Hey everyone,

I am exploring switching over to Linux but I would like to know why people switch. I have Windows 11 rn.

I dont do much code but will be doing some for school. I work remote and go to school remote. My career is not TOO technical.

What benefits caused you to switch over and what surprised you when you made the switch?

Thank you all in advanced.

  • yenguardian@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    1 year ago

    These days, Windows constantly gets in your way with ads, forced updates, crappy apps that install themselves, useless features like Cortana, forcing you to make a Microsoft account, etc. Linux or the BSDs, however, usually give you a bullshit-free and distraction-free experience. Plus, no spyware, completely free, endlessly customizable, and low resource usage (if you use a lightweight setup, but even “bloated” distros like Ubuntu and Mint are often light compared to Windows).

    And what surprised me? I guess the only thing that surprised me is how easy the experience is, especially for things like gaming, which Linux has historically had a bad reputation for. Also, how nice it can be to use the terminal, not that you have to, especially as a novice user.

    • OmltCat@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Things you mentioned about windows before “etc” can actually be disabled through group policy or other means. It’s an annoyance nonetheless. But after ~30 minutes of tweaking after a new install, windows is not that bad these days.

      Anyway, if I don’t play games I’ll probably be Linux all the way. Most things today are web based anyway.

      But how is gaming on Linux nowadays, if you may elaborate? I have top of the line hardwares but the games I play easily max out their usage. I know there are things like translation layer, but I’m afraid the performance hit may be not ideal…

      • yenguardian@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        1 year ago

        Wine, DXVK, and other compatibility aids have made gaming a relatively trouble-free experience. Most of the time, if you use Steam, you can just click play and your game will work out of the box with Proton. Performance hit is usually not a big deal, and some games even perform better on Linux. Some games I play also have decent native ports. Outside of edge-cases, the only issues tend to be games with aggressive DRM or anti-cheat, which is hard to get around (though the situation is getting somewhat better with some forms of anti-cheat starting to be Linux/Proton-compatible). Though, personally, most of the games I play are at least a few years old, and most of the new games I play are indie, so I can’t exactly attest to the performance of new AAA games. I tend to hear they work well, outside of the previously mentioned issues, however.

      • Cableferret@lemmy.tf
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        1 year ago

        I have a lower-mid tier (Ryzen7 2700 or 2700x, I don’t exactly remember right now, Nvidia GTX 1650, 16gigs of RAM,) and I can game just fine at 1080p. Granted I’m not exactly worried about 4K or 666 FPS or whatever the hardcore gamers are into these days, but most games work well with proton and steam. Some even run better through proton than they do in Windows natively.

  • PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    I don’t have ads within my OS or start menus, I can do whatever I want with it, I can customize it with different desktop environments, if I mess anything up and need to clean install I don’t need to worry about license keys.

    Also chicks dig penguins.

  • Cave@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    The telemetry and ads baked into windows. I’m so sick of ads creeping into every corner of my life

        • SymbolicLink@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          YES this.

          Back when I was on Windows 10, I meticulously deleted all pre-installed crap (candy crush, Netflix, etc.), and turned off all tracking, ads, etc.

          About a month later they pushed a major update and all those pre-installed apps were back, with more. All the settings I turned off were reverted.

          I won’t ever go back. The only games I really can’t play are all online (League, etc.), and TBH good riddance. Wasn’t adding value to my life anyway.

      • sadreality@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        I switched because after every Windows update they reset some settings and installed tiktok icons.

        Also, when i blocked OS from pinging home every time i clicked start, it made windows freak out to a point where it affected PC performance.

        I am tired of being treated like a cattle as paying customer.

        PopOS was free and respects its users…

  • dethb0y@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I got tired of windows pretending it knew better than me what i wanted, whether that was updates or security scans or fuck knows what else.

    The final straw was when they shitted up the start menu with garbage and tried to shove their app store down my throat. At that point i was done.

      • dethb0y@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        yeah it’s absolutely ridiculous. Whoever decided that the start menu, of all things, needed to be encrusted with garbage should have been fired on the spot.

  • Pseudoluso@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    For me it was the philosophy behind Free (as in freedom) software. Call me a Richard Stallman fan, but I would love to live in a world were everyone is free to:

    • Run the program as you wish, for any purpose.
    • Study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
    • Redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor.
    • Distribute copies of your modified versions to others.

    Learn more at fsf.org

  • dunestorm@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Call me a filthy casual or whatever, but I use Windows, Linux and macOS equally. My preference is Linux but I don’t limit myself by just pretending the other two options don’t exist :)

    • angrymouse@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Sorry but you aren’t special, everyone here already used windows or Mac and the fact that I’m not using other systems righr nowmaybe is more related to I not liking/needing it than pretending they do not exist.

  • DoWotJohn@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    I wanted an operating system, not a marketing platform. I’m not a Linux expert, and I don’t really care about most of the things other Linux users seem to be passionate about. I just want it to work and leave me alone while it does.

    I’ve been on Pop_OS! at home and Tumbleweed at work for almost two years, and I haven’t missed Windows. I moved my family over not long ago and they don’t seem to notice a difference.

    My best advice is to go all in if you decide to switch. For me, it was hard to learn while I was dipping my toe in while still using Windows. Once I went all Linux, it became second nature rather quickly.

  • Bilb!@lem.monster
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    1 year ago

    I have to use Windows for work, and I choose to use Linux for all of my personal devices. Windows is trying very hard to corral me into using bing, edge, cortana, etc. and gets in my way when I try to use the tools I prefer instead. It intentionally obscures what its doing with updates and security. That is unacceptable. This is my computer, not theirs.

    No Linux distro that I’ve tried does any of that shit. They have never tried to push my behavior in one direction or another, they aren’t watching everything I do to help their product teams develop an even more annoying desktop. The various Linux distros I’ve used have felt like nothing but a way to let me use my damn computer.

    I do have a small partition with Windows on it to play the occasional game I can’t run on Linux with Proton. Thanks, Valve!

  • mrmanager@lemmy.today
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    1 year ago

    It’s just a better operating system. It stays out of the way and doesn’t bother you with a billion alerts about shit, and it doesn’t update your computer when you don’t want to, it doesnt install ads you don’t want…

    I could go on but you get the picture. Linux is freedom from dealing with Microsoft shit all day.

  • nea@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    My reasons:

    • You can completely customize linux to your liking. In win it is hard to customize even such a basic thing as keybindings.
    • You can fully control what is installed, win had tons of stuff, that cannot be uninstalled.
    • Things like proprietary software, telemetry etc. is opt-in, no need to deal with windows spying on you for example
    • System is leaner, less bloated (you can fill it with processes if that is what you need ofc)
    • Dev environment is a lot more comfy than linux

    The biggest downside:

    • Gaming is rough around the edge, even though it gets better and better.
  • Aki@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    You can make your computer your own. You bought it, you deserve control for it, you do not need a corporation to decide things for you.

    The benefits of Linux is that you can simply multitask much better, and do things more efficiently. It’s honestly not the same and the two are just not comparable, but not everyone can appreciate or take advantage of that.

    For an inexperienced person to set it up, of course it’s not that simple. Those that are comfortable with Windows find all of these benefits trivial over the perceived amount of effort to transition.

    For an experienced person like me, Windows is much more of a nuisance to set up. I really like my setups clean, I just can’t stand how dirty Windows gets. To clean your system effectively, you’d have to reformat it. There are things like Scoop, MSYS, Docker, etc. I had to use Windows on my laptop for school. The way I use Windows is like how I use Linux, except Powershell commands are just non-intuitive. It just feels really awkward over Bash.

  • thepiguy@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    I was writing just writing some code one day. I then realised something, I needed to press " key twice. I thought my keyboard had died, but the behaviour was consistent so that’s unlikely. Then I realised what happened. Windows had installed and set English international as the default layout, and I was unable to switch it out in settings. Even if I manually switch to English us, it would eventually go back. And editing the registry to remove it just made all windows system apps shit themselves.

    Now at the same time, I had a laptop. It had an update pending for a few weeks, but the update kept failing and hence I had not allowed it to update this time. But as I open up my laptop to code on there with the right keyboard layout, I see the update screen. THE LAPTOP WAS NEVER TURNED OFF, and it was plugged in. I waited and waited till it finally failed yet again.

    Also shortly after one more of these attempts was made my windows which wiped my encryption keys and made my system unbootable or recoverable.

    I had used Linux on a Chromebook before with custom firmware, all my dev work happend in wsl, and I had did a lot of projects on the raspberry pi, so for me the logical step was to completely wipe my SSD and install Linux mint. That happened about 4 years ago and I have not ever thought of leaving Linux. I did switch to arch though, so I use arch btw.

  • SomeBoyo@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    The last time I installed Windows after it broke itself I said that I had enough and would switch to Linux the next time it broke.

  • KindaABigDyl@programming.dev
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    1 year ago
    1. Package managers are a godsend and there’s nothing like them on Windows. Chocolatey is okay, but it’s got nothing on Linux pms. This discontinuity between installing and upgrading some applications, other applications, Windows apps, drivers, and system software makes me want to cry.
    2. Customization. Man is Windows lame here. Colors on Windows is about all you can do, and it’s so limited. I bought the machine I should be able to set it up how I like. There are some deeper ways to theme and adjust things more directly, but they’re hard to use and risk breaking your system. On Linux, customization is easy, even on a more pro-default-option DE like GNOME. I just want things to work, and Windows fights me to get it to a usable state.
    3. Bloat, telemetry, ads, proprietary garbage, etc, etc, etc. I like FOSS and using FOSS software, and I can use it on Windows, but I have to have so much other stuff too. Debloat scripts exist, but they can only do so much. There’s always gonna be something Microsoft owns on the system
    4. Complexity and control. Linux is simple. Binaries go in bin, and the settings for them are usually in ~/.config or somewhere in /etc. Want to adjust some obscure setting to fix some issue in a program you installed? Oh go tweak this clear config and explicit setting to fit your hardware or whatever. Easy to fix. On Windows, all the system stuff is not only hidden, it’s restricted, and also so many times on Windows when you run into issues the solution is you have to edit *shudder* the registry, or worse you have to do a PC reset. Overtime your system slows and blue screens become more frequent too, and there’s nothing you can do. On Linux, you can learn 7 or so folders and understand how your entire system works, keep it maintained, and run it for years. Had a prof in college who was on like a 20yo Gentoo install.
    5. Tiling. There are ways to do tiling on Windows, but they’re all bad and glitchy. Nothing on Windows comes close to i3, and I can’t go back to a non-tiling workflow. Windows wants you to do things the Windows way, and anything outside of that is always lack luster. People talk about Linux balkanization as a problem. It’s not. Those people are just ignorant and stupid. No system can ever really fit all use cases, so it’s important to support choice. Windows doesn’t just promote one way to do things a la GNOME, it actively works against doing things other ways.
    6. Programming. Compilers and dev tools on Linux are so much easier to install and set up than on Windows. If you want to program, you’ve gotta be on Unix/Unix-like
    7. Windows weirdness. There’s so many things on Windows that are just weird decisions. I’ll be using Windows and be like “why the heck did they do it this way?” I’m constantly left scratching my head. Windows has made me lose all respect for Microsoft engineers. They’re clearly stupid. On the other hand, everything on Linux makes sense and has good reasoning behind it. You need to learn very little comparatively to understand your entire system.
    8. Stability. Not talking about applications/upgrades here, but rather Linux will never crash on you, but I can’t go a week without Windows blue screening.
    9. Freedom. I like owning my computer. With Windows, Microsoft owns your PC. Does this directly effect everything constantly? Is it the end all reason for me to switch? No, but it’s icing on the cake. On Windows I feel stuck and miserable. On Linux I feel free and happy.

    I wouldn’t ever go back.