I’m asking what big motivational factors contributed to you into going Linux full-time. I don’t count minor inconveniences like ‘oh, stutter lag in a game on windows’ because that really could be anything in any system. I’m talking, something Windows or Microsoft has done that was so big, that made you go “fuck this, I will go Linux” and so you did.
For me, I have a mountain of reasons by this point to go to Linux. It’s just piling. Recently, Windows freaked out because I changed audio devices from my USB headset from the on-board sound. It freaked out so bad, it forced me to restart because I wasn’t getting sound in my headset. I did the switch because I was streaming a movie with a friend over Discord through Screen Share and I had to switch to on-board audio for that to work.
I switched back and Windows threw a fit over it. It also throws a fit when I try right-clicking in the Windows Explorer panel on the left where all the devices and folders are listed for reasons I don’t even know to this day but it’s been a thing for a while now.
Anytime Windows throws a toddler-tantrum fit over the tiniest things, it just makes me think of going to Linux sometimes. But it’s not enough.
Windows is just thankful that currently, the only thing truly holding me back from converting is compatibility. I’m not talking with games, I’m not talking with some programs that are already supported between Windows and Linux. I’m just concerned about running everything I run on Windows and for it to run fully on a Linux distro, preferably Ubuntu.
Also I’d like to ask - what WILL it take for you to go to Linux full-time?
It’s not like I hate other operating systems, I just really like the idea of FOSS and try to use it whenever possible.
I like the idea of FOSS too, but I hate Windows. Macos is bearable, but Linux is the best one by far.
i was a starving college student with $20 to my name and a dead windows me desktop computer that had an entire semester’s worth of school work trapped inside of it.
i had read about linux before and saw that i could buy a couple of mandrake cd’s from a magazine at circuit city for $5 or borrow $169 from someone to buy a windows xp installation disk.
i bought the magazine; installed linux; and taught myself (with google’s help) how to copy all of my school work onto a usb drive. i finished those papers using the school’s computer laboratories; and then kept on using the linux installation from then on in 2002 until now.
Windows kept shoving their stupid Edge browser down my throat. Tried every way to remove it and it kept popping back up like malware. Kept annoying me with “upgrade to Windows 11 popups.” I’ve used windows 11 on other people’s laptops and was flabbergasted that there were ads on paid software. In addition to that I heard 10 will stop getting security updates next year so I bit the bullet and switched to mint full time. It’s worked well for me so far.
Very similar here, windows 11 being shittier and forced further pissing me off as windows 10 was supposed to be their last release shifting to a service model.
I’ve still yet to see a convincing reason windows 11 is an improvement in any way over 10.
Then steam decks came out with a solid proton version, and my only reason to stay on windows evaporated. I didn’t even try dual booting windows.
At first I was tipping my toes in Ubuntu but kept coming back to Windows as I kept running into stability issues. Googling my issues very frequently kept sending me to the Arch wiki, and I thought “well if they have so much covered, why not use this distro instead”. That and 196 subreddit (rule) made me try Arch, and my experience was noticeably better. Barely any crashes and improving Proton compatibility made me use it more and more. I kept a windows install for VR and anti-cheat enabled games until late 2023.
During my transition period (both in Linux and gender lol) between 2021 and now, I kept getting comments “why are you making your life harder with Linux, just use Windows where everything works”. Well, nowadays tables have turned and now I get to say “weird it works for me on Linux”. Except VR, it’s still a mixed experience.
(offtopic) Nice profile picture
Thanks, it’s a heavily modified VRChat avatar called Rindo, in case you’re curious :3 : https://booth.pm/en/items/3443188
Solid gaming support
I really liked having a login screen, so I switched to Mandrake from Windows 95
For me it’s the ability to use my hardware as long as I want after a tech company’s EOL. When I was on Windows 7 and it reached EOL my machine was unusable. Couldn’t go back because I waited to long. Then I updated my machine and Windows 10’s EOL was set and again, machine will be not be safe to use. I switched to Linux before that release date but the way Microsoft does with these EOL dates, for me isn’t sustainable. I dont need to buy a new machine every few years. I want my machines to be a usable and secure for as long as I want it to with minimal impact to my finances and stop simply just throwing old machines away. And if I run into a distro that my machine isn’t beefy enough for, I have distro-hopped around enough to be able to go to something else but still be in the Linux-verse.
The stuff like, better for privacy, open source etc., those benefits came after.
It used to be just because I was interested. Then life got in between and I ditched it a bit, until Microsoft announced that “find anything you ever did”-feature. I installed Ubuntu again after quite a few years and stayed because I finally did not have to spend 3 days to get my video card working “kinda” and I found out my games actually work. No need to use Windows anymore.
Lots of little things, but the straw that broke the camel’s back was the constant pop-ups asking me to try out Copilot in Win10, harassing me daily on both on my personal PC and my work laptop.
Windows has been on thin ice since the trash fire that was Win8, and I’d only stuck with it for Nvidia driver support for gaming. I’ve been watching Proton development for years now, and putting it through its paces on my older PCs every few months, so I knew I was ready to make the switch for about a year before I finally pulled the trigger. I justified putting it off with the thought that “I can build my next PC around an AMD graphics card amd make the switch then.”
Then Win11 and all its garbage was announced, AI took off, and Microsoft started pushing their slop on my machine harder than ever. It was too much. I switched to Mint DE on my current machine and haven’t looked back.
Wobbly windows, rotating cube workspace switcher, and a flaming bonanza animation when a windows was closed.
The year was ~2003
Good times… Good times.
2 very good reasons: privacy and Big Tech.
The turning point was when Windows was no longer set and forget. Windows 7 was the last time that was the case before I had to put any real work into it.
I put up with Windows 10 for a bit and wrote a script to neutralise bloat and configure the OS to some saner settings, then I could keep things consistent between installations. That was fine for a while.
But over time Microsoft became more unhinged and my script evolved into several larger scripts in order to deal with the BS. It became an endless cat and mouse game and I found that I was wasting too much of my time maintaining it just to have a OS that was clean of crap.
The last straw was when a botched update gutted the performance of my PC, and Microsoft took several months to fix the issue. I installed Debian which just worked, and it was good timing because Windows 11 was announced shortly afterwards. I’ve experienced it at work and it’s hands down the worst OS I’ve ever used, and I’ve used pretty much every version of Windows since 3.1. I think I’d even take Me over it. At least that OS sucked because it was poorly designed. Windows 11 is intentionally hostile to its users.
It wasn’t my first rodeo with Linux since I’ve been on and off with it since 2007. Still, I was pleasantly surprised at how well it works out of the box these days.
A few months later and I had built my new machine. I didn’t even bother to install Windows on it. Now I use Arch btw and haven’t looked back.
For me it was partially Windows 10 placing suggested apps and ads in the UI. The other part was just curiosity. After some distro hopping I landed on Mint, then Fedora and finally Arch where I’ve been for about two or three years.
To be fair my Windows experience was far simpler than Linux, if less fulfilling. What got me was a combination of constant attacks on privacy, W11 and the enshittification of the UI as well as general Microsoft corporate tomfoolery (have dealt with them for work, not a fan of their monopolistic EEE tactics).
I love tinkering through and through. Started learning about Linux on raspberry pis a long time ago, jailbroke a chormebook to make it usable, and went “hey wait, tinkering with this and having more control is so much cooler.” Don’t need rainmeter when the desktop has customization built in
