I’m asking what big motivational factors contributed to you into going Linux full-time. I don’t count minor inconveniences like ‘oh, stutter lag in a game on windows’ because that really could be anything in any system. I’m talking, something Windows or Microsoft has done that was so big, that made you go “fuck this, I will go Linux” and so you did.
For me, I have a mountain of reasons by this point to go to Linux. It’s just piling. Recently, Windows freaked out because I changed audio devices from my USB headset from the on-board sound. It freaked out so bad, it forced me to restart because I wasn’t getting sound in my headset. I did the switch because I was streaming a movie with a friend over Discord through Screen Share and I had to switch to on-board audio for that to work.
I switched back and Windows threw a fit over it. It also throws a fit when I try right-clicking in the Windows Explorer panel on the left where all the devices and folders are listed for reasons I don’t even know to this day but it’s been a thing for a while now.
Anytime Windows throws a toddler-tantrum fit over the tiniest things, it just makes me think of going to Linux sometimes. But it’s not enough.
Windows is just thankful that currently, the only thing truly holding me back from converting is compatibility. I’m not talking with games, I’m not talking with some programs that are already supported between Windows and Linux. I’m just concerned about running everything I run on Windows and for it to run fully on a Linux distro, preferably Ubuntu.
Also I’d like to ask - what WILL it take for you to go to Linux full-time?
Windows 7 being discontinued.
I migrated my HTPC to Linux several years ago, and since then just transitioned more and more of my machines over.
My desktop is the only machine left running Windows at this point due to there being no Freetrack implementation on Linux for sim games
This is very similar to my story - end of support for win7 meant putting Mint on the HTPC.
Soon after that, it was the old laptop my spouse was about to chuck out. Cinnamon was a little sluggish, so I eventually landed on Debian + XFCE
And when I discovered I could get my desktop’s audio interface working on Linux (it’s firewire, and by most people’s standards, ancient), it was game over for Windows.
I don’t know what Freetrack is but I hope it gets implemented for you :)
Solid gaming support
Enshittification. I never had any technical reasons for leaving Windows. It has its share of annoyances but so does every other OS. What really got to me was the constant pushing of their own products over others. And I don’t even want to think about switching to 11. Without the enshittification I would still be using Windows, just because of inertia.
Same here. I was fine with W10, but the recent W11 shenanigans were the last straw, and I decided to give Linux Mint a try. Couldn’t be happier - everything is so much more snappy now. And since I game on consoles only and my crappy PC was never a gaming machine to begin with, I have zero issues - wish I switched sooner!
Windows 7 was a competent OS with low system requirements, a stable kernel, a simple feature set that was well-known and useful, an interface that was comprehensible and clearly conveyed to the user, and it didn’t require extra investment or online accounts, and compatibility options for the really old stuff. It remains the Best version of Windows in my eyes.
8 took away the comprehenisble UI, low spec options, and lack of online service requirements, then 10 further complicated the UI and filled the OS with ads, the then 11 bloated the feature set, added even more ads, borked compatibility, and made the online accounts a requirement unless you pay extra and/or know what you’re doing.
Textbook Enshittification
Agreed. XP was pretty decent too, though.
XP was acceptable and 7 was decent, but just seeing the previews of 8 was the last straw for me.
Becoming a Communist.
That, and increased gaming support, and a Thinkpad that struggled over time given renewed life with Arch.
Our favorite OS, comrade.
The need for latex, in 1999.
No longer being able to run Windows 7, the pinnacle of Windows.
Late 1990s my uni had unix workstations HPUX.
So all projects etc were expected to be done on those. Linux at the time was the easy way to do it from home.
By the time I left uni in 98. I was so used to it windows was a pain in the butt.
For most of the time since I have been almost 100% linux. With just a dual boot to sort some hardware/firmware crap.
Ham radio to this day. Many products can only do updates with windows.
Wow, same, went to uni from 1990 to 1996, everything was HP-UX, so I installed Linux on my 386 then 486 at the time, easier to do the homework, transferred on floppy. Always had a Linux partition, of course DOS/Windows was used for gaming, Linux for tinkering and dev. I don’t game for years so I’m Linux 100% for years now. I have a windows XP in QEMU for AVRStudio, damn thing cannot make it works in wine because of serial ports.
Was a few years later for me.
Not DMU by any chance?
nah, in France, they were big supporter of HP-UX
Cool. At the time, it was one of the best. Although, I also liked sun-os.
I also worked with VMS a lot after uni. Hated using it. But had to respect the ideals behind it.
But watching the growth of Linux has been fantastic. In 2024. It does seem to have out evolved all the others. ( Evolved, defined as developed the ability to survive by becoming so freaking useful. )
I am starting to think it is time for a micro kernel version, though.
Windows 98 really sucked and running Unix at home became an option.
Tried installing Windows 11. After a few hours screwing around trying to find the right drivers for everything, I tried a live USB of Mint. Everything worked great out of the box.
Also, the ads, and Microsoft’s insistence on forcing user accounts.
My first couple of computers had AmigaOS and even from the start Windows felt like complete garbage in comparison, but eventually I had to buy a PC to keep up with the times. After that I kept looking for alternative OS:es, tried Linux dual booting but kept going back to Windows since all the programs and hardware I needed to use required it. When I finally decided to go full time Linux, some time between 2005 and 2010, it was because I felt like I was just wasting my life in front of the computer every day. With Windows it was too easy to fire up some game when I had nothing else to do, and at that time there were barely any games for Linux so it removed that temptation. But that has ofc. changed now and pretty much all Windows games work equally well on Linux :)
When I switched it didn’t even have anything to do with the enshittification of Windows. I just thought it would be cool to try another OS. Pop_OS was really nice to use and this just so happened to be right around the time Proton was getting really good. I think the only game I was playing that didn’t work was Siege, and I ended up preferring using Linux to playing it.
Windows sucks, I love open source, built my own computer didn’t want to pay a 100$
Lots of little things, but the straw that broke the camel’s back was the constant pop-ups asking me to try out Copilot in Win10, harassing me daily on both on my personal PC and my work laptop.
Windows has been on thin ice since the trash fire that was Win8, and I’d only stuck with it for Nvidia driver support for gaming. I’ve been watching Proton development for years now, and putting it through its paces on my older PCs every few months, so I knew I was ready to make the switch for about a year before I finally pulled the trigger. I justified putting it off with the thought that “I can build my next PC around an AMD graphics card amd make the switch then.”
Then Win11 and all its garbage was announced, AI took off, and Microsoft started pushing their slop on my machine harder than ever. It was too much. I switched to Mint DE on my current machine and haven’t looked back.
Funny that windows fucking your audio outputs is a big deal but ridiculous stutter in games in a highend machine is a minor inconvenience.
Back in the early days of Win10, an updated messed up my system and I ended up with duplicated icons. Wasn’t happy, but didn’t feel that it was that big of a deal to warrant a full reinstall.
2 years ago I built myself a new desktop and decided to try installing Linux straight away. Haven’t looked back since.
