Why don’t you chill out about your Linux setup a bit, and instead of doing stuff to your Linux system, do stuff with it.
Open Source software lives from the contributions of the users, and there’s plenty to do everywhere.
You could use your free time to actually make a difference and help out other Linux users!
My computer was trash. I migrated out of necessity. It took 40 minutes to boot into Windows XP. Old-timey Lubuntu kept that computer alive for another 5 years.
When I got a real computer, I found that using Windows was unpleasant – So when Proton started to mature, I switched back to Linux (cuz hey, vidya gaems).
… Then I became an adult and the political radicalisation began.
I’m not “obssessed” so much as I am politically motivated, so I guess I’m an evangelist in a way. If there were ten other mature open source operating systems I’d shill all of them. As it is there’s Linux and BSD. So those are the ones I shill.
Generally I’ll pester anyone willing to listen to get as far from Big Tech’s walled gardens as their life necessities allow them.
I’m not a tech person, I think most Linux people are? Instead I’m just someone who studied basic sociology and history, and can see the kind of power that walled-garden tech can (and HAS, in recent times) give to very few people.
Windows 10. When your OS no longer respects your choices and you have to fight it every minute, there is something wrong. The creeping invasions on privacy have only cemented my use of Linux
Truthfully, I’m not sure if I would have ever switched over if Microsoft kept the Windows 7 paradigm. But I started my search for alternatives when Windows 8 - already too adventurous for me - came with the computer I bought.
Towards the end of my time using Windows 10 as my primary OS, the realization that the UI is not an inherent component of the OS sealed the deal. As a Windows 2000 fan, I fell in love with the way Chicago95 Debian replicated the look and stability that I had sorely missed.
I was trying to run a forum in the early 2000s and was pirating Windows Server with IIS to do it, and I discovered this entire other free, legit OS to do what I wanted to do with ease. Back in those days you could install a "LAMP" stack during install which gave you Apache, MySQL, and PHP automatically configured, whereas in IIS I was having to install a seperate PHP interpreter and figure out how to send php scripts to it and back, the whole thing seemed janky.
After that Linux became my go-to for any IT related project, and even more so when I started my electronics hobby due to how you can just make it do any damn thing you want.
In 2020 it became my desktop permanently after Microsoft decided they didn't want their OS running on my perfectly fine computer anymore.
I’ve been using Linux for a long time on various other systems but what caused me to finally ditch Windows completely on my daily driver was:
A nonconsensual Windows Update which caused my bitlocker encryption to become corrupted and I lost everything on that disk.
This unscheduled reformat combined with all the other shady practices on Windows lately cemented my choice.
It’s been several months now and I couldn’t be happier!
The quality of gaming on Linux has advanced an incredible amount in the last year or so since I’ve tried it. Most of my games will either run natively or require a few extra clicks to use proton in steam. A few outliers that aren’t on steam required Lutris.
On average I find the performance in games is better on Linux, even for non-native games using proton/wine.
Definitely would recommend giving it a shot if you are on the fence. Particularly if you’ve tried gaming in the past and were disappointed.
If you wanted to host your own site and services, a Linux vps was (and still is) the only choice. Back then it was Debian, nowadays I use Arch on everything. Same with Raspberry Pis when the first one became available in 2012. With university I started using Arch on my laptop and later when Proton and Wayland became good, I moved to it on the Desktop as well.
Curiosity. I was in primary school in mid 2000’s looking forward to learn more about computers. I only had access to the internet in school but whenever I could freely use it, I mostly spent time reading about history of software and hardware. By the time I received my first PC, which was slightly outdated (late 90’s), but overall fun. The only thing I knew was different versions of Windows and question on alternatives appeared naturally - I was wondering if that’s the only OS that can be used with the hardware. Around 2005 I was conscious of Linux existence, not really sure what it is and how is it possible that it’s free. I didn’t try anything until year later when I ordered free Ubuntu 6.06 CD, but it didn’t play nicely on 128MB of RAM. I managed to make it work anyway by creating a swap partition, however without internet connection there wasn’t that much of use. It wasn’t until 2007 when I finally got in house ADSL and upgraded the PC. Soon after I tried newer version of Ubuntu, struggled to make internet work on it (over tiny little ADSL USB modem that wasn’t well supported yet) but eventually succeeded. Fast forward 16 years later I still daily drive Linux and now work as a Linux admin.
If it helps, the Windows/Linux logic is basically:
Ctrl key for triggering actions within an application.
Alt key for navigating the UI of an application via the keyboard.
Meta/Super/Windows key for triggering actions outside of applications (on the OS level).
Well, and Ctrl, Alt, Shift also serve for alternative characters when you’re typing. And some application or OS shortcuts wildly combine modifiers for more complex keybindings. And of course, some applications just didn’t get the note of how this generally works. I won’t claim, it really follows rules, but yeah, it’s not generally complete chaos either.
I first heard about a Raspberry Pi on the 2 meter band, someone mentioned making contacts in Europe with one. Sounded intriguing. I wanted to work digital modes but didn’t really want to hook up my laptop to my radio for fear of wiring it wrong, so I bought a Raspberry Pi. Which runs Debian Linux. I learned how to cd and ls and sudo and apt-get.
Then that laptop I was being so precious with suffered a monitor backlight failure. And it was time for a new laptop. This was in 2014, Windows 8.1 was on the shelves at that point.
I was enjoying using the Pi at the time, and decided to try running Linux on my new laptop instead of Windows. And I’ve been using Linux Mint ever since.
windows 8 that came with my core i3 laptop. did not jump into the windows10 bandwagon for all the bad things i was hearing about it. gave up when some apps start doing crazy stuff because os is old. mucked around with mint, and distro hopping from usb. mind-blown. now i’ve acquired a fairly new laptop and dual booted with debian12. has never done a random restart on it for months (due to force-it-down-your-throat-win-update). i still use a win laptop for work and some games, but that will never touch my personal computer. it’s fun reading all the comments here. thanks :)
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