Asklemmy

First experimented when Windows 8 took away Aero Glass and other customizations. Committed when I had to fight with Windows 10's twice-yearly feature updates that messed with my settings and wasted space with new programs I didn't ask for. I now keep a separate laptop just to run Windows when I have to.

Distrohopping was mostly confined to my first year using Linux. Deepin (kept crashing) -> UbuntuDDE (went unmaintained) -> Arch Linux -> Debian. Settled on Debian Stable since it just works, I haven't been using bleeding-edge hardware, and I don't like things changing around too often (see my Chicago95 rice).

I tried pop in November last year. I've since tried nobara, mint and now arch. I hate it because many arch users are so obnoxious but the AUR is invaluable, I think. It's a bit more work to setup, but with the new arch install script it's really not so bad. Watch out for the partitioning bug though! You basically have to manually partition your drive currently, because of an off by one error.

I use Linux for largely the same reasons I use Lemmy. While I'm still far from strictly using FOSS software, I respect the decentralization and freedom that comes with Linux. I have such a deep admiration and respect for everyday people that create/maintain platforms, as opposed to large companies that seeking to profit off their userbase.

While I have distro hopped a number of times over the past few years, I keep coming back to Pop!_OS. Everything just works right out of the box for me, but still gives me the freedom to tweak my environment however I choose. I love their tiling desktop feature and am anxiously awaiting the release of their new COSMIC desktop.

It looked different

Honestly, because Windows is a steaming pile of garbage and using Mac feels like swimming with pool floaties.

I recently started using NixOS as my distro and it has been phenomenal. Saying the learning curve is a little steep is like calling a hurricane a little bit of rain, but once you start to get it, it's extremely powerful and delivers on the promise of "all of your configuration in one place." It gives me a lot of peace of mind to know that every time I tweak or fix something, it's reliably making it into a version controlled and backed up repository. I could throw my laptop out the window, pick up a new one, and have all my applications installed and configured within half an hour.

First time I switched it was because I had a piece of trash for a computer and making it work with Windows was easier said than done. It was truly amazing how smooth that machine would run Ubuntu while crying to run Windows XP (t'was a long time ago) I knew about Linux before then because my father was an oldschool geek and had messed around with old Linux distros that came on magazine cover discs, so I was somewhat familiar with the idea of Linux. Still had a lot to learn.

Eventually I got myself a "real" computer, and because I'd be using it for gaming and this was before Proton was a thing, I had it run Windows. But good god it was hard to go back. And the first thing that made Windows a pain in the arse to me was something surprisingly simple: This was the Windows 7 days, and Microsoft had yet to figure out what a Dark Theme was. It wasn't until Windows 10 that one was added, and even then, it took quite a few updates for it to appear across things like the file explorer and such.

Enshittification kept happening and such, but I couldn't exactly drop windows at the time, I'd spent a fortune on a gaming PC and it was my only games machine. I longed to go back to Linux (even set up dual-boots for some time but didn't stick with them) but couldn't justify it vs the loss of most of my library.

Then Proton happened and things were good again. It took me a bit longer to actually take the leap, but when I did, I was so happy.

... Ironically, nowadays I only boot into Windows for work reasons. Specifically Adobe reasons. What a time to be alive that all my games and chat applications and (...) are all on Linux and Windows is basically a quarantined zone for After Effects. Life is good.

I switched probably 2010 or 2011. I think I was on windows 7, but it might have been windows vista and I never got to 7.

At some point I had made a realization that software I downloaded from sourceforge (this website has been terrible for a long while now, but I think it was decent way back) was heavily correlated with not being shitty. After making this observation, I was able to generalize it to open source software tends to be less shitty and I had a year or two of experiences afterwards that reinforced my theory, which led me to try experimenting with linux installs.

I started with dual-booting Fedora, I had no idea what I was doing and didn't like the user experience as much as windows at first. I did a little bit of distro-hopping to see if there was something more appealing to me, but during that time I discovered the free software movement and that resonated with me a lot more than open source had, so I decided I wasn't interested in going back to windows. Moved to Trisquel (originally an Ubuntu derivative, and fully-free to the point of being FSF-approved) and grew to love it.

After a couple years, I decided I was curious enough to learn more about how the system works, so I moved to Parabola (fully free Arch derivative) to force myself to learn. I really learned barely anything, but I got very good at getting things working by trial-and-error while reading documentation I don't fully understand. I haven't progressed very far beyond that point at all in the years since, but I got too comfortable to make a significant change.

In the past five or so years, I've to some degree dropped the free software philosophy in favor of a philosophy that the problem runs much deeper (no hope of a successful free software movement in a capitalist society, and software is not even close to the most beneficial consequence of getting past capitalism), and I've moved to legit Arch rather than Parabola.

I've basically gone ten years without real issues on arch installs, but I still have no idea what I'm doing, I'm just comfortable with it and don't want to put any effort into a change. I feel like if anyone from the arch forums or anyone knowledgeable in general took five minutes to look at my pc they'd be like wtf are you doing. It's whatever, it works well enough for me.

I switched because I was sick of dealing with corporate garbage and abuse at the hands of Microsoft.

It wasn't the cost, I've always activated my Windows installations with gray-market keys bought on eBay for 5-10 dollars. Plus I've paid far more for open source software than I ever did for Windows and their proprietary trash.

I had so many problems with Windows over the years. Fighting with drivers, fighting with software installs, fighting with the registry, etc etc.

I also couldn't stand how bad their spying was getting, how bloated and clunky their software was, and how much adware they were forcing on me.

I finally vowed about 3 years ago that I would never use Windows again for any of my personal computing, no matter what I had to sacrifice.

Turns out, I didn't have to really sacrifice anything significant, and I gained far more than I lost. I would never go back to Windows now, especially with what is happening with windows 11.

My main computer runs Nobara, because I use it mostly for gaming. I use KDE Plasma as my DE. Both work fantastic, games run fast and smooth, and everything looks so pretty lol.

I use Mint Debian Edition with Cinnamon on my laptop and it's awesome too. Almost never have any problems with it.

My work allows me to use Linux, so I run Debian with KDE Plasma. It took a bit of work to get everything running smoothly, but I'm enough of a power user that it wasn't too bad.

My phone runs GrapheneOS, I'm on it right now typing this. Love it also, so glad to be off a corporate version of Android. GrapheneOS is awesome and does everything I need very well.

I've used a ton of different distros. Different strokes for different folks. I've used Arch, Fedora, Zorin, Ubuntu, Lubuntu, Mint, Manjaro, Alma, and several others. Some were a fad, some I use for my servers, some I use for home lab testing, etc.

It's how I've always used computers I hate fighting a tool

Perhaps a different perspective, but I am gearing up to switch at the moment.

While I have previously used Linux (I have been running Debian 12 on my laptop for about a year), I bought windows 11 for my Desktop as I was still under the impression that is was the only real way to play games.

I recently learned about what Proton has done for games on Linux and also noticed how many games are truly playable on Linux now with the ever increasing market share.

Even though I am using NVIDIA hardware, I have looked up the process for installing the NVIDIA drivers on Linux and while not as easy as AMD, it appears to be quite easy anyway (I am an IT graduate so it seems pretty straightforward to me).

It really was only games that was holding me back I think.

Windows, especially lately has been growing more and more and more and more invasive. I feel like in the last 6 weeks I have read tens of articles on how Microsoft is trying to insert ads into the OS, watermark the OS, install AI into the OS, force the use of MS accounts instead of local accounts etc, and it is completely disgusting. At this point given the recent activity, I would not at all be surprised if they started to try to enforce the OS as a "subscription service".

The moment I installed windows 11 I knew it was going to be a poor experience, considering I had to create registry keys and manually relaunch the OOBE with flags in order to use a local account.

For all these reasons (Gaming becoming ever more accessible on linux, and MS consistently making their product less valuable), I will be switching to either Debian 12 on my desktop or Arch in the near future.

It is a disgusting corporate world we find ourselves in right now, but while this is in many ways a bad thing, I have never in my life noticed more people taking notice of that, becoming interested in FOSS, in Linux, in even considering no longer putting up with this kind of thing, and that gives me hope.

Coming from Windows and DOS originally Linux was the first OS that made me realize that computers actually behave in deterministic ways when you get the ability to look at everything that is going on. And I also realized that given a proper OS you can actually automate most of the common tasks instead of doing the same things over and over again by hand.

I did it because it was interesting.

Yes, I did it for freedom. Here's my battlestation:

Libreboot Gaming Desktop

• Dell OptiPlex 9020 MT Motherboard
• i7 4790K
• 32GB DDR3 1600Mhz RAM
• 9TB (1TB M.2 NVME, 2x4TB Hard drives) RAID 0 with LUKS and LVM (/boot stored on SD card)
• NVIDIA 2080 SUPER 8GB VRAM (Switching to AMD soon)
• NZXT S340 Elite Case
• EVGA 700W BR
• Kicksecure GNU/Linux

Libreboot Server

• Dell Precision T1650
• Xeon E3 1275 V2
• 32GB DDR3L 1600Mhz RAM (ECC)
• 8TB (2x4TB Hard drives) RAID 1 with LUKS and LVM (/boot stored on SD card)
• AMD RX580 8GB VRAM
• Proxmox VE / Learning to use YunoHost inside VM

Libreboot Laptop

• Lenovo Thinkpad T440P
• i7 4810MQ (Recommend i7 4700MQ for better battery life)
• 16GB DDR3 1600Mhz RAM
• 1TB SSD (/boot encrypted with Argon2)
• 100% Free BIOS (LibreMRC), Intel Management Engine is still present but neutered
• Intel AC 7260 (Can run without blobs when running Linux-libre kernel)
• AR9271 USB for WiFi (100% FOSS)
• Kicksecure GNU/Linux with Linux-libre kernel (Removed all non-free firmware)

Libreboot Laptop 2

• Dell E6400 XFR
• P8700 / GM45
• 8GB DDR2 RAM
• Removed WiFi Card
• Removed Mic/Camera
• 100% Free BIOS
• Intel Management Engine completely removed
• Kicksecure GNU/Linux with Linux-libre kernel (Removed all non-free-firmware)

GrapheneOS Phone (100% FOSS in the OS layer)

• Cheogram / JMP.chat for Calling / Texting
• Mint Mobile for Service (Cash)
• Ported number into JMP.chat
• F-Droid

LibreCMC Routers (100% Free Firmware/Software)

• ThinkPenguin R1400 Ethernet (1Gbps)
• ThinkPenguin R1300 WiFi Router (100Mbs)
• Running under MullvadVPN (Paid in XMR)

OpenWRT Network Switch

• D-Link DGS-1210-28MP
• VLAN Support

I was born into it. I stayed with it for some mix of gratis and libre. I'm not rich or dumb enough to buy an Apple device or Windows licence, and I like having a computer that won't turn on me.

My laptop with windows 10 shit the bed, it would let me type in my pin but get hung up on the spinny loady wheely thing never moving past that. I used a linux liveUSB to rescue my files from the disk, and while I was using it I noticed how my computer did things like "still work." So I switched! Actually had two laptops at the same time I had to switch too, the other would let me log in but was bogged down and barely responsive, ran like a top for years but now I'm upgrading to a framework. The framework can probably run windows but it would've been like $200 more and like, why? I might just run a VM of WatermarkWindows for the few times I need it but really the only thing I need works in wine well enough.

It was mostly just a skill issue, I don't know how anyone uses developer tools on Windows. Building tool chains on Linux just make sense.

because win98SE sucked horribly.

Being a geek, I have tried many linux distros (I've been using Linux since 1998, on and off). Curiosity was what was driving my usage of it.

In the early 2000s, when I used to write for OSNews.com (second only to Slashdot for OS tech news back then), I really didn't find any distro polished enough to be a daily driver for me. Red Hat was big at the time, but even when ubuntu came around, it was still not as polished as it is today. These days, I'm using Debian-Testing mostly, however I concede that the best distro for newbies (and for me really, I'm too old now to be tinkering) is Linux Mint (flagship version). Mint really is well-thought out for daily usage. It might not have the latest tech innovation in it, or be bold with its choices, but it just works 99% of the time.

As time has gone by, and seen corporations taking everything for themselves (via enshittification), I have stopped using Linux because it was the geeky/cool thing to do, but I started using it because it frees me from all the spyware, and corporation agendas. Back in the 2000s, when I was a news editor for foss matters, I was mostly siding with the BSD license side of things (and mit/apache/ etc). I felt that the GPL was too restrictive, and that we should allow innovation take its course as it wants to. Now, that I've lost all my faith in corporations doing the right (smart) thing, I'm now a GPL3/AGPL type of a gal. The more "restrictively open" something can be, the better. Don't allow anyone to manipulate you, or use you, or take away your data etc.

Probably a combination of free/libre and gratis. Thing is,I was amazed at the speed of it compared to Windows (at the time I had XP).

My first incursion was with Puppy Linux circa 2010, then Ubuntu circa 2012, and now I want to hop to another distro but don't know which.

I don't care about Linux. I care about freedom. It just so happens that the best free software operating systems are built on Linux, so that's what I use.

I use GNU Guix System on my desktop, laptop, and server machines. I use LineageOS on my mobile devices, although sometimes I wish I could use Mobian or even Guix System instead. I do have a Pinephone with Mobian but it's collecting dust and the battery is swollen so I can't use it anyway. I also have a router running OpenWRT.

I used to use Debian until 2019, Trisquel until 2014, and Ubuntu until 2010. When I was something of a kid I played around with a Knoppix live CD, which was my first taste of GNU/Linux.

Excel wouldn't stop converting sku numbers to date formats. IT guy was excited to share an "easy fix" for that with Open Office...

When I saw his genuine excitement as he described Linux, plus the security it provided I realized, if I ran Linux I'd have the best support in the company. And I did.

I eventually had to move on from Linux at work after 10yrs or so but it's all I run at home.

All because of Excel and those fucking date codes. Which yes, Open Office solved as advertised.

And yes I know you don't need Linux for that but it was a long time ago.

I think I originally checked it out after watching an LTT video on a gaming distro, because i liked computers and I was pretty good at them. Not sure if I was the problem or the distro but it was pretty bad. Still fell in love.

Now I appreciate the open source aspect, but I still like it because I can do more with it and learn in the process.

I first got into Linux because I was a kid with an old hand-me-down laptop that was meant to run Windows 98 but I somehow stuffed Windows XP on there (it had a 4gb HDD and it was filled to the brim, I'm shocked in hindsight that it actually installed). Then I discovered Ubuntu (I think version 6.06?) and installed it, and it ran great! Once I got newer computers I ended up using Windows primarily but usually had a Linux PC kicking around. In college I started dual booting my main machine since Linux proved to be useful for my courses (Computer Science). Then I built a PC and just installed Windows 10 on it, but now that my 7th gen Intel CPU is "too old" to run Windows 11, I said screw it and installed Linux again. Plus I just really like having a bash shell natively, and a proper package manager is really nice.

Mostly because windows kept bothering me by breaking or changing something every single dn update so I jumped ship and have been pretty happy. Now windows only gets used for certain things I don't feel like configuring my normal system for.

It was and still is a few things: Mostly the cool factor. It's different, does what I tell it (safety be damned lol ).

Security: Mostly sane defaults (like not making the initial user with full admin rights).

In the early days, a major factor was being poorer, constantly rebuilding Frankenstein PCs that would trip Ms activation crap. And with so many used parts, performance was better too.

I quickly fell partly into the Linux and open source rabbit hole.

So far I have tried small amount of distros on VMs, and the only distros I've run outside of VM and outside of my IT classes I've gone through so far would be Ubuntu on a very crappy laptop, and MX Linux on my current laptop. So far, MX with KDE Plasma 5.x (don't remember the specific version) is my favorite distro.

Partly for freedom, partly for free software, partly for tinkering opportunities. I broke some installs before I started thinking of Linux as my daily driver.

I've tried Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, Puppy (and then Fatdog), Knoppix, Rasbian, Xandros, Damn Small Linux, Tiny Core, Arch and Endeavour, but Mint is my favourite. It's never failed to just work.

Well ... I first got into contact with OpenSource due to Gratis: OpenOffice, Firefox etc. Combining my knowledge of OpenSource with my tendency to break stuff (Reinstalling Boston for the nth time) led me to Linux which I first tinkered with and soon fully adapted.

I had a short hopping phase where I went from Ubuntu (my starter) via Debian (accidentally tried stable) to Arch.

Stuck with arch on my personal machines now run Ubuntu for my work machine and Debian for Servers.

My favourite distro is the right tool for the job (see above) but I'm pretty happy with Arch

Windows post 7 was and remains annoying and getting worse all the time. So I wanted an OS without telemetry and one that I could control the updates on. I also work with Linux a lot at work. I use Alma 9 for a LTS release. Don't have to mess with it much.

I made the switch at the start of the year out of curiosity. I had worked for QNX as a student and though that I should have had a better understanding of the system, so I started using WSL for all my programming.

Then joined Lemmy in the summer and that increased my interest in trying it out full time. I was also getting increasingly disappointed with Windows pushing updates for Win11 and features like onedrive.

I've been super happy with it so far. I've gotten way more familiar with my OS and it's been such a huge shift in perspective for me to be able to shape the way the OS works to my workflow rather than the inverse.

I chose it for development reasons. I kind of fell into a decent career but one I didn’t enjoy and was tied to a specific geographic region. So, I was learning to code and my coworkers who wrote code were using Linux and all our servers were CentOS (or maybe WhiteHat or whatever it was called then). So, I installed Fedora Core 4 — I’m old — and liked it better than Windows. I loved being able to customize everything.

Eventually, I learned the philosophical reasons for open source after I got into it but they matched my personal beliefs so that was no issue.

I used to distro hop frequently and I’ve probably tried all the major distros at least once but after awhile, I began to just stick to Fedora or Ubuntu LTS for servers (and I guess Arch on Steam Deck, Raspbian on the Raspberry Pi, etc.). I like Vanilla Gnome nowadays and when I want to see a new distro, I just check it out in a VM.

I think Chrunchbang (R.I.P.) was my favorite distro when I was all-in on distro hopping and customizing everything. But at some point for a developer, your OS becomes more of a tool for opening an IDE and/or terminal and you value stability over customization or having the very latest software. In the Flatpak era, that’s even more true since you can run the newest versions regardless of the system.

maybe sorta. I did not even realize there was a difference at the command line and was like. ok this uses this. Loved the nextstep workstations. worked at a place that was very unix and liked a lot of it. got very excited with macosx which was pretty much nextstep with a freebsd base and macs were always easier to use. Heard stallman speak and definitely agreed and I began to recognized foss and prefer it. Im still pretty practical though so use zorin os although if I had more time I would play around with qubes os and sourcemage linux.

My windows install started corrupting my hard drive every 1-2 weeks. Completely unrecoverable requiring a fresh install. I installed Linux to try to see if it was a hardware issue, and it worked fine without issues. Ending up just sticking to it. Couple years later I built a new PC, and tried windows again. I enjoyed having all my games work again (this was pre-proton so Linux gaming was hit or miss), but really hated the experience of using windows after being free from it for so long. Went back to Linux, and have been here ever since (about 10 years now). And thanks to valve/proton, I no longer feel like I'm giving anything up to use exclusively Linux.