this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2024
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Linux

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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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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?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

I was just bored during the pandemic

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago

Microshit flipping back privacy settings on win11 among other bullshit.

Tried monitoring network connections, there is no way tell what windows is doing. Blocking them will break the OS... I was done.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Vista, that's what ruined it for me. I had XP Pro, and I loved that it had all the features (IIS, FTP Server, etc.). But when Vista came out, it had so many different versions, each one a gatekeeper for different features. That was just too much. XP was the last one I used for my personal use. I jumped into Linux, head first, and I've never looked back.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

was bored in w*ndows and kde looked cool

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

The Halloween Documents are a set of internal Microsoft memoranda that were leaked to the open-source community in 1998. The documents outlined Microsoft's strategies and attitudes towards open-source software, particularly the growing threat posed by Linux. They are named after the fact that the first document was leaked around Halloween in 1998.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago

The pursuit of Freedom led me to Linux.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

BeOS went under.

Ed: I was a huge apple fan, bought an apple clone from Power Computing. Then Apple revoked the licensing that allowed all the apple clone companies to exist. That's when I went to BeOS which would run on my clone, and got a multicore intel machine too. When BeOS went under I tried Suse. Had kind of a sucky UI in my opinion, but I hung in there with linux as an alternative to windows and went Ubuntu/Debian/Arch/Nixos and I'm still on nixos now. Its pretty much my exclusive OS since I quit my job that required windows 5 or 6 years ago.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I never “switched” in the sense that yesterday I was windows and today I am linux.

It just happened. I’ve always had some distro or other running on another drive or partition. This includes things like os2 warp that weren’t linux.

But about 4 or so years ago, my games were playable easily on steam, I was able to find Linux packages for work stuff (like teams), and things just generally behaved with no hassle (up until then things worked but they came with hassles).

Meanwhile, windows became a hassle. Microsoft borked my windows install because it forced their crappy store onto a game (literally trashed my installation by clicking “install” - PSO2), every time I turned the pc on I was faced with an update and restart, some of those updates failed (one of them still doesn’t work) - how does an OS update become so poor quality - it’s an OS update, and general enshitification such as ads, nags, and crappy OS design with the clicks…

I just found myself not wanting to use windows, and wanting to use Linux. It happened over time. The last time I logged into windows was three or four months ago just to update the install and keep it fresh. It was a painful 1/2 hour and I’m dreading going back.

EndeavorOS Gnome, light use of the AUR, heavy flatpak use.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

I read the story somewhere about a student from Finland who wrote his own kernel and discussed it with Andrew S. Tanenbaum.

Since I was reading a book of Mr. Tanenbaum at that time, this got me somewhat interested, and when I got the chance, I tried it out.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Shit just not working with no way to fix it. I had aux speakers. They didn’t work on windows. Worked on Linux out of the box. Had a micro sd card. Was detected by Windows but couldn’t mount. Try to format. Windows said your card seams to be broken. Worked on Linux out of the box. The main problem wasn’t stuff breaking, it happens on Linux too, but stuff just breaking for no apparent reason and there being no way to fix it made me use Linux full time

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Windows 11's TPM led me to believe I wouldn't be able to upgrade my machine without windows thinking I need a new license, as it had happened for windows 11. I found a workaround but didn't know if it would work for Windows 11 as well. I want to control my machine so I went with Linux.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

i never even liked w10 and then i got to experience w11 on our school machines, and realized i can't go that way. saw so many people praising linux here so i split my ssd and tried to install linux on the other partition. fukked up and formatted the whole damn ssd, so i became a linux only user. soon i accidentally removed nvidia drivers so i went back to windows. not a month later i noticed my school logo on the start menu and they also seemed to control some windows settings, i freaked out and went back to linux. been like 1½ years now.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago
[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Tbh my uni gave me a PC with no OS on it. I wasn't going to pay for an OS for work so I installed Ubuntu. I liked it, so I also switched on my private laptop.

TLDR: it being free, then liking it

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

I'd been dual booting with Windows 2000 Professional for a while but XP came out, I didn't like it so fully switched.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

No longer being able to run Windows 7, the pinnacle of Windows.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

The need for latex, in 1999.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

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 :)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (4 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

I had been considering switching for years, I even made a list of things I had to find alternatives to and tried to widdle it down. With proton making gaming viable, I decided to dual boot, and accidentally destroyed my entire windows partition when trying to back it up with dd. Just said fuck it and went full Linux.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Ages ago in the Vista era, all our Windows computers had an issue where our internet would say "limited or no connectivity" and just stop working. That happened on my desktop and I decided "to hell with it" and switched to Linux (Ubuntu, specifically).

[–] [email protected] 20 points 4 months ago

Windows 98 really sucked and running Unix at home became an option.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I got a new PC. I installed Windows on it. I felt dirty, so I said fuck it, and installed Linux instead.

It wasn't any one specific thing, but a lifetime of windows frustrations adding up, on top of a growing frustration with enshittified tools and services in general

That was 4 months ago.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Becoming a Communist.

That, and increased gaming support, and a Thinkpad that struggled over time given renewed life with Arch.

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[–] [email protected] 68 points 4 months ago (4 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 months ago

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!

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 months ago

Solid gaming support

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