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I don’t have ads within my OS or start menus, I can do whatever I want with it, I can customize it with different desktop environments, if I mess anything up and need to clean install I don’t need to worry about license keys.

Also chicks dig penguins.

The telemetry and ads baked into windows. I’m so sick of ads creeping into every corner of my life

I got tired of windows pretending it knew better than me what i wanted, whether that was updates or security scans or fuck knows what else.

The final straw was when they shitted up the start menu with garbage and tried to shove their app store down my throat. At that point i was done.

For me it was the philosophy behind Free (as in freedom) software. Call me a Richard Stallman fan, but I would love to live in a world were everyone is free to:

• Run the program as you wish, for any purpose.
• Study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
• Redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor.
• Distribute copies of your modified versions to others.

Learn more at fsf.org

Call me a filthy casual or whatever, but I use Windows, Linux and macOS equally. My preference is Linux but I don’t limit myself by just pretending the other two options don’t exist :)

I wanted an operating system, not a marketing platform. I’m not a Linux expert, and I don’t really care about most of the things other Linux users seem to be passionate about. I just want it to work and leave me alone while it does.

I’ve been on Pop_OS! at home and Tumbleweed at work for almost two years, and I haven’t missed Windows. I moved my family over not long ago and they don’t seem to notice a difference.

My best advice is to go all in if you decide to switch. For me, it was hard to learn while I was dipping my toe in while still using Windows. Once I went all Linux, it became second nature rather quickly.

I have to use Windows for work, and I choose to use Linux for all of my personal devices. Windows is trying very hard to corral me into using bing, edge, cortana, etc. and gets in my way when I try to use the tools I prefer instead. It intentionally obscures what its doing with updates and security. That is unacceptable. This is my computer, not theirs.

No Linux distro that I’ve tried does any of that shit. They have never tried to push my behavior in one direction or another, they aren’t watching everything I do to help their product teams develop an even more annoying desktop. The various Linux distros I’ve used have felt like nothing but a way to let me use my damn computer.

I do have a small partition with Windows on it to play the occasional game I can’t run on Linux with Proton. Thanks, Valve!

My reasons:

• You can completely customize linux to your liking. In win it is hard to customize even such a basic thing as keybindings.
• You can fully control what is installed, win had tons of stuff, that cannot be uninstalled.
• Things like proprietary software, telemetry etc. is opt-in, no need to deal with windows spying on you for example
• System is leaner, less bloated (you can fill it with processes if that is what you need ofc)
• Dev environment is a lot more comfy than linux

The biggest downside:

• Gaming is rough around the edge, even though it gets better and better.

It’s just a better operating system. It stays out of the way and doesn’t bother you with a billion alerts about shit, and it doesn’t update your computer when you don’t want to, it doesnt install ads you don’t want…

I could go on but you get the picture. Linux is freedom from dealing with Microsoft shit all day.

You can make your computer your own. You bought it, you deserve control for it, you do not need a corporation to decide things for you.

The benefits of Linux is that you can simply multitask much better, and do things more efficiently. It’s honestly not the same and the two are just not comparable, but not everyone can appreciate or take advantage of that.

For an inexperienced person to set it up, of course it’s not that simple. Those that are comfortable with Windows find all of these benefits trivial over the perceived amount of effort to transition.

For an experienced person like me, Windows is much more of a nuisance to set up. I really like my setups clean, I just can’t stand how dirty Windows gets. To clean your system effectively, you’d have to reformat it. There are things like Scoop, MSYS, Docker, etc. I had to use Windows on my laptop for school. The way I use Windows is like how I use Linux, except Powershell commands are just non-intuitive. It just feels really awkward over Bash.

Windows: This pc belongs to Microsoft and you will use it how we say you can use it.

Linux: Your wish is my command.

I switched because Microsoft just keeps getting worse and worse, and I like having complete control over my system. And limiting the amount of my data going out.

Linux in general uses much less system resources than windows, and I like being able to easily change my workflow (desktop environment, window manager, etc).

1. Package managers are a godsend and there’s nothing like them on Windows. Chocolatey is okay, but it’s got nothing on Linux pms. This discontinuity between installing and upgrading some applications, other applications, Windows apps, drivers, and system software makes me want to cry.
2. Customization. Man is Windows lame here. Colors on Windows is about all you can do, and it’s so limited. I bought the machine I should be able to set it up how I like. There are some deeper ways to theme and adjust things more directly, but they’re hard to use and risk breaking your system. On Linux, customization is easy, even on a more pro-default-option DE like GNOME. I just want things to work, and Windows fights me to get it to a usable state.
3. Bloat, telemetry, ads, proprietary garbage, etc, etc, etc. I like FOSS and using FOSS software, and I can use it on Windows, but I have to have so much other stuff too. Debloat scripts exist, but they can only do so much. There’s always gonna be something Microsoft owns on the system
4. Complexity and control. Linux is simple. Binaries go in bin, and the settings for them are usually in ~/.config or somewhere in /etc. Want to adjust some obscure setting to fix some issue in a program you installed? Oh go tweak this clear config and explicit setting to fit your hardware or whatever. Easy to fix. On Windows, all the system stuff is not only hidden, it’s restricted, and also so many times on Windows when you run into issues the solution is you have to edit *shudder* the registry, or worse you have to do a PC reset. Overtime your system slows and blue screens become more frequent too, and there’s nothing you can do. On Linux, you can learn 7 or so folders and understand how your entire system works, keep it maintained, and run it for years. Had a prof in college who was on like a 20yo Gentoo install.
5. Tiling. There are ways to do tiling on Windows, but they’re all bad and glitchy. Nothing on Windows comes close to i3, and I can’t go back to a non-tiling workflow. Windows wants you to do things the Windows way, and anything outside of that is always lack luster. People talk about Linux balkanization as a problem. It’s not. Those people are just ignorant and stupid. No system can ever really fit all use cases, so it’s important to support choice. Windows doesn’t just promote one way to do things a la GNOME, it actively works against doing things other ways.
6. Programming. Compilers and dev tools on Linux are so much easier to install and set up than on Windows. If you want to program, you’ve gotta be on Unix/Unix-like
7. Windows weirdness. There’s so many things on Windows that are just weird decisions. I’ll be using Windows and be like “why the heck did they do it this way?” I’m constantly left scratching my head. Windows has made me lose all respect for Microsoft engineers. They’re clearly stupid. On the other hand, everything on Linux makes sense and has good reasoning behind it. You need to learn very little comparatively to understand your entire system.
8. Stability. Not talking about applications/upgrades here, but rather Linux will never crash on you, but I can’t go a week without Windows blue screening.
9. Freedom. I like owning my computer. With Windows, Microsoft owns your PC. Does this directly effect everything constantly? Is it the end all reason for me to switch? No, but it’s icing on the cake. On Windows I feel stuck and miserable. On Linux I feel free and happy.

I wouldn’t ever go back.

The amount of bloatware in windows 10 made me very uncomfortable (and the fact that they stopped supporting briefcases infuriated me) so I stayed on Windows 7 until Microsoft stopped supporting it in 2020. Tried out some distros like Mint, Pop OS, Puppy Linux. The one I liked the feel of most was Zorin OS.

The main thing that surprised me was how little I actually understood about what Microsoft has become. I did not know, for example, that you can use the Office apps online until this week. I also had been completely oblivious to Minecraft Java Edition being forked into a Linux Edition until I tried to install it. It honestly feels like waking up from a 5 year coma, where everything seems familiar but slightly different.

My main regret is that I can’t tell people I’m terrible with computers now, since my family and friends know I use Linux. The upside of this is I’ve gained some confidence with tech since I can’t just throw up my hands and go “oh no, i cant fix this, my tiny monkey brain could never comprehend the arcane arts”