The windows machine was keeping secrets and refusing to do what I tell it
I want to run some code, let’s have a discussion about admin privileges and finding the correct shell app and oh shit “something went wrong”
Linux just doesn’t say no, if I do something wrong it tells me exactly why it was wrong. So I guess visibility is why I jumped
A long time ago, there was this misconception that “linux” was terminal-only. You know, like the interface sysadmins and Hollywood hackers use.
A small long-defunct non-tech forum I used to be a member of had a tech sub-forum, and in that sub-forum there was a new post one day introducing “linux” and covering some basics. It was full of DE screenshots (GNOME 2 and KDE 3) specifically to dispel the “terminal-only” misconception.
That was almost ~20 years ago. And the rest is history. I never liked Windows or M$ anyway for both technical and non-technical reasons. So it wasn’t that hard to convince me.
I almost exclusively use the terminal for everything except web browsing now, and don’t use a DE. So you could say that I myself ironically became a perpetuator of the misconception 😉
…because I didn’t want to be a victim of the tech industry anymore.
I kept disabling features and they kept getting re-enabled by updates.
I installed WSL to run gcc and it bricked my graphics drivers, requiring a full reinstall.
Requiring a microsoft account to access my own computer.
App recommendations (ads) in the start menu.
Maybe there were workarounds for this but I shouldnt have to trouble shoot that kind of stuff for a product that values itself at such a price. I just couldnt feel like an owner of things I have purchased.
A little over a decade back, I had a laptop that came with Windows 8 but didn’t actually meet the specs for it. I installed Ubuntu back then to get the thing to run reliably, and it performed really well that way.
On my home computers I kept using Windows, but with the trend toward less ability to control your system, more ads and AI nonsense being baked in, and just general bloat, when they announced the end of life for Win 10, I decided I’d switch to dual booting Linux Mint at the start of the summer. (I’m a teacher, and it seemed like the best time was when I could deal with my computer being on the fritz for a while if I messed it up.)
I set it up as dual boot because I figured here and there I’d still need to go back to Windows for some specific reason or other but that was back in early July and I’ve yet to encounter a reason why I really need Windows, so I genuinely haven’t booted to Windows even once since the time I originally setup the dual boot and made sure it was working.
Honestly, so much of what we do these days takes place in browser windows that it barely feels different, other than it runs a little smoother and I occasionally have to run an old windows app through Lutris. (Had it installed anyway for games from GOG, and it turns out it works just as well for non-gaming apps.)
Mostly because I don’t like gaming on windows and I want things to work without having to tweak every single security feature and all the junk I turned off every single time there’s an update. I’m also tired of MS breaking things with updates and generally using the public as free beta testers to the detriment of their products.
Also, fuck 365.
I used it for a few things in uni, then a few more, then a few more, and eventually realised that my workflow had become
- Boot windows
- Turn on VM
- Use Linux the whole time
- Shut down
So I decided to cut out the middle-man
Microsoft said they were going to start tracking everything I do, to, you know, help me or something.
Fuck that.
Microsoft doesn’t want me to use Windows. Win10 is almost expired, and my laptop doesn’t support Win11.
Learning web development and did not like Apple devices. Didn’t take too long to also start gaming on Linux and abandon Windows completely.
Lots of programming and server use for jobs at work. I spent whole days in WSL (just one window) or putty / cygwin and it was stupid. About that time, since I was using different hosts pretty frequently, I started to learn Vim and it was a gateway drug.
It was maybe 2 weeks into vim I made the switch in the office. When I switched to Linux at work, I switched to Linux at home for consistency (and because I wasnt really gaming at the time so no big deal). At that job I frequently would just remote in from home so it made sense. Once I learned the ropes I switched to arch and dwm and never looked back. I guess I’m an nvim guy now so I’ve evolved a little in 15 years or so.
I had been using linux in some capacity (dual-boot, alternate computer, homelab, etc.) for close to twenty years, but there was always some functionality (mostly gaming) that held me back from switching fully. Then something like two or three years ago Proton/Wine finally got to where basically everything I wanted to run was able to run with no more effort on my part than doing the same thing under Windows. At that time I had been dual-booting Windows and Fedora for a little over a year and Windows/Manjaro for about a year prior to that and hadn’t had to boot into windows for almost six months. So, I formatted the Windows drive and haven’t looked back.
I switched to Linux (back in i386/i486 days) because I was using FLOSS and finally could have a free/libre operating system underneath.
They made windowsNT too glossy.
MSI recently pushed a firmware update on my motherboard that somehow reset the device ID, so windows decided I wasn’t running genuine windows anymore.
I lived with the watermark for a few months, then kept running out of space on my old 256gb windows drive (all I could afford at the time) and I decided that instead of just migrating to larger drive and buying another copy of windows, I’d take the leap and just do it. It was unexpectedly painless.
My one concern was gaming, specifically helldivers, which has been pretty much the only thing I can play with my friends. Turns out, it just… runs… everything else… just… runs…
The last time I tried linux was like 10 years ago, and its definitely come a long way, at least with some of the more consumer level distros.