why have you chosen linux?

[Termy]

[...]

I used Windows 8.1 for a year or two, before I switched to Linux. It was eventually an acceptable and at times even pleasant experience — for Windows — but the dumbed-down visuals (lack of Aero), poor visuals, the need for a third-party Start Menu program (because screw Metro or whatever it was called), and other such nonsense was frustrating. The worst, is that I paid for the damn thing. £80 I'll never get back, but if it cost £80 to have eventually switched to Linux, then so be it; money well spent! It was just silly I had to faff about with it, installing all sorts of crap, just to get it to behave like but lesser to the previous version.

[Valsodar]

the title is pretty self explanatory, but why have you decided to use linux over mac or windows? I will go first; I chose to use linux because it's more community driven and a step towards privacy.

You mean why yesterday I deleted Windows and everything related to it, after 7 years of dual booting? Because I got sick of Microcrap's BS and their attempts to dictate what and how will happen on MY computer. The person who will give me orders how to use my computer and what programs I can run on it hasn't been born yet! So I deleted the crapindows installation, all the ISO files I had, the activators, everything. I only left a few programs that don't have linux equivalents (yet). I even converted ALL the devices to EXT4 to make sure there's not a single trace of Crapindows left.

[IAmConfused]

I've been curious on linux since the 90's, did some installs and played around (ie broke stuff, lol) but never committed.

Then got started tinkering with linux mint + some home server stuff in the fall of 2020 and found Linux way more flexible and powerful than windows for such use.
Next was switching to Mint as my daily driver for home use - 16 months ago. (Also got a laptop running wi10 but it is work only)

So, my motivation has mainy been to expand my skill set after working with windows for 30 years

edit:typo

I still have to expand my skillset with MS-DOS or windows command prompt

[IAmConfused]

windows eula is reason enough--can never click the accept

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows ... sktop/eula

Rules for thee but not for me

[HaveaMint]

Add 7 according to my kids: I am old.

Not old just aged Like a fine bottle of Wiskey or err wine.

[HaveaMint]

I switched to daily running Mint on version 18, I have also tinkered in Linux since to 90's but never really found it ready to replace Windows. My brother borked his windows 7 PC swearing it was XP and refused to buy a copy so I put Mint 18 on it and he griped mostly that Libre Office wasn't the same as Excel. I told him to buy Windows then. He started asking questions about Mint and I was lost because I wasn't running it so I installed XFCE but his was Cinnamon so I was still lost on a lot of things to help him on but he used it until he died a couple years back. I still have Windows now win11 but only use it to load a couple of games I play and then copy it over to Linux to use with Proton. I have played around in other Distro's but find myself making it look like I have in Mint.

[BwingBob]

For me it has always been about freedom to use MY computer as I see fit.

I have been dual booting between Linux and Windows for years. I bought the retail version of Corel Linux back in the day, owned a copy of Transgaming's port of Kohan.

While I was working something always forced me to keep windows around. I retired about 5 years ago and now every machine I own is running some version of Linux, I could not be happier, Linux in general has come a looooong way in the last 25 years.

Bob

[Marie SWE]

I switched to Linux for all the wrong reasons..
win10 is rolling release.. and I hate them as most customization's get ruined with a up-roll. and enterprise LTSC is to expensive.
So my goal became learn Linux before W7 EOL 2020.... and I did summer of 2019 it became my daily driver.

Am I a part of the Linux open source community..... No. I like closed code too as many really good programs are closed and I do miss them as they don't work on Linux.
Privacy.. Yes I do care very much..... but I can make windows quiet too, so no problem there..... it is possible on W10+11 too.. it needs to be a bit wing clipped so you need some third party program to search and some other things that stop working when you rip out the privacy problem. This is why rolling release on 10+11 isn't a good idea as you need to redo everything again after an up-roll.
I miss all GUI software.. I hate the terminal its sooo 80's and MS-dos.
Linux is more complicated then it really needs to be, just because of the lack of user-friendliness thinking. (GUI-tools)

So what do I like with Linux.
Less malware..
Runs better on old hardware.
I can not think of anything else right now.. but if I come to think of something more I like, then I do an edit about it.

will I switch back to Windows if Win12 pro becomes LTSC...... Yes about 6months after the release so the worst bugs is gone.

[Portreve]

I grew up in the 80s, before there was yet any sort of "universal standard". I've used many of the platforms which existed then, including 8088s and 80286s running MS-DOS. For me, all of these represented different manifestations of how you could implement a thing, like file navigation or rendering fonts or a hundred other things. While my preference has always been Classic Mac OS and Mac OS X over other platforms, I've always had plenty of respect for the capabilities of specialty systems (z.B. using an Amiga to do real-time video production work) and, beyond that, none of those other systems came about without a fair amount of brain power being put towards each of them, especially anciently-old systems like Univac, or Eniac, the IBM/360, the Apollo Guidance Computer, etc.

Now, I say all of that to try and drive home the point — like a person firing a framing nail out of a rifle and shooting it clean through the board — I'm not coming at this from the probably far more usual background of "Oh, I've been a Windows user but Windows did X or Microsoft did Y and I heard about Linux and blah blah blah..." The sun doesn't rise and set on Microsoft, and it never has. Maybe a lot of people have the false perspective that it does, but then a lot of people believe a lot of non-factual, crazy, or otherwise hair-brained things.

Frankly, I got tired of a lot of what I was seeing across the commercial proprietary software space — Apple included — and wanted to do something different. I also wanted to ensure my data would never again be locked in some proprietary or even just somewhat objectionable format. I also strongly agree with a lot of Richard Stallman's principles, to say nothing of the more practical "You have no way of knowing what's going on beneath the surface if you can't access to the code to peer review it, or to have it peer reviewed" and "A community of thousands and tens of thousands can put more brain power into writing code and developing other systems, and thereby make better code."

[MurphCID]

Add 7 according to my kids: I am old.

Not old just aged Like a fine bottle of Wiskey or err wine.

I'll take the whiskey if is ok with you....

[BenTrabetere]

I grew up in the 80s, before there was yet any sort of "universal standard".

They may not have been "universal" standards, but I somewhat fondly recall the WordStar diamond and how the WordPerfect shortcuts seemed foreign. I sometimes miss the defacto stndardLotus 1-2-3 @ functions. Also, there were the beloved "Packed file is corrupt" (thank you dBase) and "xxx needs 512k or more of memory" errors. (My fist still hurts from me pounding on the desk while trying to get Qram to squeeze out just 5k of conventional memory.)

On reflection, methinks those are not the sort of standards you seek....

[cptnoblivious]

I did not choose Linux.

Linux chose me.

[Portreve]

I grew up in the 80s, before there was yet any sort of "universal standard".

They may not have been "universal" standards, but I somewhat fondly recall the WordStar diamond and how the WordPerfect shortcuts seemed foreign. I sometimes miss the defacto stndardLotus 1-2-3 @ functions. Also, there were the beloved "Packed file is corrupt" (thank you dBase) and "xxx needs 512k or more of memory" errors. (My fist still hurts from me pounding on the desk while trying to get Qram to squeeze out just 5k of conventional memory.)

On reflection, methinks those are not the sort of standards you seek....

We Mac users never had to deal with any of that stuff. IIRC (though this was never ever exposed to the user at the time) Macs of old, and Classic Mac OS, had 32 interrupts, which was well beyond what you could possibly connect to a Mac, including the six NuBus slot-wielding Mac II, IIx, and IIfx. Also, Texas Instruments' NuBus architecture handled device management seamlessly. The original concept of "plug and play" was to be found on Macs, probably even the Apple II series, the Amiga, etc.

Lotus (which IIRC was eventually acquired by IBM) made a version (and marketed the heck out of it) of 1-2-3 for the Mac, but it doesn't seem to me like it really caught on. I dunno... maybe it did but I surely don't remember seeing or hearing of people using it.

WordStar was not released for Mac OS, but WordPerfect was. However, a lot of people really liked Apple's own MacWrite, and from my memory it seems like most people who needed something better than MacWrite tended to go with Microsoft Word. I did, however, have copies of a couple versions of WordPerfect. Because, well, of *course* I did.

Most of the standards (as I recollect) were reflected in hardware. Or, to be more clear, specific platforms tended to have a specialty. Apple II had a lot of database, word processing, and educational software specialties. The Amiga (as mentioned previously) had a lot of video editing and video overlay specialty. The Mac also had a fair number of education titles, but was mostly centered around creative professionals. Commodore 64 (and technically the 128 as well) were largely known for their games, but also as machines people could dabble with to learn and do some programming. The 8088- and 80286 (etc.)-based so-called "PC clones" were mostly known just for business-related productivity software or, at the other end of the spectrum, boxes for people who were really into tinkering. For doing full-on video editing and TV/movie production work, you had high-end workstations which could do some things, and of course physical film editing booths for that sort of thing.

[MichaelB1953]

Not interested in MAC.

Personally, Windoz 10 was too flashy for me, twirling icons and such.
We kept & updated Windoz 10 for income tax programs only, used Linux for all else.
Then Windoz 11 OS obsoleted my older computers.

Wife and I chose Linux Mint Mate as we refuse to be forced into purchasing new computers for Win 11 use.

MB

[Jymm]

You mean why yesterday I deleted Windows and everything related to it, after 7 years of dual booting?

I only dual booted for a very short time myself. After starting on Linux I found the only reason I went on Windows was to update Windows itself and all the spyware, malware and virus programs Windows needs to keep it secure. That was just a waste of time for me and Windows disappeared from my computers forever at that point.

[151tom]

why have you chosen linux?

Good question.
Don't really know.
Got Apple.
Got Windows.
Might as well have Linux.

[ajgreeny]

Way back in 2005 I was using Windows XP and just out of interest having read about it somewhere in a computer magazine I installed and ran Ubuntu 5.04, then 5.10.
That was more or less the end of my use of Windows, though I did keep it for several years and booted it only to update it just in case something didn't work on my Linux.
After about 5 years of dual booting it became clear to me that I had no further need of Windows so I reformatted the XP partition and extended the Linux partition using gparted.
All was more or less problem free from then and with only a few exceptions has remained so right up to now with my dual boot of several Linux Distro versions including Mint, Xubuntu, Arcolinux, and going further back also Open-Suse, Mandriva and many others.
None are easier to use as far as I'm concerned than Xubuntu and Mint-Xfce so that is where I am now staying.

Summing up, I chose Linux because I found it, and still find it, so much easier to use than any other operating-system, and, of course, I also have full control of it.

[antikythera]

I will be removing W10 from my MSI system in my signature tomorrow (later today...) and giving it over completely to Linux. I'm finding that I am hardly booting W10 apart from to update it now, so it doesn't need to be there. All the hardware can be firmware patched via linux, EFI or bootable media anyway. It works perfectly with LMDE5 so there's really no reason to bother with Windows at all now on that hardware either. I'll put LMDE5 on the nvme and use the SSD for scratch and VM storage.

[WriteF]

Because I got sick of Microcrap's BS and their attempts to dictate what and how will happen on MY computer.

This. When Windows 10 was released there was nothing but bad news on how it did whatever it wanted. Which implies that it is not your computer, but Microsofts, since they have the first and last say on what the thing does and not the user.

Also there has been an absolute absence of measures or respone on the betrayal by our allies from the Snowden revelations. That they actually dare do all this after that, and nothing happens was just too much.

Linux got to the point where it was fully useable around the same time.

[Sinnis250]

Linux Mint is just incredible.

When Windows 10 borked my machine years ago, 17.1 was the oxygen it needed to survive.

With determination, it has worked and worked and kept on working even better, at every step of the way.

This OS is just the dogs bo****ks!

Thanks to everyone that develops and contributes. Also, everyone that asks "stupid questions".

Every day I learn something new here.

"May the force be with you", some guy in a film said, a long time ago.

Best wishes to all.

Sinnis