Me, coder, student, cant afford mid range PCs, interested in learning computers, gamer, not professional. What about you guys?
When the internet was new, hip and cool in 1997 it was the best way for a poor student to really get knees deep into networking and hosting. I just haven’t seen much reason to try anything else.
I did use OS X for work when doing iOS development a few years.
And in a perfect world I’d rather run a UNIX certified operating system. Linux support is just so good at the moment that I can’t really be bothered.
I was dabbling for ~10+ years with Linux out of curiosity, but I was heavily invested in windows since 95. I used and liked vista, survived windows 8, but the moment everything started moving towards big brother I had enough. I was in the early access program and the insider program and I hated the idea of recall. The moment it came out in an early access program it was hacked less than 2 hour in the program, and all data could be extracted from the pictures as banking etc. Thus negating the need of complex viruses, you simply have the data in front of you. Then copilot… The fact that is deeply integrated in to everything like file explorer will break if you try yo remove it etc. I just realized this is not my computer anymore, I can’t do anything with it that I want and I am paying premium to own this system.
Moved to Ubuntu, loved it but had some things I did not like, things like forcefull integration of not matured system changes on already proven systems (the rust saga), and other things. Moved to arch and I have been personally using Linux for close to 3 years and never looked back.
All the things I nerd work, those that I want and don’t work natively I can try and run somehow and often it works often I have to find an alternative. The things that do not work anymore I don’t nerd them. Like ms office, adobe (some already work natively or cloud based), and kernel level anti cheat games… I can save my time in to other games. 99% of the games I want run flawlessly or EVEN better than windows, I wonder why hahah.
Planing to move to fedore for a change at the end of the year :)
Lots of reasons today, but I started out of necessity: a poor kid that couldn’t buy new hardware, much less a windows license. Discovered the magic when I picked up a little pre-Chromebook XP mini laptop that the person gave me for $20 because it just couldn’t run usably with windows’ overhead. Put one of the light Ubuntu distros on it, and damned if that little thing didn’t get me through college.
Honestly stoked a real passion for how Linux can be a really effective way to repurpose what would otherwise be e-waste and get it to people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to really get into technology all with an opportunity to learn how the machine works.
I’m likely relocating soon, but I’ve really considered afterwards setting up a local non profit dedicated to flipping old machines like that to get them into poor kids’ hands, maybe even with pipelines into basic Linux/terminal learning, security basics, programming, etc for those that show an interest.
My values
Cus fuck microsoft/windows, thats why.
I subscribe to the philosophy that information should be free, and that computing should be a collaborative effort, driven by community. The world is better when we all work together to improve it.
These days, I’m less gung-ho about the technical merits of free software; I just prefer using systems that feel like they’re trying to work for me rather than exploit me.
Values, works better (for me) than any other os, gaming/fun, audio/video editing, code.
It gets out of the way and let’s me do my thing. Wether it’s work or gaming.
Both Aurora on my laptop and Bazzite on my desktops, have been easier to use and maintain than Windows and OSX.
No ads, no nagging, no maintenance. The included gui and cli app stores give me everything I need. I freaking love it, it’s pure bliss. Best computing experience I ever had.
~3 years running Ublue distros. 100% happyness.
The main reason is to use an open-source system. The secondary reason is to achieve greater digital sovereignty and reduce dependence on US technology companies.
A complete and total lack of bullshit.
If something is wrong, there’s a concrete reason, no matter how deep the cause and you can always dig far down enough to catch and deal with it.
this had been an unexpected benefit to me when I first jumped ship from Windows. Linux may be daunting to troubleshoot as a newbie, but as you learn to navigate the system’s ins and outs, it really becomes apparent how user friendlier the deeper than surface level troubleshooting is compared to Windows. you still have to build that knowledge though, no way around it.
Originally because fuck windows 10
Since then it’s the sheer joy of it all. It’s just fucking cool that a bunch of people just get together and make something that benefits everyone, with dozens of forks that allow for freedom of choice.
- I have the radical idea that when I own something, I should actually own it.
- I’m a software engineer, both professionally and hobby. Developing on a non Unix platform is bullshit
- HaikuOS is 20 years too late
- What is the alternative? Windows is user hostile ad infested crap, MacOS is a prettier flavor of user hostile ad infested crap. The BSDs have their place, but a daily desktop or laptop isn’t really it.
- Copyleft FOSS or GTFO
- I don’t do a massive amount of customization, but the things I do I want to have. I know that will be the case with Linux. Who the fuck knows with closed source software
- When I find a bug, missing feature, or something just isn’t right I can fix it, file a bug, or just talk to the actual human beings who wrote it. Good luck with any of that in non-FOSS unless you are spending $$$ on a corporate account.
It’s open source and not owned by an evil corporation. It doesn’t have ads. It doesn’t mine my data and sell it to the highest bidder. It doesn’t have AI shoved in every nook and cranny. It’s much lighter to run. I can easily run it on a 10 year old laptop.
I think I can handle the ads part, but the ‘lighter’ part, thats a good one.
Serious question: Why can you handle the ads? I’m serious. Why do you accept that something you have purchased, something you own, should be pushing ads at you? Broadcast services makes some sense, they have to make money somewhere. But something you bought? Why?
Ads are bloat aswell.
Ah, well, it is less shit than alternatives
Windows: too much ads, AI, telemetry, and just nonsense bullshit in general. MS is a malicious company and this is malicious software.
MacOS: too much Apple bloatware. It mostly stays out of the way but the fact that I can’t uninstall it makes me very angry. Also the vast majority of software requires a connected Apple account. The bigger problem is the overpriced and intentionally irreparable, unupgradable and disposable hardware which is inseperable from the software.
Linux: mostly just stays out of my way, requires no account for anything. You know, the way operating systems used to work.
I’ve been using it since 2013-2014. It was for the love of computing first and foremost, then it extended into concerns over Windows 10 telemetry, then it became more and more viable, and here we are.
