I first got on it because Windows Vista ran like an absolute pig after a few years and I got tired of it - downloaded Ubuntu and I was off to the races with it. After that laptop I built my first PC which I’m proud to say has never so much as had a windows USB stick inserted into it.

Tbh I find it requires much less tinkering now - I ended up putting Fedora Atomic Cosmic on a Chromebook this weekend (first time w/ jailbreaking a Chromebook, and w/Fedora) and it took all of an hour to get it done - the only command-line stuff I needed to do was because Fedora Atomic is immutable so adding non-flatpak apps is a slightly more involved process. Beyond that OS setup/software installation was entirely via GUI and straightforward.

I want meaningful errors I can troubleshoot. “Oopsie poopsie” error messages tell me nothing.

I like to tinker, I like to have a level of control (or at least the option) of things I own, I like to learn, I like the idea of open source, and from Windows 2000 on I didn’t like the direction it was going.

I migrated long ago. When I first knew about foss software, I started experimenting with some stuff like gimp and inkscape, and noticed that I could do the same things I did, but with a substancially lower hardware demand. Everything was lighter and smoother on my low-end stuff (I’m poor and always used old or cheap devices).

After migrating almost everything to foss, I learned about linux, and switched right away. The change was easy, because I already had a foss workflow, so it was so smooth and nice.

It was one of the best things I did. Since then, all my devices worked smoother and lasted longer. The environmentalist movements should promote foss, because the long-term difference is HUGE.

Honestly, I grabbed linux because I wanted something that worked and wouldn’t change.

Windows keeps changing, a lot. Now getting to the point where none of my computers could handle 11. So I just said screw it, kept my hardware and now I run Ubuntu

Was not as disruptive as I thought

Privacy concerns for the most part. Also for better desktop performance and less bloat on my existing hardware. I was not going to buy a whole new laptop just for macOS, and also gaming on macOS is not nearly as viable.

I would like to somewhat dispute this idea that all Linux users enjoy fixing problems for entertainment. Don’t get me wrong, I can and do solve problems in Linux, but once I have a setup that works, I just use my machine normally rather than constantly tinkering with it.

As for how I went about the switch, fortunately, my laptop at the time had 2 NVMe slots, so I installed a second drive and dual-booted between Windows and Linux for a while until I had set up replacements for all the programs that I use regularly.

I started using Linux in addition to Windows years ago, but I switched full-time because I found that Linux actually runs faster on the same machine hardware, and if you have a stable distro it actually breaks things less often.

I’ve had windows go to do it’s update, and sit on the update screen for ages, never seeming to finish. No process bar, nothing, just that stupid screen saying “we’re doing updating, thanks for waiting” or whatever (cycling through several messages without saying what it’s doing, is it stuck?) I would have to hard reset my windows machine when it did that.

And windows has so much stuff running in the background, either pre installed things running or who knows what services. I didn’t use edge or IE but they would still be running there in the background in task manager.

Not to mention the other issues like having to go find software I wanted to download, hunting for a real, valid, non-virus link to download, then run an installer, and click click click through the installer. Oh it needs some version of Microsoft visual C++ runtime that it didn’t include automatically? Good luck finding the right vcredist to install to make it work, you’re on your own.

Linux has none of that nonsense.

You want to update? You either click the button or type the command, put in your password, it gives you a list of exactly what it’s going to update. You confirm yes and it goes and giving you a progress bar and tells you what it’s doing each step of the way. No guessing if it’s stuck or broken. If it does break, it gives you an error message you can actually Google for a result for.

You want to install new software? For most of what I’ve wanted, I can just go to the distro’s software repository and download things directly from a trusted source. The builds are signed and verified so I can trust they’re real and not a virus rather than having to go searching online. All dependencies are also automatically installed with the correct versions to make everything just work.

And there are no installers, you click the buttons to install and what you want installs with no extra stupid menus or anything, if you want to install 10 things in one go you can.

Also there are standard paths for everything, you can pretty much Google “Linux how to” and you’ll get sane results for most distro’s.

And games run faster on Linux with less overhead from background things competing, there’s no background update crap kicking in to nuke your game performance. I’ve been running steam and the free epic games stuff on Linux full-time and Linux only for probably 5 years and I’ve had minimal issues, VR also works. Sure there may be some setup involved but there are many guides and instructions out there, and it mostly amounts to installing things and maybe a little bit of configuration.

Which, on Windows you still often need to install things to get stuff to work anyways, so really the argument that windows “just works” has worn a little thin with me. I’d believe you if you told me that a Mac just works, I’ve not used one.

I’ve used Windows for decades, I know that “just works” is a lie. It works no better than Linux imo, and depending on distro, some Linux just works better than Windows.

From my decade of Linux I would suggest: Debian or Ubuntu for a rock solid stable distro. Probably go Ubuntu since you’ll find way more help easily Googleable, but snap causes some difficulties.

Garuda is my current Arch based distro, so far no breakage after about 2 years of use, great for gaming. Would not recommend arch based for your first foray, I ran archlinux itself for about 6 years but it would break from time to time (fixable, but still not beginner friendly.)

I also wanted an OS that “just worked”, and Windows was no longer delivering that. I was constantly having driver issues (usually wireless and Bluetooth related), which required messing around in the registry to fix. I suppose I could have wiped everything and started with a fresh install, but how long would that have worked for?

If I was going to have to tinker and tweak things to get it to work anyway, I figured I might as well do it with an OS that I was in control of, that didn’t shove ads in my face constantly, and that I didn’t have to pay to unlock all the features. I already had a little experience with Linux in VMs, so I tried dual-booting. I found I didn’t really need to boot into Windows except for the most niche cases, so I just stayed on Linux.

When I built a new computer a couple of years ago, I switched over from dual-booting to just Linux. I’ve been running EndeavorOS ever since.

I didn’t want to deal with the spyware of an OS. Recall looks nightmarish and I don’t want ads in my OS.

I’d been considering it for a while due to various garbage they’ve done over the last couple versions, but forcing that stupid Copilot on me was the final straw. Also the huge uptick in Linux compatible games was definitely a factor.

I was curious and done with the malware. Living in a very small city in some third world country where the internet was only for some government offices, higher social classes, universities and one or two cyber cafes, grabbing a Linux CD was a daunting task. I got a set of RedHat CDs but couldn’t make it boot in my own PC (a Compaq).

Life got me living in Mexico City to get my BS and suddenly I got many more options to try this Linux thing. Mandrake was now the go-to distro for beginners, since Ubuntu was not a name yet. Installed the Linux, loved it. After discovering the DE variety, I distrohopped for years. It was easier for me to download a Live CD somewhere, often at my University, than changing DE in my offline PC. At that time Mandrake became Mandriva, and I distrohopped between Zenwalk, Slackware, Fedora Core, Dreamlimux (lesser known Debian-based Brazilian distro), then got Ubuntu CDs by mail (they used to send them for free, and even included stickers!), and I settled there until Unity.

Because I want to control my own computer. I had to pay for the device, so I should be treated as the owner, yet Microsoft and Apple act like they own people’s computers, and build software that treats the computer as property of those corporations.

I don’t like tinkering just to get stuff working, so I use more user-friendly Linux distributions, and it’s been very smooth.

I switched because of a strong dislike for Microsoft and their spyware. I didn’t even bother dual booting, I ran baptism by fire right into Fedora and it was way smoother than I expected it to be. I enjoyed Fedora so much that I decided to try Arch. Very different experience, but now I’ve learned so much that I dumped Fedora and I use Arch for almost everything. I do keep a machine with Debian that way I feel like I’m getting the most well-rounded experience in case I ever need to help a friend with a Debian-based distro.

I switched from Win95 to Redhat out of curiously. The first attempt ended in kernel panik, the second succeeded. Despite many challenges I was happy there, because there usually was a way to fix things to work in a way I could live with. There was also lots of opportunity to break things and learn. Also the shell in Linux was much better than in windows. Been using Linux at home, university and work since. Seeing what windows has turned in to I am glad I switched many years ago.

It’s significantly easier to use and I wanted to create a maximally ergonomic setup that I designed the ux for.

windows wouldn’t let me choose, linux did, also when linux has an issue it’s never because someone was doing something malicious, on windows it nearly always is.