn’t know if it’d stick, because I was still unsure of it as I wasn’t sure I’d get all of my games working. But, I got settled within a week, and over time things just got better. At that time I was so used to Windows’ bloat and other… “features” that I became blind to them. After more than five years using Linux, using Windows even for a few minutes is quite the shock!

I woke up one day, and copilot had been installed on my PC overnight. I didn't like that lack of control. This was, coincidentally, a weekend that my wife, kid, and dog were all gone. Since I knew Win10 only had a year left, and I had the time, I figured it was as good a time as any.

I downloaded Fedora and Kubuntu. Spent a bit of time with each, and went with Kubuntu. For a few days. It had issues waking from sleep, and I had to do some kind of tweaking with every one of my games to get them to work.

I don't mind tinkering with stuff, but i just don't have the time to make my computer my hobby. So, I switched to Mint. Everything just works. So, I put it on everything else. I guess the one time I really had to dig into terminal stuff was getting a wifi driver for my living room PC off git. Other than that, super easy.

Now, I'm coming up on a year of Mint. Couldn't be happier.

It's basically a pattern of:

Me: I have a problem and I need help fixing it

Other: ok but what's the problem

Me: I can't do this for some reason

Other: you're wrong for wanting to do that when you can just do this instead besides you're dumb and stupid and wrong and you should just deal

So I'd just keep changing things until my computer did what I wanted. I'd be fine using a Mac or windows if and only if it was ok to ask for help (meaning that I got to a point with a problem where I can't move forward anymore myself and the only 2 options are to give up or ask for someone to contribute something that makes it so I can make progress)

I don't like corprofascism.

Mint rules so far. Been enjoying it for several months now!

I didn't manage to disable accessibility features in Windows anymore, due to a bug I assume