As was actually rare at the time i was born into a household which had a personal computer. As long as I remember, computers fascinated me. They still do. But that fascination came with an increasingly adverserial relationship with Windows and distrust of Apple. That changed in 2025, my first full year living with Linux as my primary OS and booting no Windows machines. I'm excited about computing again. I am more dedicated to FOSS than ever. Here are some of MY takeaways in listicle format for no reason:
-
Working on Linux is VERY good. Office suites are great. I'm partial to ~~Open~~Only Office. Developing is a joy because everything feels like its made to work with a few commands. This is in strong contrast to whatever Office/"Copilot" is and my experience developing on Windows.
-
I work in an IT-ish field and I've become a lot more knowledgeable about sysadmin and netadmin type stuff. Not an expert but enough to have more confidence when something does comes up. A lot of this comes from being in terminal more. I understand Windows is going in that direction too, but it won't push users there. Some is from self-hosting.
-
Multimedia is a mixed bag. Krita, Blender, and Godot are incredible tools but if you are a professional who relies on software for your job, some of the FOSS alternatives don't fit a majority of users. I personally don't think Darktable is reliable enough to replace Lightroom because I've had too many crashes on too many machines with it. Despite that, I'm still looking to get rid of Adobe.
-
gaming on Linux is "good" to "great", but not perfect. In some cases, Proton beats Windows, yes. In most cases, games just work on Steam. I think for the amount of tinkering I put in, I could run a barebones W11for gaming and get better overall performance than my CachyOS. I don't because I can live with less than perfect and kernel level anti cheat can pound sand.
-
I dodge an unknown but substantial amount of anguish from not having ads, ai, and surprise updates forced on me. I am sensitive to ads and am upset every time I see one. I'm always shocked to see them on other people's computers. My work computers (Mac) have forced updates and forced restarts which are jarring. My computers feel like my own.
-
I find and (hopefully) fix all kinds of problems. My discord muted itself randomly because of a Wayland bug a few times. There's an open issue about dxvk getting framerate drops after about an hour of gameplay. That one sucks. One of my door sensors stopped working with homeassistant despite it being prefect in mqtt2z; it's a confirmed bug as of 3 weeks ago. This stuff is annoying but I take it as the cost of not trusting black boxes with my hardware.
To wrap it up, I think Linux is better than ever, more accessible than ever, and probably better than Windows for most people. To me, I would recommend it to my mom who only uses basic office tools and a browser and have recommended it to my tech savvy friend who got tired of windows update ruining his super custo1. m W11 setup... but would obviously caution my DOTA-addicted DM or my dad who runs part of his business on Access ( cringe, I know). It feels human, empowering and is good because of the way it is today not just because of its ideals.
I hope this made you reflect on your Linux experience and maybe on how you can contribute to or help the community.
Edit: OnlyOffice, not OpenOffice Edit2: WHY did I post on memes?!? Someone take away my late night/early morning posting privileges
To compare, I was born into a household of Luddites via poverty. When me and my siblings got to high school and homework assignments started to have typing requirements, the family solution was to purchase a used computer that was running windows 3.1 (this was in the late 90's) which didn't last long.
Despite my fascination with computers and again due to poverty, I was unable to obtain one for many years into adulthood. I learned about Linux sometime around 2004-5 and reading about people like Torvalds and Stallman and open source and the FSF seemed like a wonderful world of progress I had not experienced. I was given a computer that didn't work and was convinced I could make it come to life thanks to the magic of Linux. It did not go well.
Thanks to my inexperience, I attempted to download Linux from my local library, where I had 1 hour of internet usage allowed per day. I don't know what I downloaded but it was not Linux. I think it was a collection of man pages in text files. Needless to say, that was not my year of Linux.
I did not own a working computer until I built one myself, in 2009 at the age of 27. I ran windows, played lots of games, wasted a lot of my time and finally delved back into the Linux world by installing Mint alongside my Windows installation. That was in 2020. The next day, the COVID lockdowns were announced. Then my system wouldn't boot into either Windows or Linux. The day after that, my internet was disconnected because Spectrum is one of the worst ISP companies ever. All I had was a usb with a Mint live system. I had also gotten my first smartphone the month prior and because Verizon is one of the worst phone companies ever, I was unable to tether my data plan, which was heavily throttled anyways and effectively useless. Learning Linux without internet access or having any friends interested in Linux or computers in general, is not something I would recommend to anyone.
September of 2021 I finally decided to 'defenestrate fenestra' or 'throw windows out of the window' and switched fully to Linux. My year of Linux I will say was 2024. That is the year I built a new computer, the third computer I've built and the third computer I've owned. The computer I'm using to type this out. I have not had to change distros or reinstall since then and being self taught in computers, having never held a job in IT, having a developmental disorder, being well below the poverty line my entire life and being someone who has attended college 5 times and dropped out 5 times due to either poverty or disability, it feels pretty good. I am still light years away in knowledge compared to many but it feels good to be able to know what my computer is doing and know that I did it myself.
I still will randomly 'stat /' just to see the birthday. "Birth: 2024-02-05 04:54:20.000000000 -0500". I don't know if the time showing all those zeros is normal and I don't care. I'm a month away from my second year with this machine and I am very proud of it.
Why did I type this huge and personal story without being asked? The answer might be the same answer to your question of 'why did I post this in Linux memes?'
Because someone out there might read it and it might be what they need to give them that courage to finally make the switch themselves. Seeing stories like these with people who feel comfortable using Linix despite the various problems which might accompany them.
Anyways, because this is Linuxmemes, I should mention that I use an Arch derivative, BTW.
I can draw a circle in GIMP too. Like 4 different ways.
Yes ladies, I'm single.