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So what did it take for you to go to Linux?

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?

Coco ,

20 years ago somebody told me that installing Gentoo would make my computer performant enough to run video games. I no longer play video games, but I have been using GNU/Linux variants ever since.

Diplomjodler3 ,

Enshittification. I never had any technical reasons for leaving Windows. It has its share of annoyances but so does every other OS. What really got to me was the constant pushing of their own products over others. And I don’t even want to think about switching to 11. Without the enshittification I would still be using Windows, just because of inertia.

doctortofu ,
@doctortofu@reddthat.com avatar

Same here. I was fine with W10, but the recent W11 shenanigans were the last straw, and I decided to give Linux Mint a try. Couldn’t be happier - everything is so much more snappy now. And since I game on consoles only and my crappy PC was never a gaming machine to begin with, I have zero issues - wish I switched sooner!

stardustsystem ,
@stardustsystem@lemmy.world avatar

Windows 7 was a competent OS with low system requirements, a stable kernel, a simple feature set that was well-known and useful, an interface that was comprehensible and clearly conveyed to the user, and it didn’t require extra investment or online accounts, and compatibility options for the really old stuff. It remains the Best version of Windows in my eyes.

8 took away the comprehenisble UI, low spec options, and lack of online service requirements, then 10 further complicated the UI and filled the OS with ads, the then 11 bloated the feature set, added even more ads, borked compatibility, and made the online accounts a requirement unless you pay extra and/or know what you’re doing.

Textbook Enshittification

Diplomjodler3 ,

Agreed. XP was pretty decent too, though.

knightly ,
@knightly@pawb.social avatar

XP was acceptable and 7 was decent, but just seeing the previews of 8 was the last straw for me.

chottomatte ,
@chottomatte@lemdro.id avatar
  • Open source community
  • The diversity in Linux distributions
  • Trying something different from Windows
  • Ubuntu interested me when I read about it a long time ago in the computer school textbook, although I didn’t try it in practice back then
  • Experiencing Windows 11 on my father’s computer … It was a little disgusting, especially when it’s not activated

-Nearly 2 years when the warranty period ends , then I can go full-time to Linux

nadiaraven ,

Last year my wife said “most games can be run on Linux now because of steam deck, I think I’ll switch to Linux” and I said “well I guess I’m switching too” so I un-installed windows, and I’ve been full time since, even starting to self host jellyfin and nextcloud. She and I have both done linux in the past, but gaming was what was holding us back. There wasn’t anything WRONG with windows per se , except maybe the looming threat of windows 11, I just really love linux, open source, and being able to easily lift up the hood to peek inside

I use arch BTW. And Debian, my first love.

southsamurai ,
@southsamurai@sh.itjust.works avatar

Windows 10.

The way they rolled it out, and everything they shoved down the throats of anyone that “upgraded”

owsei ,
@owsei@programming.dev avatar

The pandemic and programming.

I was watching some tutorials and saw how easily people used the terminal, and how clunky cmd felt.

Next day I had ubuntu running.

Quique ,

If that is the only reason you should have installed WSL. Saved you a big switch.

joel_feila ,
@joel_feila@lemmy.world avatar

I didn’t want to have spyware for an os.

countrypunk ,

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.

ElectricAirship ,
@ElectricAirship@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Finding a good MusicBee alternative on linux. I just dual boot into windows whenever I need to convert FLACs and organize it. Otherwise I’m on Linux 99% of the time now.

HumanPenguin ,
@HumanPenguin@feddit.uk avatar

Late 1990s my uni had unix workstations HPUX.

So all projects etc were expected to be done on those. Linux at the time was the easy way to do it from home.

By the time I left uni in 98. I was so used to it windows was a pain in the butt.

For most of the time since I have been almost 100% linux. With just a dual boot to sort some hardware/firmware crap.

Ham radio to this day. Many products can only do updates with windows.

Frederic ,

Wow, same, went to uni from 1990 to 1996, everything was HP-UX, so I installed Linux on my 386 then 486 at the time, easier to do the homework, transferred on floppy. Always had a Linux partition, of course DOS/Windows was used for gaming, Linux for tinkering and dev. I don’t game for years so I’m Linux 100% for years now. I have a windows XP in QEMU for AVRStudio, damn thing cannot make it works in wine because of serial ports.

HumanPenguin ,
@HumanPenguin@feddit.uk avatar

Was a few years later for me.

Not DMU by any chance?

Frederic ,

nah, in France, they were big supporter of HP-UX

HumanPenguin ,
@HumanPenguin@feddit.uk avatar

Cool. At the time, it was one of the best. Although, I also liked sun-os.

I also worked with VMS a lot after uni. Hated using it. But had to respect the ideals behind it.

But watching the growth of Linux has been fantastic. In 2024. It does seem to have out evolved all the others. ( Evolved, defined as developed the ability to survive by becoming so freaking useful. )

I am starting to think it is time for a micro kernel version, though.

antihumanitarian ,

My first programming experience, an online class, was in a Linux VM. Linux made programming easy and delightful, Windows always made it a huge pain. As time went on, more of what I did was easier on Linux, and now everything is.

Gaspar ,
@Gaspar@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

The “AI” garbage on the horizon finally did it for me. I’ve been using Windows for 30-some-odd years (and DOS before that) and it always had a quirk or two but it mostly just worked, and that was enough for me. Hell, I even jumped on Win 11 when it was still in Insider Preview, just because I wanted the latest. And despite everyone always complaining about 11, for the most part, it did for me as Windows has always done - it just worked, so if it ain’t broke, why fix it?

Not that I hated Linux, I just always seemed to have an excuse. “Oh, the last time I tried to install it I was stuck at a CLI” sure, almost 20 years ago. “Well, I’m a huge gamer and Linux just doesn’t have the support”, “Man, KDE Plasma on the Steam Deck runs great and looks a lot like a fresh Windows install… ahhh, it’d be such a pain to migrate though.”

Anyway, I set up Arch on a “dual boot” partition a couple weeks ago I say “dual boot” because I haven’t booted into Windows in a week. Feels good, man. I should have done it sooner.

I will say though, if any other potential Windows refugees are reading… Migrate your Steam library to an ext4/btrfs/other Linux partition. You can successfully mount your Windows NTFS partitions. You might even be able to get them to mount as read/write. You might even be able to get Steam to read the directories! But it’s not worth the headache, and in my experience it’s a lot easier to get Windows to mount a btrfs partition. My Windows install is the last NTFS partition on my system, and I’ll keep it around for a while in case I run into something that just won’t play nice with Linux, but that’s it.

xilliah ,

There was some kind of an upgrade and it had privacy issues in the eula. I was dual booting for a while already.

jrgd ,

I started dual booting Linux after an upgrade to an insider preview of Windows 10 soft-bricked my Windows 7 install. I later stopped booting into Windows and eventually reclaimed the partitions to extend whatever distro was installed at that point when the actual release of Windows 10 decided to attempt automatically upgrading my Windows 7 system, soft-bricking it a second time. 2016 onwards, I haven’t used Windows on my systems outside of occasionally booting LTSC in a VM.

shekau ,

Privacy - the main reason. Besides for that were a lot of annoying and ridiculous reasons to switch like:

  • BSOD in the middle of gaming/meeting/etc,
  • forced updates that made it impossible to shutdown your pc without installing an update first

I could name further and further but those are the main reasons. Now I’m using Debian for 2 years and it is the best distro by far.

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