3d ago

Why did you move from Windows to Linux?

Personally, I’m not brand loyal to any particular OS. There are good things about a lot of different operating systems, and I even have good things to say about ChromeOS. It just depends on what a user needs from an operating system.

Most Windows-only users I am acquainted with seem to want a device that mostly “just works” out of the box, whereas Linux requires a nonzero amount of tinkering for most distributions. I’ve never encountered a machine for sale with Linux pre-installed outside of niche small businesses selling pre-built PCs.

Windows users seem to want to just buy, have, and use a computer, whereas Linux users seem to enjoy problem solving and tinkering for fun. These two groups of people seem as if they’re very fundamentally different in what they want from a machine, so a user who solely uses Windows moving over to Linux never made much sense to me.

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?

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I barely knew what linux was before I watched pewdiepies video on it a long time ago. Just knew that some people on steam would complain about games not running on it, so I never bothered to look into it, since that is basically all I use my computer for. However, over the past 2 years I have been becoming more aware of my individual footprint. Something I noticed was that I will complain about things I think are "wrong" with the world, and then not do anything about them. One of those things was Microsoft (or big tech companies in general). I hate them, yet I would be using their product/service. Literally giving money to something I don't like.
I honestly have never enjoyed learning about computers and coding, I've tried and it's never felt fun to me. I'm definitely not the "target" of linux I guess. When I turn on my computer, I just want to play some games or do homework/work with no fuss.
However, Linux is at a point to where I, someone who has no want or need to learn computers, can switch and mostly use it out of the box. So I just switched, because if I'm gonna sit here and shit on Microsoft for not doing what I think is right, then I need to stop using their product. Capitalism means as long as they make money, they aren't gonna change a damn thing.
- That's a good point. I guess even if you had to go through a few additional steps, it wasn't very difficult for you, so it's worth it.
- Yeah, I feel this sentiment very strongly. Complacency is what they want, because then you just mindlessly participate in the system. It's difficult to not participate in the system by default since it's like "hey man, I just ~~work~~ live here". So not only do you need to be educated in wtf these systems even are, why they're bad, and how to best engage/disengage with them, you have to actively make an effort to change with energy not a whole lot of people have these days. Some may see this reaction to Microsoft as silly and overblown, but people getting rid of windows could literally save their life due to the systems of surveillance built by Microsoft aiding increasingly dangerous and malicious political actors.
- I am kind of in the same boat as you, except I haven't yet tried Linux. I've just been reading up information about it and I also mostly use my PC for gaming and some work, but work is mostly in a browser anyway. I hecking despise Microsoft now for Windows 11 and just had to battle their forced updates that nearly bricked my computer and I've finally had enough. May I ask, which version of Linux did you find worked "out of the box" for you?
  
  I use POP!_OS. Works pretty much perfectly for me, although they just came out with a new cosmic desktop which I am not using (but looking into), so you might have a different experience than me. I have some issues like FPS in deadlock slowly degrading (I think if I use steam overlay) or sometimes games with third party launchers (like Mass Effect) just wouldn't work until I tinkered around. These aren't dealbreakers for me though. Most games work out of the box for me. If you're really worried, you can always dual boot it with windows just to be safe, that's what I did. https://ostechnix.com/dual-boot-windows-and-pop-os/ here is the guide I followed. If you don't want Pop OS, I've heard decent things of bazzite as well for gaming.
  
  POP and Mint seem to be the most recommended ones so I think I will start with one of them and see what happens. I'm not terribly opposed to tinkering a little bit and I generally try to avoid games with 3rd party launchers, so I'm sure it'll be fine. The only thing that concerned me was reading about Nvidia being a bit finicky (stuck with a 3070, but probably switching to AMD when this AI craze eases) with Linux, but I'm sure it'll be fine.
  Kind of excited to dive in tbh, and that doesn't happen too often anymore, lol. Thanks for the reply!

211 comments