Linux

It’s open source and not owned by an evil corporation. It doesn’t have ads. It doesn’t mine my data and sell it to the highest bidder. It doesn’t have AI shoved in every nook and cranny. It’s much lighter to run. I can easily run it on a 10 year old laptop.

• I have the radical idea that when I own something, I should actually own it.
• I’m a software engineer, both professionally and hobby. Developing on a non Unix platform is bullshit
• HaikuOS is 20 years too late
• What is the alternative? Windows is user hostile ad infested crap, MacOS is a prettier flavor of user hostile ad infested crap. The BSDs have their place, but a daily desktop or laptop isn’t really it.
• Copyleft FOSS or GTFO
• I don’t do a massive amount of customization, but the things I do I want to have. I know that will be the case with Linux. Who the fuck knows with closed source software

A complete and total lack of bullshit.

If something is wrong, there's a concrete reason, no matter how deep the cause and you can always dig far down enough to catch and deal with it.

Originally because fuck windows 10

Since then it's the sheer joy of it all. It's just fucking cool that a bunch of people just get together and make something that benefits everyone, with dozens of forks that allow for freedom of choice.

My values

powershell sucks. RegEdit sucks. Start menu sucks. Can't use Niri. Slow. Can't use it while updating. Inverted backslashes for paths are horrible. The only useful feature is WSL, and if you get rid of all other bullshits, you get Linux.

Ah, well, it is less shit than alternatives

Windows: too much ads, AI, telemetry, and just nonsense bullshit in general. MS is a malicious company and this is malicious software.

MacOS: too much Apple bloatware. It mostly stays out of the way but the fact that I can't uninstall it makes me very angry. Also the vast majority of software requires a connected Apple account. The bigger problem is the overpriced and intentionally irreparable, unupgradable and disposable hardware which is inseperable from the software.

Linux: mostly just stays out of my way, requires no account for anything. You know, the way operating systems used to work.

Windows decided my perfectly functional PC couldn’t run 11, and Linux Mint has no issues running. I’m not getting rid of a perfectly good computer just because Microsoft wants me to. My husband has to use Windows for work and it seems like a huge pain in the ass. I’m not into fiddling with computers, and Linux is at the point now where it feels no more complicated than Windows (and often significantly less complicated).

I want to use open-source software, developed from people for people. I don't want corporates to exploit my data and take away my freedom.

I got a new PC and was really upset at the idea of putting windows on it. The ad lack of ownership of my own hardware, I couldn't do it, and so I installed Linux (again), but this time, it stuck.

IT worker, close to 50 years old, only ever could afford low-mid range tech, gamer. Been using windows for over 30 years and linux for 8. Linux works better than windows and it allowed me to improve my tech skills beyond a desktop machine.

Cus fuck microsoft/windows, thats why.

I started using it 'cause I was working with a lot of Linux nerds and they convinced me to try it out. I liked the politics of the GPL and the potential in the Free ecosystem.

25 years later I refuse to use anything else. Windows & Mac are built to take options away from you, to force you do use your hardware their way, and I hate it. My machine does exactly what I want it to, with hundreds of keyboard shortcuts and a solid UI built atop transparent subsystems. Windows ties my hands while pushing ads and AI into my eyeballs. Mac only "Just Works" if you're using it precisely the way that want you to and exclusively with other iShit. No thanks.

1. FOSS. I'm a software engineer and making the world a better place and helping others is why I love my job and what I study. FOSS is the thing that can make tge world a better place and help others.

I also have a plethora of technical reasons, but I'm sure others will cover them. Just this ideological and philosophical reason is enough for me to be using Linux.

Because I have self-respect.

I just like a working, customizable PC that I'm in control of. KDE Plasma Desktop is everything Windows should have been, and it's actually for me to control, it's free, and it doesn't push BS on me. Fedora btw

Linux works better then Windows 11. If you don't need Windows for specific software needs, I recommend Linux. If you do need Windows, buy a license off of ebay for cheap.

All games work unless they block you with anti cheat, which are usually the big AAA games like cod/battlefield.

Coding is better on linux.

Same reason as with Google Android. These genocide supporting companies take the liberty to collect and sell my data, manage my hardware and frequently break core functionality with updates to push their slop on me, while adding ads to EVERYTHING. Most updates are not even about security. There is like a 100 reasons, really. I could sum it up as "annoying".

It does more of what I want, with less time and work to maintain, more reliable and lower cost than the commercial alternatives.

I really like the control and malleability

Independent to the above, using windows feels really, really bad these days.

i like having a usable desktop and a nonblinking disk access led within 30 seconds, including bios and bootloader.

microslop started being cringe. tried linux on a whim. never looked back.

Im a hater and spite is a powerful motivator

I subscribe to the philosophy that information should be free, and that computing should be a collaborative effort, driven by community. The world is better when we all work together to improve it.

These days, I’m less gung-ho about the technical merits of free software; I just prefer using systems that feel like they’re trying to work for me rather than exploit me.

Because Windows 10 installed candy crush without my input and interrupted me to tell me how edgy it was.

It was the night of December 24th, 1996. I turned on the family PC, then running Win95, and found my D:\ drive corrupted. Windows had no tools nor docs how to resurrect a corrupted filesystem. I cried, and two days later installed SuSE on a spare disk.

Some 20 years later, I restored about half of the disk lost in 1996, because Linux had the tools, and the docs, and encouraged me to learn.

I switched to Linux full time because I didn't like Windows Xp. Windows has only gotten worse since then and Linux has only gotten better.

I didn't choose Linux, Linux chose me...when windows got unbearably enshittified.

Although admittedly I'd been using Linux for years beforehand, just not for gaming.

Freedom.

I am old, I have used windows for around 20 years. I am also a geek. I tried Mac OS a long time ago - not geeky enough and the hardware was too expensive for me back then.

Tried Linux several times. It was fun, but I had too many issues, up until now.

In my opinion if you plot user friendliness over time for Linux and windows, the Linux is going up on the friendliness axis, slowly but steadily. Windows on the other hand... Goes somewhere. Every good idea MS devs have is countered by 3 terrible (for users) from the marketing department.

I want to be the owner of my own PC. I want to control everything, windows was good enough a few years ago, but it is not anymore, the cloud integration plus AI bulshit, plus bloatware.

No, thanks.

I am using Linux since the 90's, so my reasons might be different from "to leave Windows".

I started coding at an early age, so for me, having access to all my tools free-of-charge was a big plus. Add to that the possibility of read the source code of everything, the learning potential was mind blowing.

Privacy performance and fun

i didnt like w10 with already pre-installed software, from games to random shareware. Didnt like that there where starting to test ads in the start menu or that OneDrive had decided to start operating in the background without notice.

I already had a mac, but didnt like that I could play most games, mainly used it as a work pc for design work. So then I searched and learned that linux was having many changes with proton and wine, and decided to give it a go, and I think its been 3 or 4 years since then. There are things, like graphic design work that I needed to re-learn, but it hasnt affected me greatly. I fully recommend it for most people. Running Mint

Because Windows works as dumbest os for now

Sound randomly staying off, micro sometime works, sometime not, if I try to touch sounds its sometimes just slutter all the system. I checked on viruses by free and paid subscriptioned and-viruses but founs nothing. So the best way to heal was to reinstall system. And I am do this. CachyOS going great, more faster and stable for several years even with bleeding edge updates

Because window is genuinely more of a pain to use in 2026.

Steam Deck made gaming on Linux possible and that was the only thing holding me to Windows. I had been using Windows since Windows 95.

Microsoft simply stopped making an OS and started making a subscription and content delivery platform. When they did that, they lost me as a customer.

I started running foss apps and loving how small and efficient they were in comparison to what I was used to. At one poit I realized that everything I was using could be used on linux, so I migrated and never went back!

I fucking hate windows 11

I didn't choose Linux. Linux chose me.

But in all seriousness, back in 2015, I got a PC that came with Windows 8. It had the horrible, completely unusable Metro UI. But my main gripe with that OS was how it forced me to use Microsoft’s solutions over everything else. Quite often, the PDF files I opened would launch in the Metro PDF reader instead of the one I had chosen. Usually, this kind of things happened after a Windows Update, which 'accidentally' reset my default application choices - including the PDF reader - and, as a final spat in my face, added an Internet Explorer shortcut to my desktop.

I started to feel as if I had no control over my PC anymore; it was Microsoft deciding what software I should use. Then and there I decided it was time to give Linux a chance. I had already noticed how Valve was pushing the gaming industry toward Linux, and I thought, those guys can’t be completely wrong.

I care what my computer does the same way I care about what my brain does. Since my computer is just an extension of my brain it needs to be transparent and ownable.

20+ years ago I grew tired of having to constantly buy upgrades or find cracks for Windows and a friend suggested i check out thi s new OS that was coming out called Ubuntu. I believe it was around 2004 when I installed the first distro and I have never looked back. I find it amusing that all my friends and family think im some super hacker because I use linux lol.

It gets out of the way and let's me do my thing. Wether it's work or gaming.

Both Aurora on my laptop and Bazzite on my desktops, have been easier to use and maintain than Windows and OSX.

No ads, no nagging, no maintenance. The included gui and cli app stores give me everything I need. I freaking love it, it's pure bliss. Best computing experience I ever had.

~3 years running Ublue distros. 100% happyness.

It just works.