linuxmemes

Not if I've never bought a prebuilt PC.

Yep, and not a small price at that. While the home license is not as expensive, it's still mid two digits. IIRC pro version typically costs around 100 € even as the bundled OEM license, especially if you're buying a laptop from a smaller manufacturer. That's the amount I remember the price going down if you drop windows licensing from a corporate laptop lease.

In any way it's not an insignificant price.

At least nowadays it's so much easier to find FreeDOS laptops. I remember that it was not a thing here 20 years ago, and Windows was included in the warranty so you couldn't remove it for at least 2 years (if you care about warranty).

You're forgetting piracy. I didn't buy any parts with OEM licenses. Granted I went grey market for my Windows 10 so I paid someone like $20.

Hey now, most of us didn't imagine that we were funding Bill Gates to go get an STI from Russian children. That adds a layer.

Eh, whatever floats your boat, I say, no kink shaming

Same... Multiple times.

I became more aware of things breaking on Windows after switching at home. Everyday there is some weird bug or just very inconvinient behavior coming from Win, Office or platform-exclusive software. And with everything screwed to the floor and witholding information, you either find a sketchy workaround or wrap yourself around the issue. It's so weird, like I took a red pill. Linux quirks are challenges that I've chosen for myself, and there were several huge problems, but oh well going into windows is not a safe haven either, and that's a paid product and a standard OS for PCs.

I don't think I have anyone in my family that I hate quite that much.