Microsoft is clearly not making decisions to benefit the customer. The best they can do is accidentally benefiting customers every once in a while. It’s simply not good enough, since Linux is literally made by customers with the express purpose to be the best for us. 😊

I’ve never liked Microsoft but grew up using it and naturally when I came into adulthood I stuck with what I was familiar with. Then my longtime girlfriend got me into Mac which for me was definitely a step up because it didn’t have a lot of the annoying bullshit bloat that MS has but as time went on and I started to care more about digital privacy I realized that Linux had been here this whole time and dipped my toes in while also using MacOS and then once I was familiar enough with Linux that I felt confident I could do anything that I would need to do on my Mac on Linux I made the switch completely

Was building a PC years ago, while in college, and forgot to get a Windows license (eventually got one through my university). After finishing the build I was so hyped to use it I just installed Linux (had played around in it in a VM in the past, so I knew my way around).

Got used to using Linux as my main OS after that, and stuck with it. Paying for a $100 OS is silly when the free alternative is just as good (though, I admit I do still use Windows for work).

Note: I used to game in Windows as well, I don’t do that anymore. Thanks, Steam!

To give Microsoft the finger.

It was the night of December 24th, 1996. I turned on the family PC, then running Win95, and found my D:\ drive corrupted. Windows had no tools nor docs how to resurrect a corrupted filesystem. I cried, and two days later installed SuSE on a spare disk.

Some 20 years later, I restored about half of the disk lost in 1996, because Linux had the tools, and the docs, and encouraged me to learn.

Better privileges over my own hardware and the software I install on it. Less interruptions, annoyances and adware.

Freedom.

I can continue using the hardware I already own, and it still runs well. And now I have a reason to learn how to make it work even better, so that’s fun

One reason. Anti -Windows 11.

What’s the option? Windows? Keeps getting shittier all the time. Now with AI Slop and bugs. No thanks. Mac? Their walled garden, making it so you can’t upgrade your existing computer? No thanks. My last mac was a 2015 that let you upgrade things but it was a pain. They’ve since removed that so they lost me as a customer.

With Linux, I have a Framework laptop that let’s me upgrade everything. It’s easy to take apart, there are hardware switches for the mic and webcam… it’s very user friendly. Linux doesn’t have any telemetry. The only AI that gets installed is if I install it myself, it’s not intrusive. I’ve been using Linux for a long, long time but the Desktop experience has been lacking in the past. It’s gotten way better recently and the last thing I would boot into windows for was Fusion 360. I spent some time learning FreeCAD and since 1.0 it is way better and now I don’t need to boot into Windows anymore. Steam has made leaps and bounds with proton and now I can even game on Linux which is pretty huge. Is Linux perfect? No, but it does everything I need it to.

Because Windows 10 installed candy crush without my input and interrupted me to tell me how edgy it was.

I am old, I have used windows for around 20 years. I am also a geek. I tried Mac OS a long time ago - not geeky enough and the hardware was too expensive for me back then.

Tried Linux several times. It was fun, but I had too many issues, up until now.

In my opinion if you plot user friendliness over time for Linux and windows, the Linux is going up on the friendliness axis, slowly but steadily. Windows on the other hand… Goes somewhere. Every good idea MS devs have is countered by 3 terrible (for users) from the marketing department.

I want to be the owner of my own PC. I want to control everything, windows was good enough a few years ago, but it is not anymore, the cloud integration plus AI bulshit, plus bloatware.

No, thanks.

Found an Ubuntu CD on the ground and took it home. It resurrected a dead laptop and since then I’ve only known the kiss of Linus

Freedom.

Fed up of all my apps appearing with copilot in them. Fed up of apps like notepad becoming fucking laggy. Its bloody notepad for Christ sake.

I don’t care about AI. I don’t want it. Every time I uninstalled it all, it just appeared again a week later.

Then I found cachyos and realised I could play all the games I play. Never looked back.

I enjoy not feeling spied on. Not feeling my data is being sold on.