Linux

Windows is slow, buggy, and overall shit software, even on high end computers.

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

What can I say? I wanna be the very best, like no one ever was. To catch them all is my real quest, to train them is my cause.

I got tired of Microsoft. I had seen that Linux was now good enough for what I wanted to so, so I decided to jump ship.

It wasn't a quick decision. I only transitioned from Windows because I finally got around upgrading the PC.

So far? I mean, there was the kerfuffle with the AUR recently. And I still haven't figured out a few issues here and there. But damn it just works and there is no worrying about updating or not updating or anything like it.

Freedom. Having my computer not actively work against me.

Privacy performance and fun

i wanted to try something new

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.

I had bought a magazine with a CD-ROM inside... Something called Slackware was written on it.

It's better.

Windows bugged Out more and more. I am Just annoyed by the Bad Performance.

Troubleshooting in windows is also a pain. When I've learned how easy the Switch can be done, the Deal was sealed.

It's better.

FOSS and copyleft: I want software built for the good of the public, with good intentions. Anything with corporate licensing us off the table, and ideally so are non-copyleft open source programs as corporations will hijack them for their benefit and privatization.

UNIX Like: It is my preferred workflow for development and everyday use. The windows paradigm is messy, convoluted, and inconsistent by comparison.

Fast, free, customizable: all nice to haves connected to the big two above

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

Because I feel at home with it

many reasons, already told by others, but the one that made me jump was that it does not install apps without me telling it to.

Obnoxious Windows 10 "upgrade" nag screens on Win 7. If you think you can push me, I'll push back harder. That, and Snowden showing the world that American tech is backdoored all the way to hell and back.

It started because I was poor and resented the idea of paying for software. Then I became a professional developer and the advantages of the OS became more obvious. This was ~15 years ago.

Since then the enshittification of MS has made me more and more confident in my decision.

Skype and OneDrive. They just WOULD NOT GO THE FUCK AWAY. My hard drive died, so I already lost everything OS related, and re-installing windows 10 was already infuriating me, and then every reboot, even after disabling them, skype and onedrive just kept popping up at boot. I used windows to download i think 8 different distro ISOs, gathered a gaggle of flash drives and set them all up. Then I tried them all out until I landed on one that did everything I wanted it to and haven't looked back. I kept that windows drive for about 6 months before I realized I was never using it and the storage space would be better served reformatted to btrfs for the linux system to use.

I swap PCs regularly and I hate how long it takes to install windows.

Also windows borked a games drive once and I never forgave it.

Then I learned all the privacy stuff.

I tried it because even with most of the bloat disabled Microsoft still kept threatening to downgrade me to windows 11, so having heard most games were working through proton and knowing gimp and Firefox run natively I figured it was worth giving it a try.
I stayed because with KDE it feels like an "unlocked" windows, windows with all the annoying parts stripped out, delimited, or fixed. Installing it was simple, customising it was extensive and easy, games run better, GIMP loads faster, installing programs from the bazaar is trivial, and it doesn't run into any more bugs and errors than windows did, so it's just a net upgrade. Weirdly bugs are often easier to diagnose and fix with the help of a search engine too, because the questions and answers tend to be a lot more in depth and informative than you get with windows.

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.

I was tired of listen the computer fan

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.

Better software availability/support than BSDs. Refuse to use proprietary software. Plus, there's a lot of software I use that isn't available on Windows or macOS. I've tried to dual boot Windows for gaming before and I just couldn't install most of my usual software on Windows.

I like being able to debug stuff.

Windows nowadays does not provide any meaningful logs, so everyone in their forums and such is just guessing around why things won't work.

DirectSound libraries are missing? Install them via a sub menu of a sub menu of a really small text in the settings, wait 20 minutes for a „loading bar” telling you nothing, and guess what problem it had when it just told you no.

Aside from all the bugs like the menu bar just not opening and preview updates being shown with the same size as regular updates (great because older people will just install those updates too)

Because I love proper i3 style keyboard based tiling and I can't imagine my workflow without it

It just works.

When I became a professional developer, I felt the friction of windows and package management. I knew of Linux desktop, and had used Ubuntu briefly in around 2008 or 09, and then at the time in 2021 I made the switch to Fedora for ease of dev. And never looked back.

I've used Linux for over 20 years, it just works and gives me the freedom I want, so there's no reason for me to use anything else.

A lifelong Windows user, dabbled in MacOS too, windows 11 was absolute dogshit, did some research and saw loads of videos about bazzite so dual booted into it, liked it so decided to make it my main OS, I also love learning about computers

Ideological and practical reasons. It does everything I want how I want and doesn't get in the way.

i was linux-curious for a long time, finally dipped my toes in with the steam deck and got pushed over the edge by win11

It was just an extension of my interest in computers since I was young ^ ^ This new, completely different OS fascinated me when I was growing up, and led to me installing Ubuntu on an old laptop. I never made an actual jump to it until I was a few years older, and had Windows slowing down my laptop that I used for work. I jumped onto the Manjaro train that was happening at the time, and eventually ended up installing Arch on my main PC (´･ᴗ･ ` )

1. Win31 sucked
2. I needed a modem terminal for my 386.

For me, I got fed up with Windows 11 updates resetting my settings and even reinstalling copilot. I felt like I had no control over my computer, so I put Linux on it to get some control back.

I'd been using Windows forever and always stuck to the "rule of two": I skipped Vista and Windows 8, and was holding out to see if a Windows 12 was going to happen. When it didn't, I jumped ship to Linux. 11 took everything I hated about 10 and made it all worse, and that's without even considering all the telemetry. I'd already started using open source software, so that only made it easier to switch.

And for the record, my hardware was plenty new enough to install 11. But boy is it zippier with Linux! Just goes to show how much bloat Windows has. I have to use 11 on my work machine and I hate every minute of it.

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.

Because of Microslop. Who needs more reasons, huh?

I started using Linux for science. I was using a Raspberry Pi for a study and got to learn some basic stuff as part of that. Then I started to deploy my own Pis at home for self-hosting different apps I like, like Pihole. I also have an ancient desktop I bought on clearance that was running terribly, so I put Ubuntu on it and that solved a lot of performance issues! I host some stuff on there too.

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

Windows 11 was stress. I was spending far too much time keeping it the way I want it - stable, no cloud, no AI. A four hour call with MS tech support (that went in the most idiotic circles) kinda sealed the fate of my new desktop build (old one had a failing MB, no choice but to finally upgrade hardware) and switched both it and another desktop the next day.

Much less stressed now, even when things go weird and wonky.