Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

Without knowing anything internally about how microsoft builds:

Product driven development and too many managers with MBAs led to this problem.

I always like to chime in on these things that I've been a delighted Arch user for about a year now, for similar reasons. Took a lot of setup, but it's dialed now and just works. My computer belongs to me again for the first time in years.

I should really do more to evangelize. It's not ok to use an OS monopoly to degrade and squeeze your users' often primary career and creative tool to your own short term ends, making their lives worse and worse. And it's such a delight to get out from under.

Not sure the situation for normies currently, but for power users, definitely dual boot and give it a try.

I switched after running basic dev tools became genuinely unusable (randomly freezing for minutes, start menu just didn't work, crashes all the time) despite being on good, new hardware.

I never wanted to switch before because I just wanted an OS that worked, didn't require babysitting, and was compatible with apps. But clearly, Windows has dropped the ball on this.

Sort of funny that Nadella quotes Steve Jobs from 35 years ago with the "bicycles for the mind" quip. Given enough time, MSFT's marketing will eventually catch up with NeXT's marketing.

https://www.themarginalian.org/2011/12/21/steve-jobs-bicycle...

Just do it.

I bounced back and forth for a few years. Now? Not even dual boot, not even a VM. Maybe Linux did not get better than Windows, opinions differ. However, Windows certainly has gotten worse than Linux.

I think I'm pretty much there and just haven't made the switch yet. I'm going to give Mint a shot on my old PC soon and if its a good experience I'll switch on my desktop as well. Every time I have a bad experience in Windows lately I wonder why I'm sticking with it. Everything has been solved, its only momentum keeping me going.

The only thing keeping my secondary / gaming / file-server computer on Windows is Backblaze. The main obstacle to me switching from macOS to Linux is Office 365 (doesn't work on Wine).

> my first computer was a Windows 98 machine, with an Athlon XP 1900+ (Palomino core)

Off topic, anyone else think Windows 98 is too old for this machine? At a similar era I built an athlon t-bird 1.0GHz, I was mostly using Linux by then but if I did Windows then it would have been Win2k, maybe by the time of Athlon "XP", Windows XP would have been a thing too.

Gentoo forced me to switch to Apple.

jk, I wanted to install Ableton and now it's been 15 years.

It is quiet sad to see Windows deteriorate that much over the years because of the decreased investment and lack of care and craftsmanship for the quality of the software being pushed out.

Thankfully unless you're running a few specific applications that only run on Windows, you can use any other operating system. It will do the job, with much less frustrations.

I have been using Linux as a desktop operating system for what I believe is almost two decades. Recently(?) I see distro named like CashyOS and Bazzite being thrown around. Am I missing out on something?

I want to switch to Linux for my EOL Windows 10 originally-built-for-gaming rig. It was “new” in 2016, so I hold out hope that there will be few compatibility issues. My biggest concerns are being able to play my library of steam games on it. Overall the problems I have are that last time I tried to put Linux on that machine I tried a dual boot system, and at the time UEFI did not play well with dual booting. I don’t know if it’s gotten better, but as of now I wouldn’t be dual booting anyway so conceivably it wouldn’t be an issue.

My main reason for getting into Linux, forget the version or distribution maybe Slackware or RH at the time (later loved Debian the most) was that windows in that era was horribly unstable, BSOD etc

I’ve asked before but the answer keeps changing before I get around to implementing it:

My kid wants to upgrade their PC from Windows 11 to Linux. They have a recent-ish Nvidia card. I’m very technical: I don’t mind doing whatever arcane thing needs done. They are not, yet.

I haven’t run Linux on my desktop in a decade and I’m completely out of date here. What should I steer my kid toward to run recent games?

I did the same on my laptop and PC. Unfortunately, my sound system receiver doesn't support Linux but I'll survive. And the speed of my machines more than makes up for it.

Any suggestions for photo-editing, sharing, album management process for linux?

Its really the only thing on macOS + iOS that I use. Otherwise I am so over the mac lifestyle.

Ah 3d is fine with Maya and all the real VFX running on Linux. And we haven't had problems with game dev for years on Linux. Agree otherwise good to see another join.

> You might be thinking "just disable updates, man" or "just install LTSC", or "just run some random debloat script off of GitHub". Why? Why would I jump through all these hoops? I'd rather put in the effort for an OS that knows what consent is and respects me as a user.

The absolute choice quote here. Tattoo it on your forehead.

I just want to mention that most apps that would be laggy on Wine just work via https://flathub.org/en/apps/ru.linux_gaming.PortProton. Install PortProton double click .exe install app and off you go.

- xTool Studio - for laser engraver - ProppFrexx ONAIR - professional radio station

>No more waiting for the Start menu to decide it wants to open. No more File Explorer hanging when you need it the most.

I ran XP in a VM on Windows 10.

The start menu opens instantly. After one video frame.

Windows explorer opens instantly. One video frame.

If they had literally done nothing for 20 years, it would be like 50x faster now.

If you were primarily targeting a Windows market for a desktop application, but want to develop under Linux, what tech stack would you choose?

If only league of legends was playable in Linux. And a few other games.

Regarding high-quality commercial Linux software: SideFX Houdini offers a relatively affordable Indie license and is fantastic for most kinds of 3D work, compositing, and post-processing tasks. It’s also fully procedural and scriptable, which really makes my brain buzz.

I think shortly we may see "Apple forced me to switch to Linux" because of Tahoe and subsequent releases.

Arch is great. However, I would never recommend Arch (or an Arch derivative) to a first-comer to Linux.

Ease in gently, with Ubuntu or Fedora. Get familiar. Then go crazy.

Forced? It's been a delight. I'd say if anything, I've only ever felt forced to use MacOS or Windows, never forced to use Linux.

Why is opening the taskbar right click menu slower on Win11 than on Win95?

Why is there a gap between the menu and the taskbar?

I used to have muscle memory to quickly close windows rightclick taskbar -> leftclick “close” but this stopped working. Why??

This post is so 2001

Ironically for me Linux has become the obvious default for casual use - web browsing, entertainment, paying my bills etc. I only boot Windows when I need to do some weird nerdy stuff, like checking updating SSD firmware with some proprietary software available only for Windows.

My work-issued dev device is a Surface Pro 10. I can't use WSL2 for various regulatory reasons. I will never, ever work on software like this again. Worst development experience of my life because of what a miserable dev env windows is.

I know that's been a meme since forever, but my first hand experience supports it to the extreme.

"Video playback works flawlessly, with hardware acceleration even" not really, especially on Netflix

Since most application run in the browser nowadays, the OS becomes less meaningful and more of a layer between browser and hardware.

If you see your PC as a tool, not a gimmick to consume, Linux is the only choice. Even MacOS crappifies over time and becomes a Windows copy over time.

For 3D modeling (assuming you want to do CAD), Onshape is a fantastic alternative to native applications.

I've had a similar path, and I always recommend KDE with its taskbar on Ubuntu, it made the transition smoother for me in terms of preserving workflows.

FWIW for similar reasons I nuked my Windows install and installed CauchyOS. My main reason for not doing it earlier was concerns about game compatibility but so far the games I want to play either are working without any issue or work after enabling Steam's proton compatibility layer.

I just switched to Linux as well on my Windows laptop. 10 was getting so hard to run and I had no clear/stable path to 11. Ubuntu runs great for me!

I just have to figure out how to play a few of my games on Steam and I can move over. Unfortunately, a few titles are still PC only so I can't make the switch. I very much would love to, but I basically need a $600 PC at all times to play a few select titles that will never come to Linux due to anti-cheat.

If only the streaming giants would let us stream in decent quality..

Microsoft forced me to switch to Apple AND Linux.

> 've used Windows for as long as I've been alive. At 6 years old, my first computer was a Windows 98 machine,

this sounds like child abuse.

I switched to Arch last Summer and I'm quite happy.

Even Steam games work, I was quite impressed.

> Windows is now also too much work.

Most people overlook that. I only ever see comments complaining about time spent to set up Linux. It's not the only variable, and for Windows it's the constant maintenance that's the issue. You are never just done setting up Windows.

I switched during windows 10 and I had several friends switch after win7 wasn't supported. In hindsight I should have spent the few weeks to learn linux and switched back then too

I've been using Linux on my devices for quite some time now. I was pleasantly surprised when I had to start 4k video editing work and could just use Davinci Resolve. 2026 might not be the year of the Linux desktop, but it's getting better day by day.

I haven't even touched a Windows PC in years at this point. Don't know why you'd do that to yourself. I was hanging on to a gaming PC, but it broke during a move over 2 years ago now. I decided that was the last windows box I'd own at that point.

That Ableton Flicker: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ev3vENli7wQ

I know we keep hearing about how their share holders are forcing this change of focus in order to monetize ai. I just fail to see how alienating developers and the gaming community in the process will ever help achieve that.

I'd be happy to switch to Linux, but my Macbook with M processor is a real work horse. First of all, everything works (bluetooth, headphones, camera, etc). Second of all, ARM based processor is a beast. Until someone release an ARM based laptop, I don't see myself switching to Linux.

If you thought we were getting bad bugs before, just wait until the 90% agent-coded PRs start landing. We're gonna have multiple crowdstrike-level blowups.

It's worth noting that if someone has the skill to install and run Linux with games, they probably have the skill to use massgravel/Microsoft-Activation-Scripts and ask AI to help bypass to install a local Windows account. And that probable takes less time.