Lmy first journey with Linux was really bad back in 2009 maybe with Ubuntu. Managed to get a server running after a ton of reinstalls of the whole OS. That thing ran for years until it broke last year. As I had read about Linux mint I gave that a try and let's just say it was a breeze to get working. Not a single problem anywhere in sigh. I gues so had to do some stuff in the terminal but my experience from years ago came in use so nothing I am unfamiliar with.

I ran windows 11 on my main computer and every time I wanted to check anything in the settings... No. Why is everything so hidden? Why do you have to ge through so many menues and categories when you want to find something. Write a name of a program you want to start in the start menu but instead of looking at the computer it defaults to a fucking bing search?! I had enough of this shit. Everything feels like a hassle every time I wanted to do anything outside steam so I just said fuck it and installed bazzite and I am never returning even if I still have windows on one of my drives. Booted it ONCE in 9 months and almost threw up.

I just want my computer to do what I want it to. I don't want those things to be hard to do. I have no problem to search the internet for help and terminal commands or how to edit files. Yes, the GUI of windows is easier but it drives me insane. It was a lot better before windows 7 or 10 whenever it changed a lot. I'd rather just look stuff up and type some commands.

I have been a casual user of gnu/linux since Ubuntu, and was very curious and interested by the concept of libre/ open-source. I'm still a casual user now, but have fully switched to Manjaro when Proton became official and I could finally just start gaming on linux. It was rough at first, but now I can play seamlessly on a system that isn't bloated and doesn't require a live colonoscopy to even work. I love Manjaro for its ease of use. Even my mother can use it.

I used Windows 7 until the very last moment, and switched when it died. I still have it as a vm tho with gpu passed through using a rx560, to run Windows programs for school and to enjoy the aero theme once in a while

I was an edgy teenager and wanted to be different. I was already kind of into coding and it made it quite easy to try out different languages and environments.

In those days I had fun finding equivalents to Windows-only apps like MSN, and finding games that worked in Linux like UT2004 and TrueCombat:Elite. It was never a perfect solution so I always kept, and still do keep, a Windows installation around for gaming. I don't give a shit if MS harvests my data - what are they gonna do, advertise to me? Good luck with that. But for day-to-day stuff I am far too used to how Linux works to go back. I figure Windows has improved a lot in terms of reliability and usability since those days (and if you don't care about data harvesting or really old hardware, those are the remaining major reasons not to want to use Windows nowadays) so it might be that if I were in the same position today I'd never make the switch, but hey.

It means I don't really like the religious OS wars that erupt here. Like OK, there are MS irritations we're not dealing with, but what I am dealing with is that some esoteric combination of events means that a couple of times a week my laptop stops recognising my dock and all USB devices connected to it until I reboot - including if I plug the devices in directly to the laptop!

If I were just some random user who had just switched, that would send me back to whichever OS I had come from in an instant. So I feel like it's important to be sensitive and empathetic to that.

at some point windows removed the focus stealing prevention setting. So I moved to KDE plasma, which has global AND per app focus stealing prevention settings.

My dad played (and still plays) heavily modded Cities Skylines. After upgrading his RAM to 32GB, he'd run afoul of Windows 7 Home Edition's 16GB limit. I offered to check out Linux on my own computer to see how well Cities Skylines played. I never went back.

Tl;dr, bc linux is based

I got a steam deck when it came out. The desktop side was really cool, and all my games ran great on it.

Soon after, I finally bought my (former) dream pc case & decided with my next pc build I wanted linux because... it felt like the cool thing to do. With the steam deck, linux seemed just cool-new and easy to use. I couldn't imagine not being able to solve any problems on a well-established distro with just patience and google-fu.

So I had mint and two flavors of fedora on flash drives and couldn't for the life of me figure out how to enlarge my cursor on either fedora version. On mint cinnamon, I found the setting right away. I've been on mint since and haven't looked back.

Pretty rarely, I get the question, why tf are you using linux? My answer is pretty much "cause I think it's based? Plus I get to learn more about computers along the way anytime something doesn't work."

Have used Linux for work (desktop and server) for 15+ years. At home I've got Linux for my servers but desktop had stuck to windows because of gaming and audio production software.

The experience in gaming is amazing now on Linux for me and while audio is still quite iffy it's workable.

I have never liked Microsoft so binning them off at home completely is something I've always wanted to do

I worked with windows and their servers for a long, long time. Fully delved into that ecosystem as it was between 2000-2019 or so.

In 2019 i quit the job I had then and went on a short sabbatical, severe burnout. I had played around with knoppix circa 2003, slackware as well, but I didn't "get it".

So the image of linux, in my head, were those experiences until 2019, when I took another look. I had a 500gb sata ssd that I was using to test out every distro under the sun, including a relatively successful install of BLFS. For 2 years I had tried all I could get my hands on, until I settled on my distro of choice.

Nuked my nvme, cleaned out almost all windows remnants from my homelab and went balls deep in linux.

So now I am off windows for about 5 years and I feel like I did when I quit smoking. I keep an install around on a spare ssd because I need fusion360 and a few games that only work on windows so I can keep up with the few friends I have.

But home is on my linux installs and every day, I enjoy the shit out of it.

I migrated long ago. When I first knew about foss software, I started experimenting with some stuff like gimp and inkscape, and noticed that I could do the same things I did, but with a substancially lower hardware demand. Everything was lighter and smoother on my low-end stuff (I'm poor and always used old or cheap devices).

After migrating almost everything to foss, I learned about linux, and switched right away. The change was easy, because I already had a foss workflow, so it was so smooth and nice.

It was one of the best things I did. Since then, all my devices worked smoother and lasted longer. The environmentalist movements should promote foss, because the long-term difference is HUGE.

"It's only going to get worse." - Me when Windows 8 didn't come with the start menu

Windows XP had been out for quite a while, and I did not want to use it. Staying on 98SE was not going to be possible forever. Ubuntu was quite new, I had recently started uni, and some friends helped me get started. There was one thing that absolutely amazed me: package repository. Just the concept. Windows at the time, to install stuff was finding random pages, sifting through ads, locate download button, hope it is not a virus. Linux had it solved. So far superior it there was no way I'm going back after that.

My desktop is too old to run Windows 11.

1. Instantly preferred Linux, but thought it was not feasible.
2. Learned that dual booting is a thing and set up a Win+Xubuntu Laptop.

Nowadays, my PC is dualboot and all my laptops Linux.

My windows XP install kept breaking and I got tired of fixing it, so I tried Linux and never went back.

I got really frustrated with Windows 10 after couple years working in the hell desk, and decided to try something else for personal use

I got a new PC and felt dirty at the thought of installing windows on it. So I never did. Linux ever since.

When I was younger, I did it because Windows Vista was the current OS and I hated it. Now, I do it because Windows 11 is the current OS and I hate it...but also because gaming on Linux is so much better than before

I was curious and done with the malware. Living in a very small city in some third world country where the internet was only for some government offices, higher social classes, universities and one or two cyber cafes, grabbing a Linux CD was a daunting task. I got a set of RedHat CDs but couldn't make it boot in my own PC (a Compaq).

Life got me living in Mexico City to get my BS and suddenly I got many more options to try this Linux thing. Mandrake was now the go-to distro for beginners, since Ubuntu was not a name yet. Installed the Linux, loved it. After discovering the DE variety, I distrohopped for years. It was easier for me to download a Live CD somewhere, often at my University, than changing DE in my offline PC. At that time Mandrake became Mandriva, and I distrohopped between Zenwalk, Slackware, Fedora Core, Dreamlimux (lesser known Debian-based Brazilian distro), then got Ubuntu CDs by mail (they used to send them for free, and even included stickers!), and I settled there until Unity.

Because I want to control my own computer. I had to pay for the device, so I should be treated as the owner, yet Microsoft and Apple act like they own people's computers, and build software that treats the computer as property of those corporations.

I don't like tinkering just to get stuff working, so I use more user-friendly Linux distributions, and it's been very smooth.

I switched from Win95 to Redhat out of curiously. The first attempt ended in kernel panik, the second succeeded. Despite many challenges I was happy there, because there usually was a way to fix things to work in a way I could live with. There was also lots of opportunity to break things and learn. Also the shell in Linux was much better than in windows. Been using Linux at home, university and work since. Seeing what windows has turned in to I am glad I switched many years ago.

I was using ubuntu during my internship and I like and never looked back

These posts are funny, literally everyone has an answer so you get like over a hundred replies.

So that I'd have a clever answer to this question

Because Windows customization was too hard and weird. To install a custom theme, I had to browse DeviantArt for some god forsaken reason(????) and trust this random person's theme, which could contain malware for all I knew! I just wanted to choose colors and change transparency!

Stupid default software: What's up with Micro$oft Edge? Why do they push it so hard? Just let me set Firefox as the default browser for everything! I want to be able to uninstall things I don't want on my system, and use whatever apps I want.

So, around 2022, I tried Linux Mint and fell in love with it. I'd heard Apple devices were pretty locked down so the thought of buying a Mac hadn't crossed my mind (I could not afford one anyways).

I then went on to, over time, try other distros, such as: ArcoLinux (now discontinued), Debian, Artix, KDE Neon, Void, and nowadays I run NixOS on my desktop and Arch on my laptop. (I did try Fedora Sway for a few hours before installing Arch on my laptop though).

about 1 or 2 times a year, consistently, Windows for whatever reason would kill my wifi on my system. uninstalling and reinstalling drivers wouldn't work, hard resetting wouldn't work, nothing. Just randomly disabled my wifi and looking online the ONLY solution was a complete reinstall of the OS. I don't know why it did this, but it was an annual thing for me to have to reinstall the OS just to get wifi working again.

I had enough. decided to try a live usb of Linux Mint and I liked it so I installed it on my system. after 2 weeks I switched to CachyOS and now i'm on NixOS.

Initially because i had a HTPC and windows with big picture mode still felt like a second class experience as there were no system settings in big picture mode itself. Went to bazzite as soon as i got an amd card.

Then I had a surface go 2 that could no longer update to the next version of windows because Microsoft didn't give it enough built in memory to process the download. So i went to arch hyprland and gained so much more time on battery and things ran smoother. So now all of my other devices (except a work laptop) are now on Linux (cachyos is my go to now).

2001 first introduced to Fedora (1?) A friend installed on my laptop. Used it for a little; but it didn't do the things I wanted. A little while later I was back on XP.

I tried Ubuntu 6.04; it wasn't ready. Back to XP.
I tried Ubuntu 8.04; it was really close. Back to XP.
I tried Ubuntu 10.04; and have had Linux ever since. I have jumped to various distros over the years, I kept coming back to Mint though. I currently have a couple of computers running Bazzite and the rest on Mint.

I do keep Windows VM's around; XP, 7 and 10. But they barely get turned on these days.

I haven't had Windows installed on a machine in 16 years; even in 09 it only lasted a couple of months till I got time to replace it.

I was trying Linux because I was curious (back then it was Mandrake) and I realised I hadn't booted Windows for 6 months so I reinstalled Linux giving it all of my hard drive and never looked back.

I had dabbled with Linux and BSDs in the late 90s to early 2000s. I was using Win2k on main computer, fully updated with antivirus software when I started getting popups in Internet Explorer, and I never even used IE. My internet was slow so I went to a book store and bought a SuSE book with CDs.

I haven't, I run a Windows desktop, Linux desktop, Windows laptop, and Linux laptop (was a Mac OS laptop but Apple EoL'd it, so I am looking at a Mac Mini M4 Ultra or M5 if they release one next year). I am OS agnostic though.

First it was for performance, OpenSuse back in like 2004, since then its just what I'm familiar with. I don't feel like I need to fight the OS like I do on windows machines.

Sometimes I have to use windows in a VM or I need some Software that only works on 2000/XP (psxn00b sdk) and for that I have an old machine that I use.

win98SE was extremely shit, so a friend installed debian for me and i never looked back

I didn't... Not yet. I really want to, but I'm still tied up to some apps, working best in Windows... I plan to get a powerful enough laptop, to emulate windows, and then that will no longer be a real problem. But I really wish I didn't have to emulate anything.

My computer is basically the same computer my wife built around 12 years ago, as she did upgrades over the last decade or so I just saved her old components and eventually stuffed them into a new box. It was a beefy rig when she built it, and still runs most of what I throw at it with (what I think is) pretty acceptable performance and settings.

So that old motherboard and processor aren't windows 11 compliant and with the windows 10 end of life I decided it was time to make the switch. Don't quite have the wiggle room in the budget for a major upgrade right now.

And truth be told, even if I were to do a major upgrade, I probably was looking at Linux anyway. I don't like the AI bullshit and a lot of the other dumb crap Microsoft has been pulling with 11. I want to get away from the corporate overlords in general. I've always been pretty big on FOSS, so really it was just gaming that's been holding me back and I felt like proton and such the state of gaming on Linux has finally reached a place I can be happy with.

And not for nothing, it's free, and I've always felt like MS charges too much for windows. I'm a bit of a cheapskate, if I can save a buck I'm going to. The F in FOSS is a huge draw for me.

And I've had half-baked plans to turn this current rig into a home server/NAS whenever I get around to building a new rig, so that meant Linux was in the cards for it at some point anyway, and I might as well start getting my hands dirty with that now in preparation.

Its more why don't I use osx anymore and why did I use windows so long. After osx came out in the new millenium and when the apple warranty was tops I was a total mac person. And yes because it was something that just works out of the box and with the warranty you did not need to worry about anything for at least 3 years. This made the extra cost worth it. It was more out of the box than windows because you could, for example, burn a disc right out of the box. I stopped doing macs when they blamed their magentic cable sheaths coming off as from use and would not cover it (at one point you could come in with a mac with a cracked screen and they would not blink and get it replaced for ya. no questions asked. Although not specifically spelled out it effectively was an accident warranty to.) So with the warranty not being any better than a windows machine the extra cost was no longer worth it. Concurrently mac went down this simplicity path (the iphonification of macs) wereas previous to that they use to extol their power and greater number of ports. Basically my last mac was the last version of the mac book pro that had a dvi slot and lots of ports in general and was large and powerful. Now linux at that point had gotten much better than it used to be in the first decade of the millenium, but yeah. It was not exactly out of box. Zorin os had just started but again was not quite there. In addition much of my work things were windows and I had this sweet solution for computer support with my wife where I got thre laptops that were cheap in a bang for the buck way and it was a nice solution for tech support for my wife. So I was on windows. Also portable apps made windows really easy to update and migrate hosts. Eventually my wife wanted to much of gaming machines to the point we got her a desktop so my tech solution was sorta out the window but there was work and the portable apps thing (I at one point voted for portable apps as the best open source enabler). Zorin had gotten much better (out of box linux distro) and I was aware of it and played with it (along with other things like puppy) but inertia won out. Then windows 11 came along and it was a no go. Especially when I was already aware of a linux distro that was as out of the box as osx and maybe a bit better really (which keep in mind was more out of the box than windows). So I finally said enough is enough and installed zorin on my old laptop. What sucks is app image is so close to what portable apps brings and it has some related projects that have the components of it but just is not packaged nicely all together in a one and done.

Why did you switch, and what was your process like? What made you choose Linux for your primary computing device, rather than macOS for example?

Free, installs on my existing hardware with near-zero effort. I have it installed on old yet still functional Macs that Apple doesn't provide security updates for anymore.

Back in 2004 a friend was using Linux, I asked that friend to teach me programming, and he said he would only do so on Linux because he didn't even knew how to compile stuff on windows. So I started dual booting and originally I only used the Linux partition for programming, organically I started to spend more time on Linux than on windows until eventually I only used Windows for gaming.

Over time I had some degree of success with Wine, so some games I would play on Linux, and only use Windows for the ones that didn't worked. Then around 2011 I discovered Humble Bundle and started to get native games for Linux, and by 2013 when Steam came to Linux I realized I hadn't rebooted to use Windows in years, so I wiped that partition.