I built a new computer at the same time proton was released and was just like ok why not.

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.

Privacy and Foss philosphy

w10 support ending and w11 being spyware thats also an operating system

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.

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

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.

Microsoft said they were going to start tracking everything I do, to, you know, help me or something.

Fuck that.

NTFS shat itself on newly bought hard drive, from what I remember in event viewer it said something about filesystem corruption. My steam library of 500+ GBs was gone, as well as my ripped music collection (at least I had that copied to my phone beforehead)

In other instance, a family computer. It was late 2023 and some buggy update happened that made start menu and taskbar unusable. Not clickable at all, couldn’t hide it either. Numeruous throubleshooting attempts later not even update supposed to fix the issue worked. I caved for linux for this PC too

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.

Back in the day I had started a software development major and was incentivised to learn about computers on a fundamental level. I learned that Linux was commonly used in the server space, so I decided to make a bootable USB to learn how to use the system (I tried Manjaro with the Deepin DE).

I soon realised I liked using it way more, mainly because I was bored of Windows’s visuals and lack of options. I had tried rainmeter to add widgets and effects, but it was a bit of a hassle to configure and update.

After using a dual boot setup for half a year, I moved fully to Linux, since I no longer had classes requiring Windows-only software. Nowadays I’m using EndeavourOS with KDE, mostly for gaming, browsing and writing documents.

They made windowsNT too glossy.

Windows 95 got a click of death virus and fucked up my drive from freshmen college years. All my photos on my first digital camera too. That day I decided to try Linux.

I installed Gentoo first. Mostly because I’m and idiot.

Soon after I tried red hat but it was uptight. Then I jumped to Mandrake and I kept using mandrake for many years until it died. I tried a bunch of others until I tried Ubuntu. I’m going to stay on Ubuntu until enshitification dictates that I need to change. Moving to Mint soon probably. Ubuntu still feels okay enough to stay but it’s showing signs of enshitification.

Tried Linux to play games on after steam deck started getting good. Though my it was fine.

Then I got a new laptop. Tried to install windows 11. Required internet to setup. I installed Linux and haven’t looked back.