My laptop with windows 10 shit the bed, it would let me type in my pin but get hung up on the spinny loady wheely thing never moving past that. I used a linux liveUSB to rescue my files from the disk, and while I was using it I noticed how my computer did things like “still work.” So I switched! Actually had two laptops at the same time I had to switch too, the other would let me log in but was bogged down and barely responsive, ran like a top for years but now I’m upgrading to a framework. The framework can probably run windows but it would’ve been like $200 more and like, why? I might just run a VM of WatermarkWindows for the few times I need it but really the only thing I need works in wine well enough.

Basically Intel graphics on windows broke. Hopped to Linux, no such problems here.

Tried (hopped) almost every mainstream distros, some niche ones too. Due to some issues with trackpad, I am forced to use arch based distros. Currently rocking EndeavourOS.

I am an IT nerd so I use Linux to learn more about the OS and programming. This was the original reason and still is the reason I keep a Linux machine on hand. Current machine is a dual-boot LG Gram running Windows 11 (wanted to keep the original OS so just shrunk it) and Arch Linux. It runs on Arch 90% of the time. Really only boot the windows partition to use it for work.

ad and annoyance-free

Initially I was just curious and I’ve always loved playing with new (to me) tech. Then I began to really appreciate various things about it - not least the high configurability. As I learnt about OSS I began to also appreciate that success of things as well.

My windows install started corrupting my hard drive every 1-2 weeks. Completely unrecoverable requiring a fresh install. I installed Linux to try to see if it was a hardware issue, and it worked fine without issues. Ending up just sticking to it. Couple years later I built a new PC, and tried windows again. I enjoyed having all my games work again (this was pre-proton so Linux gaming was hit or miss), but really hated the experience of using windows after being free from it for so long. Went back to Linux, and have been here ever since (about 10 years now). And thanks to valve/proton, I no longer feel like I’m giving anything up to use exclusively Linux.

I made the switch at the start of the year out of curiosity. I had worked for QNX as a student and though that I should have had a better understanding of the system, so I started using WSL for all my programming.

Then joined Lemmy in the summer and that increased my interest in trying it out full time. I was also getting increasingly disappointed with Windows pushing updates for Win11 and features like onedrive.

I’ve been super happy with it so far. I’ve gotten way more familiar with my OS and it’s been such a huge shift in perspective for me to be able to shape the way the OS works to my workflow rather than the inverse.

Windows post 7 was and remains annoying and getting worse all the time. So I wanted an OS without telemetry and one that I could control the updates on. I also work with Linux a lot at work. I use Alma 9 for a LTS release. Don’t have to mess with it much.

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I first got into Linux because I was a kid with an old hand-me-down laptop that was meant to run Windows 98 but I somehow stuffed Windows XP on there (it had a 4gb HDD and it was filled to the brim, I’m shocked in hindsight that it actually installed). Then I discovered Ubuntu (I think version 6.06?) and installed it, and it ran great! Once I got newer computers I ended up using Windows primarily but usually had a Linux PC kicking around. In college I started dual booting my main machine since Linux proved to be useful for my courses (Computer Science). Then I built a PC and just installed Windows 10 on it, but now that my 7th gen Intel CPU is “too old” to run Windows 11, I said screw it and installed Linux again. Plus I just really like having a bash shell natively, and a proper package manager is really nice.

I chose it for development reasons. I kind of fell into a decent career but one I didn’t enjoy and was tied to a specific geographic region. So, I was learning to code and my coworkers who wrote code were using Linux and all our servers were CentOS (or maybe WhiteHat or whatever it was called then). So, I installed Fedora Core 4 — I’m old — and liked it better than Windows. I loved being able to customize everything.

Eventually, I learned the philosophical reasons for open source after I got into it but they matched my personal beliefs so that was no issue.

I used to distro hop frequently and I’ve probably tried all the major distros at least once but after awhile, I began to just stick to Fedora or Ubuntu LTS for servers (and I guess Arch on Steam Deck, Raspbian on the Raspberry Pi, etc.). I like Vanilla Gnome nowadays and when I want to see a new distro, I just check it out in a VM.

I think Chrunchbang (R.I.P.) was my favorite distro when I was all-in on distro hopping and customizing everything. But at some point for a developer, your OS becomes more of a tool for opening an IDE and/or terminal and you value stability over customization or having the very latest software. In the Flatpak era, that’s even more true since you can run the newest versions regardless of the system.

Excel wouldn’t stop converting sku numbers to date formats. IT guy was excited to share an “easy fix” for that with Open Office…

When I saw his genuine excitement as he described Linux, plus the security it provided I realized, if I ran Linux I’d have the best support in the company. And I did.

I eventually had to move on from Linux at work after 10yrs or so but it’s all I run at home.

All because of Excel and those fucking date codes. Which yes, Open Office solved as advertised.

And yes I know you don’t need Linux for that but it was a long time ago.

I quickly fell partly into the Linux and open source rabbit hole.

So far I have tried small amount of distros on VMs, and the only distros I’ve run outside of VM and outside of my IT classes I’ve gone through so far would be Ubuntu on a very crappy laptop, and MX Linux on my current laptop. So far, MX with KDE Plasma 5.x (don’t remember the specific version) is my favorite distro.

Partly for freedom, partly for free software, partly for tinkering opportunities. I broke some installs before I started thinking of Linux as my daily driver.

I’ve tried Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, Puppy (and then Fatdog), Knoppix, Rasbian, Xandros, Damn Small Linux, Tiny Core, Arch and Endeavour, but Mint is my favourite. It’s never failed to just work.

It was and still is a few things: Mostly the cool factor. It’s different, does what I tell it (safety be damned lol ).

Security: Mostly sane defaults (like not making the initial user with full admin rights).

In the early days, a major factor was being poorer, constantly rebuilding Frankenstein PCs that would trip Ms activation crap. And with so many used parts, performance was better too.