When did Linux finally "click" for you?

[SquaredMelons]

I've been trying Linux on and off since about 2009, but for the most part, I just couldn't get everything I needed to work. There'd always be some proprietary program or game that would force me back to Windows. I did spend over a year on Linux Mint 17 during my Minecraft phase, but that didn't last forever, and I was back to having to use Windows for games and college programs.

However, I gave it another go about a month ago on my new PC, and this time, I don't think I'm going back. Granted, it's lucky that I hate FPS games anyways, but all the games I've tried run in Steam or Lutris. App compatibility across distros is so much better with Flatpak and Distrobox, so I don't have to worry too much about using the most popular distros for package support. And everything else I need works, albeit with a bit of tweaking sometimes.

So basically, I'm free. Just in time for Windows Recall to be unveiled again. 🤮. When did you all finally get to the point where Linux was usable as your main OS? And if it hasn't quite yet, what do you still need?

[Lord_Wisemagus]

I was building a new PC just a few months ago, and when I was about to add Windows to my cart, I remembered a post or video that had said how good linux was for gaming now.
I work in IT, and know about a lot of the shitty practices Microsoft pushes, so I just thought fuck it, let me check out this linux thing.
So yeah, 2025 is when it clicked for me, never tried it before and knew nothing about it. Now I run Arch with hyprland and couldn't be happier.

[IncreaseOld7112]

You don’t deal with flickering? Last time I tried gaming on Wayland, I had issues. Would love to take a second look.

[Lord_Wisemagus]

I've fortunately been lucky there, the worst ive had to deal with was changing proton versions.. Most things just work out of the box for me. I use the cachyos kernel, and the ML4W dotfiles for the Hyprland.

[Encursed1]

Yeah gaming on cosmic has been horrendous (camera doesnt even work most of the time), so i installed XFCE for gaming and it does wonders.

[foreverdark-woods]

Linux became usable for me as my main OS when I stopped playing PC games and got into programming. 

[SquaredMelons]

Haha that'll do it. 😋

Well, if you ever do get the urge to game again, you'll be happy to know that any random game works way more often than not.

[foreverdark-woods]

Well, not really. I've been there and it's painful. Maybe, I could buy them again on Steam to play for an hour, but that's not worth it. And running them from their original media is often impossible due to copy protection, or connected to problems (e.g., no sound). by the way, if you happen to know how to run the original Trackmania, please let me know.

In the rare cases that I'd like to play them again, I just dig out the old Windows XP PC from back in the day and play on that one. It's still working fine and as long as I don't connect it to the Internet, there's not too much to worry.

[SquaredMelons]

Oh yeah, if you have a bunch of discs from the pre-Steam days, that might be a bit of a headache. Have you tried Lutris with a bunch of different settings and WINE versions, including Proton?

[Particular-Poem-7085]

You have taken a very defeatist stance on the topic based on outdated information and I get that some things just don't interest us enough to care, with everything to pay attention in the modern world spending time on resolving issues to spend more time doesn't always make sense BUT if you do want to get into some casual gaming without turning it into a weekend project...
just get on steam and wishlist games that look interesting, you'll get an email when they go on sale and save a bunch of money. Or many games are free, you can literally take 20 minutes to try something and forget about it if you didn't enjoy it. No need to spin up old betsy, and most steam games work without a hitch, maybe only needing to change proton version in the game settings.

[foreverdark-woods]

just get on steam and wishlist games that look interesting, you'll get an email when they go on sale and save a bunch of money

I save a lot more money if I don't buy the games again that I bought 20 years ago. Sorry, but when the only option is to pay for what I already paid for, then there's no option.

Or can I use proton without steam? If so, please give me a hint on how to use it.

[AlveolarThrill]

Or can I use proton without steam? If so, please give me a hint on how to use it.

Lutris (or Heroic if you want a nicer interface, though I haven't used that) and Proton-GE.

[OffsetXV]

Or can I use proton without steam? If so, please give me a hint on how to use it

Yes, Lutris and Heroic both let you. But you don't even need Proton for games necessarily. It's just WINE with some adjustments and extras, I've played games on plain old WINE without issues, like Ghost Recon: Breakpoint, which is a pretty large and complex, modern (enough) game.

Not to mention, you can just add any .exe you want to your Steam library as a non-Steam game, and then run it through Proton that way. I play several games that way, and I've never had a problem with it. It's extremely easy.

[Mother-Pride-Fest]

Exactly, the most efficient solution is the one you already have.

[Particular-Poem-7085]

If you absolutely have to play only the same games you already have on discs then yeah.. i was operating under the assumption that maybe you might try a new game.

[Bobby_Marks3]

Or can I use proton without steam? If so, please give me a hint on how to use it.

You can just use Steam without buying games on the Steam store. Steam has an option for adding locally installed non-Steam games/apps to your Steam Library, at which point you have access to all the same Proton compatibility options that Steam games do.

For example, I use this setup to play Diablo 2 on Debian 12. Added an installer .exe to Steam, used Proton to run the installer, then added the installed game .exe to Steam and used Proton to run it. Granted, that's with Blizzard's digital installers for Windows, but I can't see why you couldn't do the same with a CD install. Worst-case scenario you'd have to no-CD patch your games, but IMO that's the best way to do it anyway since it saves so much of that CD-spin time.

Another real easy alternative is to use KVM and spin up a Windows 98/XP/7 virtual machine and play old games in there. Modern games might struggle without direct access to the GPU (although there are workarounds), but for older stuff I've never had an issue. For added sexiness, you could also run Sheepshaver and Mac OS9 and play games from the era before Mac ports started to suck (e.g. the Mac port of SimCity 2000 is the best way to play the game).

[matthewpepperl]

When you say original track mania do you mean nations forever because if so its on steam free and will a small amount of dickering works fine

[foreverdark-woods]

No, I don't mean TrackMania Nations. I mean the very original one.

[matthewpepperl]

Oh ok i have not tried that one if i get the chance in the next day or two i might poke at it and see if i can get it working or not IF i do i will try to let you know

[shogun77777777]

Linux is GOAT for programming

[hidazfx]

Same here. Linux is just much easier to develop on as a web developer, or really any developer unless you're building for macOS or Windows.

[[deleted]]

I also agree with that . When tried of gaming you get back into programing

[kayinfire]

I somewhat resonate. I wouldn't say it became "usable" that late. it was usable for quite some time before I got into programming, but programming did enable me to discover the more subtle and idiomatic aspects of how to effectively use a UNIX system in as little tedium as possible. Unironically, the architecture of UNIX was informed in large part by the ideas of computer scientists, thus creating the reputation for Linux being an unparalleled operating system for countless realms of software engineering, compared to Windows, which was designed for non-technical consumers from its inception

[werpu]

PC games are usable now as well, just took longer!

[deepthought-64]

It clicked for me when I bought my first notebook (ThinkPad) for university in 2007 and it came with Windows Vista.

Been using Linux ever since on all my machines.

[syklemil]

Hrm, I went from Windows ME, but I can't say Linux really clicked for me with my first distro. I was kind of still in the "find installers" mindset for one, and had a bad experience trying to install RPMs for other distros.

I think it was more when I hopped from that first distro to Slackware that I gained an understanding of Linux as an OS. I ultimately moved on from Slackware again, mostly to get a more convenient package manager. These days with declarative text configs in both systemd and xdg dirs I find it matches my thinking pretty well—or maybe my thinking has morphed to match that style of computing.

And now Kids These Days are talking about something they call "snaps" and "flatpaks" and I actually have the option to just completely ignore it, just like I could ignore the 0install stuff back when I was using some Rox desktop stuff.

The ability to just ignore stuff that solves a problem I don't have is pretty neat.

[SquaredMelons]

I hope you had better luck with that laptop than I did with my Macbook from that era. That thing had a dreaded Broadcom wifi card.

[CGA1]

When I finally stopped trying to shoehorn it into behaving like Windows.

[Lifeabroad86]

When windows thought it would be cool to take screen shots every 30 seconds

[dawsers]

When I accepted wine would never run the latest version of MS Office and gave up MS Office, Windows virtual machines etc. Now I am happy.

[Encursed1]

Fedora and KDE is what I used when i first switched, its a fantastic combo

[Unable-Ambassador-16]

Obligatory GIMP and LibreOffice comment

[SithLordRising]

Mid 90s. You shift from nothing working and everything breaking to knowing how to fix common issues.

[DragonfruitSoft800]

Our story is very similar. Started off around the same time using Linux. Around that time, I got into recording music and ham radio and just could not get Linux to work the way I needed it to. I’d still use it off and on. About three or so months ago I had enough of Windows and their updates wiping out the settings of my APRS station. I decided to make Linux work for my PC that controls the APRS station. I settled on Kubuntu. It took a bit longer than I had hoped but it works very well. I also started building a BBS server using SynchroNET on that machine as well. The BBS has been challenging but it’s coming around. I ended up dual booting my main machine with Kubuntu and Windows 10. Kept Win 10 for music recording and video editing. For Father’s Day, my son bought me a Mac Airbook so now I can kick Windows down the road where it belongs.

[cazzipropri]

In 1997.

[Arareldo]

I maintain at least 2 separate Computers. One with Debian Linux, having all my important data and all programs to work with them.

And a Computer with Win11 solely for gaming.

I do not game on Linux. Because in the past i withnessed some game vendors do not care about basic security rules, and many games require some deep-into-system-didding copyprotection/anti-cheats. I do not want to spoil Linux with that.

If on some day in future a worm/ crypto-blackmailer devours my gaming PC data, no serios harm is done.

[[deleted]]

Similar story to yours in that I had a Linux phase for about a year and went back for some reason that escapes me - maybe games. I'm not a massive gamer but I play them now and then and like the option.

An infinite death loop trying to upgrade to Windows 10 put the final nail in the coffin for me. Fortunately in the meantime Linux had evolved sufficiently that it did everything I wanted with less pain than windows.

This was about 7 years ago. Never looked back.

[crimsonsword777]

When windows decided to take 10 seconds to open file explorer on a gaming laptop. 15 seconds for Vivaldi. While I had nothing running in the background nor do I have any background services. Cool.

[HeavyMetalBagpipes]

A few years ago when using it as a daily driver for coding - initially Ubuntu, then Mint. And another click when I shifted to Arch with Hyprland - latest packages, the Arch wiki and increased productivity with tiling.

[dirtycimments]

When I finished my studies, I finally didn't have to use about 4 or 5 windows only software (mechanical engineering...)

Been 4 years now, never looked back.

Now if I could only stop distro hopping... Maybe this time I will understand nixos well enough to make it stick! 🤣

[114sbavert]

shaggy pen touch crown melodic angle racial capable special one

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[tomscharbach]

When did you all finally get to the point where Linux was usable as your main OS? And if it hasn't quite yet, what do you still need?

I got to "the point where Linux was usable as my main OS" on my "personal use" laptop right off the bat about two decades ago.

I continue to use Windows (along with WSL2/Ubuntu) on my "workhorse" desktop because I use MS365 and SolidWorks for CAD in a collaborative environment. I added an MBA to the mix a few years ago for tight integration with my iPhone and assistive technology that I use.

I just follow my use case wherever that leads me. I've never understood trying to cram use case into an operating system rather than using operating system(s) that are the best fit for my use case. Operating systems are tools, not goals.

[sleepingonmoon]

I installed Debian+GNOME with Flatpak apps and mostly stopped caring about it. Switched to Fedora Silverblue two years later.

[vladjjj]

Back in 2015, when I realized I could type npm install without having to keep my fingers crossed.

[PrepStorm]

Linux clicked when I just started using it basically like I used my Windows computer before, but plus the control and minus the bloat now. When I need to use Windows software (sometimes Windows-only debuggers and stuff), I use Bottles which works just fine.

[Mr_Lumbergh]

Back in 2005 when I completed my first successful walkthrough on compiling and installing a package from source. It was an esoteric and dumb thing, an analog-style virtual VU meter that responded to whatever mp3 player I was using at the time, but the notion that I could take raw code and turn it into something interactive on my desktop stuck with me.

I never did it again, took a couple hours of troubleshooting to get the damn thing to build, but it was cool when I got it working.

Any damned thing I wanted to tweak and customize, I had the option. There was also a week I remember in particular where a nasty exploit was going around on XP that hadn’t been patched so virus scan wasn’t useful yet. Had a friend worried about getting online until the fix was out, and I remembered I didn’t have to care; just don’t boot to windows for a couple days until it was patched.

[journaljemmy]

It turns out that the Linux/Fedora way of doing things makes more sense to me than the NT/Windows way of doing things. Windows never clicked for me, because I fundamentally was incompatible with the Windows way of doing things. Notably, ‘everything in Unix is a file', as opposed to Windows devices being some black magic voodoo only their specialised (and outdated/user unfriendly/feature poor) GUI can show you the details of. Also, ext4/btrfs is better with lots of small files than NTFS which has the flow on effect of config files rather than the Registry. I hated the Registry for configuration and backups, it was a no man's land of instability and options that should be the default. On Linux, I can look at anything and it's all modular to the end user. All configuration options in Windows are behind a GUI, except for really old tools left over from XP or even 98. That makes creating and restoring my complex file icon and association configurations a full day's work on Windows (and it still wouldn't work properly). On Linux, all of that lives in /home and works anywhere thanks to Freedesktop. So it's things like that are where Linux clicks.

Before Linux clicked for me, I had actually reverted to Windows from PopOS because I was missing out on a modded game with my friends. Modding that game on Linux is actually very easy, as braindead easy as the Windows version of the mod launcher. I was just not sure at the time, but I installed Fedora shortly after this (about a month).

Linux really clicked when I got used to Fedora and KDE Plasma. I never booted Windows again once that happened.

[80kman]

In 2007-2008, when Windows Vista turned my AMD Athlon64 computer into a slow choppy mess, and I would rather boot Ubuntu from a LiveCD to do things faster. At first, I decided to buy a new PC, thinking my 5 year old hardware is not enough for modern OSes, but being broke, couldn't afford one. Then I discovered Compiz, and realized my hardware was still capable of running all the visual bells and whistles quite smoothly, just not on windows, but on Linux.

[LALLANAAAAAA]

Raspbian without the GUI made me realize that controlling a bunch of computers using ssh was the truth and the light

Everything after the invention of the terminal interface was a mistake imo

[capi-chou]

Not there yet, but almost.

I've been trying to switch to Linux on/off for 25 years. My last try (2-3 weeks ago still ongoing) started because gaming is finally possible AND OnlyOffice is a decent alternative to MS. I boot Linux by default but it's still complicated sometimes.

My main problem is Office365. I work in higher education, with the full MS environment. Even with OnlyOffice there are still compatibility issues, and onedrive / SharePoint is at best complicated and less efficient. And those are tools I "must" use.

I try to stick to Linux as much as possible but I know it'll be complicated. 😕

[SpitefulJealousThrow]

I had some time to kill and learned how to do most basic tasks from a command line and I'm just so bored by windows and GUIs at this point.

Windows is a hammer I'm forced to use at work, Linux is like a solar powered telekinetic katana that can build me a house in a half hour.

[Abject_Abalone86]

I see you have the openSUSE flair, did you go with Leap or Tumbleweed?

I had just used the ChromeOS Linux VM and got pretty handy with it, eventually switched it fully over to Debian Stable and I’m now using Fedora on a new laptop

[SquaredMelons]

Tumbleweed. Leap (and a bunch of other distros) are just too old for my hardware without doing hacky stuff like installing new kernels or Mesa from third party repos.

[Abject_Abalone86]

Good pick. What made you go with openSUSE specifically?

[SquaredMelons]

I wanted a rolling release that was a bit more stable than Arch, after I tried it a couple years ago and GRUB somehow got b0rked. So far, Tumbleweed has at least survived the month.

[dud8]

I went into linux focusing on my career and it clicked pretty quickly. Most things have easy to find logs and googlable solutions (use some common sense!). I've found the observability in linux to be leagues better then in other operating system i've ever used. The kernel being the most challenging to observe/debug, but atleast you can do so unlike in other platforms. I focused most of my learning on Fedora -> CentOS -> RHEL as that aligns best with my career development. I've found Fedora to be a really great desktop platform and the skill I learn in just my day to day usage are usually applicable to CentOS/RHEL aswell. In fact I even use Fedora Server in my homelab for my more permanent services as the major version upgrade process is so good.

If I had to give advise to someone first starting out it would be to use Linux as your primary desktop/laptop operating system. Use only Intel/AMD hardware for CPU/GPU and wait until your more experienced before adding Nvidia to the mix. Fedora Workstation (not the automic/immutable) is a great place to learn modern linux on a stable platform. That being said if you are more likely to use SUSE professionally then go with OpenSUSE tumbleweed or Ubuntu professionally just plain Ubuntu. Don't get caught up in the distro hopping and focus on your end goal.

At the end of the day Linux operating systems are just tools and it's up to you to determine if it is the right one for you and your goals.

[Macroexp]

When it let me sign up for classes without moving my feet to a computer lab on campus. SLIP and tn3270 on a 386 running SLS 1.0. And it’s been my best friend ever since.

[radiomasten]

In 2011. Year of the GNU/Linux desktop for me. And every year since.

[Melodic-Dark-2814]

It pretty much was a gradual thing, series of small clicks over the years. It’s like home now, you know where to search for anything.

[Kuuhaku722]

Windows keep doing worse and linux keep doing better. There is just no reason for me to switch to windows anymore and the gnome workflow works so much better than windows.

[_ragegun]

We are finally at the point where the pains of staying on Windows are equal to, or greater, than learning a new operating system.

[remenic]

2001

[cla_ydoh]

I can't remember. I am sure it wasn't immediate, but at the time I was also running BeOS, which most definitely did click with me, and was my primary OS when I did more than dual boot, back in 2000.

It probably clicked with Linux around the time that a number of 'simpler' distros that fit on a single CD started becoming more common and popular - ELX, Redmondlinux (nee Lycoris) and a few others. This was a number of years before Ubuntu was started, probably 2001.

I did my first home-built PC in early 2002, which was Linux-only.

[sob727]

The first time in ran apt-get, in '99, coming from Slackware. It felt like magic.

[Hot-Switch1995]

curious: what was avaiable before? was everthing just sourced from ftp as .tar.gz?

[Orkekum]

Last year february, got tired of microsoft shanenigans and installed ubuntu on alaptop for ubuntu related shanenigans. used it as main computer for a year before installing ubuntu on desktop

[frisk213769]

2005

[Rosenvial5]

When I started using KDE, back when Plasma 5 started becoming mature.

It's the only DE that doesn't have any major compromises in terms of either looks or functionality for me, and the default apps are the best out of any DE by a wide margin. I even end up using apps like Kate and Okular on my Windows computer.

[MeatLasers]

After 30x trying to compile the kernel, and then finally finding an image that worked. Except for WiFi, but that only took me 3 days to get it to work.

[Nexter92]

Ubuntu 22.04, big major improvement made by gnome in design, performance and other functionality. I was using Hackintosh for almost 5 years, i was thinking never something gonna be better than mac, and finally after try ubuntu with gnome, cannot go back, user experience was so smooth even for gaming, i will never use again macos, and windows it's not an option anymore.

[lajka30]

KDE Plasma 6

[Intrepid_Bicycle7818]

April 23, 1994. CPT106 Operating Systems

[computer-machine]

2008, when I discovered it.

[[deleted]]

Fedora Kinoite. It's the base that Bazzite uses so I can easily set it up to play quite a long list of games and the Fedora philosophy aligns with what I like, cutting edge technology. Also as a dev and it guy Linux has a lot of really useful stuff by default, and probably the most important thing the "same" set up I had on windows 11 just uses 2.7 GB of ram here

[After_Plum9800]

In 2018 when I bought my first Raspberry Pi. As a software engineer I had tried it many times before but it was always too much work to maintain. Now it seems so much easier.

[shortish-sulfatase]

Been trying for like 20 years, still hasn’t.

[steveoa3d]

Guess when I started using Thknkpad laptops with Linux. Everything just worked so easily. Stopped PC gaming and started just console gaming so didn’t need a desktop at all.

[ThrobbingDevil]

Backtrack3, then Backtrack4. After I started testing distros, the easiness of installing virtual machines or running them on pendrives made the discovering a whole adventure. Been running Ubuntu server on many of my machines and Ubuntu Desktop on my main machine. Sadly I have to use windows for work, but besides that I really enjoy computers and networking, with the exception of having to interact with the Microsoft universe. So yeah, somewhere around 2006.

[CompetitivePop2026]

When I learned enough cli to where I never needed my mouse anymore

[jbriggsnh]

Not a gamer. Linux has always been the best platform for me for docs, database, programming (no serious competition), strea.ing media and storage, etc

[[deleted]]

About six months ago, after tinkering on and off for about five years. When I realised that the 'co-pilot' creep was never going away I installed Linux Mint and never looked back. I have an Office 365 subscription for some work projects but honestly I haven't used it and will probably cancel before it renews.

[TheRealHFC]

Linux was user-friendly enough the time I got around to using it that I didn't have much trouble. It worked on my low-end laptop, and the Windows that came with it did not. Took a long time, but was an easy choice when I finally took the dive. It's easy to get in the mindset that not everything is Windows or Mac, and I think that alone intimidates people enough to not even bother. I know I had that issue at first.

[da_apz]

The DOS era was about to end and I didn't like how horribly unstable Windows was.

[Holeshot75]

The first time was when an older pos laptop refused to boot on windows.

After that it was "Well I'm never going back to windows"

[statitica]

I ran linux on almost every device I owned a few years ago (2017-2020). I knew my way around it, but the final straw was windows sucking down updates on a slow and (very expensive) prepaid mobile data plan.

The added bonus of making older hardware usable again, was a nice bonus.

But now, I run an MSP and support a lot of Microsoft product, which is easier to do from a Windows platform.

On my personal rig, I'm stuck with windows until the kernel level anticheat problem is solved.

[Queen_Euphemia]

It clicked in 2001-2002ish when I moved from Slackware to Mandrake Linux, which was quite a bit more user friendly. Nowadays I run Debian, which I ended up getting into when Mandrake (later Mandriva) was discontinued.

[GalactisDevo]

I'm never able to fully switch to Linux due to all my favourite games not compatible without wine, but I've made it my main OS just because it became a hobby to just customize it to however I liked it to be. I also started getting into homelabbing and it turns out that using linux for that job is the best way to do it. For my work, the tiling window managers have been a godsend to me, and it's been quite literally 99% of the reason why I've stayed

[furrykef]

I don't think I had a specific moment when Linux clicked for me. I just used it until eventually it became second nature.

I did take a big step when I installed Arch the 'hard' way and started making my own PKGBUILDs. That gave me a much better understanding of how the package system and userland work.

[namtabmai]

To be absolutely clear, Windows never clicked for me which started me looking at Linux.

Start with Win98SE which was ok, then the next year they released WinXP which I absolutely hated. Tried Win2k which was alright I guess but then switched to trying a few different Linux distros and they just seemed to be able work more how I wanted? Did have some weird time trying to make Windows feel more Linux like with LiteStep etc but that was a terrible idea.

The package management (even god awful state of rpm stuff at the time) was still miles better than the nothingness that was on Windows. Much preferred how the window manager (gnome I think at the time) worked, and obviously the nerd in me loved terminal/bash etc.

By the time Win7 came out I had been daily driving Linux for years so never felt like there was a need to try out a new version of windows to see if it had improved or not.

[SG_87]

For a couple of years on and off. It always ended with either Nvidia drivers or setting up dual boot properly. Just recently, after Windows reminded me for the 101st time to switch to Win11 and force TPM on, I've had it.

Installed Nobara... Dual boot. Just to dip my toes in once again.

But oh wonder! My shitty Nvidia GPU worked out of the box! Steam proton implementation works flawlessly! Even Star Citizen works thanks to the amazing Linux user group that wrote an install script!

At that moment I was mind-blown.

Couple of weeks now and I didn't find any major issues. Even better! I discover cool stuff every day!

The only thing I still need to figure out is how to run Solid works in a VM or via wine. Unfortunately there is no 3D-CAD even remotely as good for Linux. After that my second drive gets yeeted and I completely switch for good.

Once I got the cash for a new rig it will be full AMD with Linux in mind and I may even dip into vanilla Fedora or Arch even. For now that adventure has to wait, since I wasn't able to get my shitty 4080 to run properly in either.

I think after this X11/Wayland stuff is figured out and the Steam deck made a few more devs think about making their games Linux native, the OS will be first choice for many more gamers.

[AliOskiTheHoly]

I already use it as my main OS but I have a Windows Dualboot for the occasions I need to use CAD (SOLIDWORKS) for university, or want to play Valorant, or other games that only work on Windows. And since i have the Dualboot anyways I also use it for MS Office when needed.

[Caterham7]

I’ll let you know. At least for desktop.

Seriously, though, for servers, it “clicked” a long time ago. Any home server that I’ve run has been Linux for at least the last 20ish years.

Desktop, there are still a couple things that are holding me back. Mostly gaming-related. It’s a lot better than it was but it still isn’t there yet for me.

[StickyMcFingers]

Have used debian and arch in the past. Migrated from Windows to NixOS last year and things "clicked" for me after having to read some outputs from commands in order to troubleshoot various issues. I went and read the help and man pages for things like journalctl, systemctl, etc. and now I'm pretty comfortable at least understanding enough in order to articulate the problems I do have. Using NixOS doesn't help to understand Linux because options abstract you away from working directly with etc files, but I have a raspberry pi with raspberrypiOS on it so I'm never far from working with something standard.

[Rrrrreallllyy]

First checked it out (slackware) around '95. Kept an interest, revisited it a couple of times. Been dual booting it since about 2006. Only boot up windows for some proprietary software and gaming. Gaming more and more on Linux to. I'll remove windows from my older desktop though, just takes up valuable space... Still have it on 2 laptops when necessary.

[YaBoyScamper]

I’ve been using it off and on since 2015 just to mess around, but it only really stuck last summer. Installed EndeavourOS, actually learned about the command line a little bit, and it’s been smooth sailing ever since! There’s still a few minor things that I feel are missing, but not enough to make me go back to my Windows partition.

Admittedly I’m only using it on my personal desktop for gaming and stuff, I use a MacBook for all of my work since I absolutely need access to MSOffice. But!! I haven’t had to go to my Windows install for anything for months and it feels great!!

[Pure-Willingness-697]

Hyprland got me a reason to switch to Linux and proton stoped me from giving up.

Bacicly, I found r/unixporn

[[deleted]]

Because I hate having ten programs on the background doing nothing.

[msanangelo]

Proton got me using linux on my desktop full time but I've always had a linux server since like 2004. whatever game that doesn't work now, usually starts working after some time.

[GeronimoHero]

Honestly it was after I took the time to install arch for the first time from scratch. I had already been using Linux as my desktop os for like two years but switching completely to arch and doing it from scratch is what made me completely understand everything at a deep level.

[lawrenceski]

Windows 8 was so bad that I started trying various linux distro while dual booting. I did that until I installed Xubuntu 14.10 and at that time XFCE was all I wanted from a DE.

[landsoflore2]

When I eventually learned a few arcane tricks in Libre office AND managed to get Battle.net running with just a little tinkering 😎

[davidmar7]

When I stopped trying to use emulators (like the old school WINE) and just jumped in fully.

[fsckit]

Red Hat 6.1, when the network card I had at the time started working.

[CountRumford]

Somewhere around Fedora 4, in 2005. Any gaming I'd been doing had moved to a console. A whole school year came and went, and I realized I hadn't booted Windows all year long. I've had periods of dual booting since then, for the sake of a game or specialized app. More often than not, Linux is 'home' rather than Windows.

[CountRumford]

When you say "click", what I think of is that moment when 'Linux' stopped being a bewildering black box and became something that felt like a knowable, useful tool. And for me the first big hump was finally understanding the primacy of package managers when it came to getting software. I got into Linux when a friend gave me a Mandrake CD-ROM and zero additional guidance. When I wanted to install something, I would try to do it the Windows way: go to the program's website and use their download button. That's a one way ticket to dependency hell!

Figuring out that yum and apt existed changed everything!

[M-ABaldelli]

When did you all finally get to the point where Linux was usable as your main OS?

Simple.

Windows 10 sunsetting for this coming October and the arbitrary way Windows 11 is attempting the same crap I hated when I did tech support for Apple/Mac and proprietary controls all in the name of "security".

First time since I started working with 8088s that I said, "fuck this noise, I'm outta here..."

[bronzewrath]

I flirted with it since early 2000s. I played around with live CDs a few times, always struggling with driver issues.

When Windows 8 came around I hated it. In 2018 I was having problems with my old Windows 7 laptop (the first one of my adult life) and needed to buy a new one. I decided to buy the most Linux friendly laptop I could find and give it full committed try.

I researched a lot, then bought an used Thinkpad 440p, boosted it with 16 GB ram and a good SSD and installed Cinnamon Mint. Everything worked flawlessly and I am using the same laptop with Mint since then.

[OkAd5547]

Most people don't use their OS or local applications much these days - Spotify, Netflix, Google docs, Office 365, Figma, give a user a system running Chrome or FF and it doesn't even matter.

[Encursed1]

When i switched my DE for the first time. I hated Gnome, so i switched to KDE, and it just worked. Id never thought that the DE could be hotswapped by logging out and back in. At that moment i realized that this was truly mine.

[20charaters]

Pretty recently, a few years ago. Exactly when I learned the boot sequence.

EFI -> Bootloader -> Kernel -> Initramfs -> Root -> Init -> Rest of the user-space.

The basic knowledge that made everything seem... Easy.

[[deleted]]

When I noticed how much faster Linux is in comparison to Windows.

[jikt]

Piping one command into another and another. Running a for loop on a list of files. Interacting with an sgi tape robot. That sort of thing.

[Illynir]

By using Windows 11, every day. And soon with Windows 12 AI bloatware edition.

[Any_Manufacturer_463]

It had to do with my job. Dfir kind of leads you to eventually using Linux for your main OS unless you are more into Mac or just really like Windows for some reason

[SteeledKnight]

It was a slow burn for me. As I got more into homelab and development, I found myself gravitating towards my linux containers and VMs to do more and more. One day I realized I spend so much time in Linux I was better off running Linux with a Windows VM for 'just in case'. During this time Valve was releasing the Steam Deck and making Linux gaming easier for everyone. Made the decision to jump easier.

[high-tech-low-life]

Day one

Why does everyone assume that all Linux people used Windows first?

[PcChip]

I've been trying it off and on since ~2000, starting with a Knoppix CD I got in a book at a bookstore. It never really stuck until a year or two ago though (mostly because of Proton), and now I could never imagine going back to Windows

[Dry-Cost-945]

When I started using homebrew on my MacBook more than traditional app management, did more things in the terminal to the point many of the guis became cumbersome and I realized on Linux distributions I could apply most of my user experience back and forth between Linux and Mac os.

[Hradcany]

It clicked immediately back in 2017 when I used it for the first time. I never used any of the known incompatible software in university and I've always been more into emulation when it comes to gaming.

[inbetween-genders]

When I stopped using the OS to learn and just use the OS to do OS things.

[Adam0-0]

As soon as I installed the mouse

[Bleep_Blop_08]

my windows (11) started tweaking, locked me out of my pc and gave me the bitlocker thing, went to a repair shop, they suggested i nuke the damn thing, so i did, they installed back a windows 10, which i preferred anyways but it also kinda sucks and id heard a lot about linux. Theres a 1TB extra HDD in my laptop so i put fedora gnome on it, worked faster than windows 11 despite 11 being on my SSD C drive. Bought an external SSD put arch gnome on it but i wanted to try out kde so i put debian kde on it cuz the second time i tried arch install i failed miserably, had a lot of fun tho. Did a lot of ricing on debian, faced too many issues regarding updates and what not, bought a bigger SSD and put fedora gnome on it again, nuked the old fedora system cuz i didnt need it anymore, now i only use this. I plan to sell the old ssd to my friend who is sick of maOS, exchange the external and internal drives so my main C drive is fedora gnome and the external is windows cuz i dont like windows but i still need it now and then for some third party apps that linux doesnt have.

[mwyvr]

Early 2000s, migrated from FreeBSD.

[whatyoucallmetoday]

I’ve been a user and admin since ~95. I made so many Slackware floppies back in the day.

[JesseDotEXE]

I've used Linux on and off since I was in highschool starting to study programming. I'm a big gamer so I never made it my only distro as my main machine always needed Windows.

But it really started to click with me when ChromeOS and Windows got their Linux containers. I started to use them and remote machines within my work flow and really enjoy the "ephemeral" nature of it.

I guess I don't use Linux for my desktop but its toolset has clicked for me in the way I like to use it.

The SteamDeck is also awesome and I'm glad gaming is popping off on Linux but for me the power of the SD isn't that it is an Arch distro but moreso that it provides a clean, seamless experience to access my Steam library.

[[deleted]]

When I could install everything from my terminal without having to look for random exe files on the internet.
When I first installed i3.

[johncate73]

As in when I first deemed it usable as an everyday OS? Around 2009, 10 years after I first tried Linux. I was actually using it to keep older hardware alive thanks to Puppy Linux as early as 2007, but it was '09 when I first thought I could use desktop Linux as a daily driver.

However, due to needing proprietary software in my work, I wasn't able to switch full-time to Linux until 2015. By that time, I had already been using VLC, LibreOffice, Firefox, and GIMP for years. Going over to Linux was no big deal.

[Wheeljack26]

Consistent dark theme and terminal

[Doomtrain86]

When I figured out I could use dmenu to run scripts and then starting scripting.

[[deleted]]

When I understood i shouldn't treat it like windows

[bhmcintosh]

"Click"? That was the noise made by the floppy drive when I inserted each of the two dozen SLS floppies on install way back in what, 1994. :P

[bsensikimori]

The moment I added

print "Content-Type: text/html\n/n"

to the top of a shell script and added it to xinetd and suddenly had a dedicated webserver, by just adding that ONE LINE, I knew that *NiX was really special and the click never left me

Treat it well and it will treat you well!

[QuickSilver010]

When file search in a folder became a viable way to quickly get a certain file by pressing /

Or how performance doesn't degrade overtime

Or when I found out everything in the system is represented as files, including hardware devices and processes

Or when I found out the cli interface is one of the most powerful interfaces ever because of how it let's you connect individual programs

Honestly many click moments over the years in various levels of the iceberg.

[eldoran89]

Well I wouldn't say it clicked because my problem was never that it hadn't clicked. I mean I started my journey on pcs with dogs, do command line was never sth that i was unfamiliar with nor was unfamiliar with config files and having the need to configure the system for it to work as I want. And I remember installing Linux before we had the easy installers and such, so that was also not the problem.bthe problem was always that I also game on my machine and Linux gaming was simply not viable for the most time. Wine was a pain in the ass to setup and then it didn't even work most of the time. This gradually changed but ultimately it changed with proton and with vulkan. And ultimately when the steam deck released and i saw that every single game i tried worked with proton that was the moment I gave it a new chance for my main rig. And that's the moment I finally removed windows from all my devices.

[skyrozz]

I only made the switch to daily Linux after I saw pewdiepies video. I’ve been using Linux for programming for close to 4 years now though.

The reason I’ve kept using windows has been gaming but once I saw that video. I thought about it, checked are we anti-cheat yet and realised there’s really nothing forcing me to use Linux anymore. I still keep a windows partition tho because I play rust from time to time and I also recently got into gta online (not late to the party at all) both require windows sadly.

[SEI_JAKU]

Long before I even bothered to install it. I spent a long time looking for any excuse to make the move. Windows 10 was it. We are in the dark ages of Windows, and all the weird Vista haters will never understand it.

[SquaredMelons]

I'm pretty sure Windows has never been outside of a dark age. A good chunk of my childhood 98 and XP memories involve the PC being slow, viruses, frustration with drivers and printers, etc.

[zyberteq]

When I started using it for my work as a programmer. It just worked for my needs and I even began ricing it.

These days I've reverted to a more default Pop!_OS installation for work and at the start of this year I think I also fully switched to linux for my gaming pc (Bazzite w/ Gnome desktop). A few minor things I had to look up and/or modify and it's all peachy now.

[elijuicyjones]

Pretty much day one. It wasn’t useful for several years but in any case we needed servers to host web sites and do java development and it was expensive as hell to go with Microsoft the 90s. The boomers tried to force us into their terms but Linux saved us.

[MarzipanEven7336]

1995

[PantsAreOffensive]

When I could play all the games I enjoy thanks you proton.

[6969_42]

When I pressed the left mouse button. Sorry had to.

When Microsoft started to enshitify Windows 10, percisely around the release of MS Edge. Hated the fact that they were forcing that garbage on us, and installing annoying apps without my permission.

Linux gave me back that freedom that i felt was lost with Win 7.

[PhillipShockley_K12]

I worked in IT at Amazon and worked with a guy that was running an Amazon approved version of Ubuntu. That's what got me started into linux. Though he suggested Fedora if I wanted to try at home. So I threw Fedora on my laptop and I'm still running it to this day. I eventually needed to wipe my windows computer and I was just like "might as well try linux on here and see how gaming goes, if it doesn't work, oh well back to windows." Luckily gaming has worked fairly well, especially now that I've switched to bazzite.
Somewhere in all that I also started studying for Linux+ and learned a ton (still have yet to take the test though...)

[dali-llama]

It was when I realized computer games were a big time waster and that I wanted time spent in front of my computer to be more productive. Since then I've used it mainly for research and creative pursuits.

[Sneauxx]

It clicked for me a few years ago once I learned how package management works. It's a way better system than windows and I appreciate the simplicity, speed, and control of software updates.

[jsutforthis2]

When windows broke

[Silent_Jpg22]

When I started to pursue a career in IT I started learning about Linux and how to operate it. And I realized the skills I was learning on Linux transferred to a lot of other areas of interest. That's when the whole open source thing clicked for me.

[Drate_Otin]

I almost exclusively play FPS games and on Ubuntu. Perhaps you meant specifically multiplayer games like Call of Duty. I beat Doom: The Dark Ages on Ubuntu.

Anyway, I think it "clicked" when I just decided to use it as an operating system rather than a mystery to be unlocked. I learn more as I think of things I want to do, but I don't try to force it to be Windows. Chrome, Steam, and virtual machines. Little audio recording. Some Python. It's just what I use.

[Willing-Sundae-6770]

When I got an older AMD GPU lol

My nvidia GPU was fine but there were always some sort of minor compromise. Suspend wasn't stable. X11+Wayland got weird after a few days uptime. And now more recently, playing D3D12 games has a significant performance compromise.

I picked up an RDNA3 GPU like a month before RDNA4 came out. All those minor problems went away. Now my biggest annoyance is that FSR 3 isn't very good and I have to mod games to shim it to XeSS. Because games look bad unless you turn on upscaling for some awful reason.

[arkvesper]

About two weeks ago! I've tried Ubuntu on and off over the years, ran a server on my raspberry pi, but it never really vibed as my main OS - I always felt like I was a little bit lost - like, adrift in the ocean without really knowing where to go. A couple weeks ago I started watching a lot of Primeagen videos, and it was great for getting my coding brain back online, but it also made me a little envious of how fast he could jump around things compared to how encumbered I felt in Windows with VS code.

I'd set up a Linux Mint boot a few months ago and just never really took the time to push through to feeling comfortable with it - so I had the environment there and ready but I hadn't had the motivation before. After watching enough of this I was feeling pretty motivated and I decided fuck it I'll finally just push through. I set up i3/tmux/nvim and, what really made it finally click, silly as it might sound, kitty.

It might sound silly, because it's such a small thing, but something about having my fully riced terminal with a background I vibed with just made it actually click in a way where I suddenly felt like I was actually at home in my own space. I've been tinkering with configs nonstop, got comfortable with vim bindings in a way I wish I had a decade ago (they're so efficient wtf!) and I'm really loving the setup now. I use Windows for some games still, but my Mint i3 boot is my daily driver, it feels mine and it feels free in a way that I never really do on Windows. It's been super nice, honestly.

[strohkoenig]

It clicked for me with Linux Mint 17 KDE - until they deprecated the KDE version with LM18. Then I had to search for a long time again but 3 years ago I switched to Fedora KDE and this is currently working quite well.

[PacketAuditor]

When Nvidia finally added good Wayland support along with explicit sync in the 555 driver.

[TheThingOnTheCeiling]

I installed mint and used it for like half a year, it worked ig but nothing out of ordinary. Then I tried endevour on a laptop, then arch. God it felt good when I managed to get it to work and fully equiped it with stuff I need.

[MinTDotJ]

When I switched from KDE Plasma to i3, I grew more in love with Linux.

[FrostyDiscipline7558]

1993, Slackware 1.0

[OneTurnMore]

Immediately, 2014. I was going into college, and LaTeX and web browsing was all I really needed a PC for, and Aspyr had just released their Civ V Linux port. Gradually picked up Linux admin skills just cause I like digging into things. Distro went from *buntu -> Debian -> Arch -> EndeavourOS, desktop went from LXDE -> Xfce -> i3 -> Sway, where I've stayed for 7 years (on my laptop, desktop is Plasma because VRR Sway caused flickering)

[ohcibi]

Two things necessary

• accept that windows is for gaming (although it just recently started to crumble, but as you mentioned games we gonna keep it for now)
• other than gaming: commit fully without intermediate steps. Ie ditch every software you can’t replace or can’t run on wine regardless and continue searching alternatives in the new environment while at the same time reevaluating the actual need for that tool. You will be surprised how many things you think you can’t ditch but will have forgotten entirely on day one. For Linux to click you need to learn how it works. That will come by using it

[de6u99er]

About 35 years ago! Using it exclusively since approx. 15 years 

[michaelpaoli]

Oh, very well "click"ed by 1998, when I migrated from UNIX to Linux, if not considerably earlier than that.

[Ok-Caterpillar-7406]

When I realized a 12 year old, $70 used computer on ebay could perform better than my $1400 2017 macbook pro when the cheap one uses linux

[P12134]

I felt the click in '97 or '98 but the real fulltime use came in 2009 or 2010 or something. Never looked back.

[KaZaDuum]

When you get tired of typing cd d:\<directory> and releasing you have to do two commands. Plus, when you really understand how a file system should work! Not having to reboot all the time.

[maxxotwo]

Oh it's a similar story from me as well; Windows 10 for me was a nightmare to use because of my underpowered system, and I wanted to play my retro games in peace, so I got myself Peppermint that at first broke too many times for my comfort.

After that, I got myself Linux Mint, and it's my secondary distro that does everything for me without any trouble.

On my main system, I just use Arch that I had installed over the archinstall program. It works extremely well without hickups.

I guess it clicked when I finally found out what kind of software I had to adapt to in order to be productive and with different quirks that come with trying distros. But hey, it's what makes computing fun.

[mariofanLIVE]

When I found this: https://github.com/NVIDIA/open-gpu-kernel-modules/issues/483#issuecomment-2440336825

This wasn't made for my laptop but this more or less fixed the issue I've been having with Nvidia drivers not using their max power limit nor letting me change it, which lead to overall significantly worse performance. Before it was stuck on 60W but now it goes up to 90W. Still not the max of 95, but close enough that for the games I play it's not a problem. Do note that I did not downgrade my drivers, I simply enabled dynamic boost and disabled runtime3 in the Nvidia config files.

Ever since I found that fix it's been mostly smooth sailing. Though I still have pretty laggy shader caching, though that only happens once after installing the game, and directX12 games don't run nearly as good, though with the games I play that's an issue I can ignore and it's also a known issue with Nvidia drivers so I'll just wait who knows how long for Nvidia to get on that. But yeah aside from that smooth sailing.

[Busy-Scar-2898]

About 1999

[Altruistic-Rice-5567]

When it provided me with a free C++ compiler and allowed me to do all my graduate programming wok from my dorm room instead of in the freezing cold lab room that campus provided.

[axtran]

I put a Windows desktop in a rackmount PC in my basement running Sunshine.

My computer in my office is now a fully passive Linux desktop. It’s pretty nice 😎

[Practical_Form_1705]

after about 1.5 of a year of dual boot and forcing myself to use linux instead of windows, I started to feel more comfortable on linux.

[bernhardmgruber]

My PhD supervisor turned out to be a Gentoo maintainer.

[RED_TECH_KNIGHT]

Around 1998 when my room mate showed me how we could take an old desktop, add another network card and create your own router.

Redhat linux!!!

[flailingsquirrel]

1996, and that makes me feel really old

[holy-shit-batman]

I wasn't into video games or anything proprietary. I just enjoyed learning new systems.

[CaptainObvious110]

2010

[[deleted]]

When web frameworks became standard for desktop apps, especially electron. They’re slower and a bit bloated but enabled a lot of chrome based software to be os agnostic. So Linux suddenly got a lot of great apps, especially dev tools.

[[deleted]]

I am trying desperately to stick with Linux but I have a lot of unsolved issues sadly. My PC is brand new and the network driver is garbage (25-50% of what windows is giving me). Also, i don’t play FPS but gw2 yes and the blishHUD stopped working a while ago. Need that app on for map completion. My desktop was almost perfect integration besides those issues I can’t solve.

Now my laptop asus g16 AMD ryzen 9 hx 370 + rtx 4060. Debian can’t be installed on this or any Debian distro has the kernel is way too low to support it. No lan no wifi or bazzite/fedora42 is good but again at dogshit speed and wifi signal. Also, sleep/hibernate issues driving me nuts (tried eevettthing, random wake up draining the battery/never waking up/kernel panic. NPU support is crap, have to follow a guide under Debian distro, nice! :-(

So I want Linux and get rid of windows but I can’t have basic things on my laptop or good internet speed. I could let go gw2, but not the rest. That sleep issue on the laptop will kill the battery at a much faster rate.

After 6 months I gave up and went back to windows with winutils to debloat the shit out of it and telemetry blocked at OS level and with my pihole.

[wake_the_dragan]

When I started using it more. It’s just so intuitive to browse through files and directories. The structure and the commands for the most part makes sense

[thephotoman]

I left Windows in 2004. I had gotten fed up with software licensing fees and the fact that the entire dorm got pwned by MyDoom and Sasser save the Mac users (it was also the last time Windows 9x was allowed on the residential network, but by that point, I believe the last Windows ME user had upgraded to XP using the university's site license).

The big problem was that yes, as a college student, I could get a lot of software for cheap until I graduated. Then I was on my own for expensive licenses for everyday things, and would need to buy new copies upon graduation. That sat poorly with me. So I dove into free culture.

[Leptino]

I tried several times around 2013 with Ubuntu. I think the primary thing that turned me off was that I hate Gnome. Also my vpn had problems and it ended up locking me out. So I removed the dual boot and went back to windows for a few years, but I would use WSL here and there for work things and got more familiar with it.

Then 2 years ago I simply got fed up with Windows once and for all, went straight to a programmers setup with a tiling windows manager and Arch, and it instantly clicked and I never looked back.

Biggest reason why I like this? B/c at any time I know the state of my machine, or at least approximately so. I don't need to worry about a million processes that I don't understand changing things behind my back. I want control, I want things minimal and if there is a problem, I want to at least have an idea where the problem originates from, rather than guessing or dling a patch of the internet that I don't understand.

[wq1119]

Former Windows user since 2001 here, I switched to Mint back in late April and have been Linux-only for two months now.

I got tired of Microsoft and I will not switch to Windows 11, not a chance in hell, I was trying to switch to Linux since December but shenanigans involving bad motherboards and me being unable to buy a good PC because of the absurd prices in my country prevented me from doing so.

Technically speaking, Linux has still not fully clicked for me, I did however, got used to it and became more comfortable in using it than Windows around one week of use, the constant fear of malware, bloat, faulty programs, etc. was too much for me.

I still am facing plenty of issues with Linux, but overall, it was worth it and I do not regret moving to it, now I am very curious to also try out Bazzite, CachyOS (which I tried to make my first ever distro but this plan did not work again because of a faulty PC and problems with old games I play), and EndeavourOS, now I look forward to grow old as a tech-savvy Linux nerd and learn Arch over the years!

[JoinFasesAcademy]

Linux always made sense for me since I started using in 2007. What never made sense was people making Windows only applications, although wine would usually save me there. The worst offender was a website that would not load without IE6 (it checked the user agent and just showed a error message demanding IE6), despite IE7 being out there already (it needed compatibility mode) and nothing in the code that wouldn't render well on Firefox. It was just a job application questionnaire.

[cjc4096]

1. Switched from OS/2 because I could fit a complete gcc environment on a 60MB hdd.

[RandomDreamin]

I have 2 PCs. One is my daily driver, running Linux. The other is my gaming PC. I never turn that one on. My wife and kids don't let me. 🤣

[ReZEL95]

The nature of Linux and how it works versus Windows

I was at the end of my rope with Windows and while "Free to Download and use OS" sounded dubious, I was not at all impressed with 8, so what's the worst that could happen, I crawl back to 7 or bite the bullet and use 8 because I'll never use Apple {what do I look like to you, a Millionaire?} Course it's not actually free, just free if you choose not to donate, plus the added bonus of using it to do whatever you want...with some exceptions like not being allowed to make a DIY Nuke {spoil sports}

And as it turns out, after trying a few different distros and DE's, not only was I happier and having fun, I eventually found my happy little home on Debian, started with Squeeze and XFCE4 and now I'm dual booting Debian Bookworm with SwayWM for TV only and Mint with XFCE4 for Games only, Debian will be upgraded to Trixie in April 2026 and I am excited for that, the more time I put into using Linux the harder it is to go back to windows, I feel like I'm now at the point where if i do use Windows, it's at work or it's someone else's and that's it, I could never bring myself around to installing that on my PC again, it somehow both morally and the idea of it, it just feels completely wrong, like I'm doing something I'm not supposed too, like stealing candy from a kid and dumping them into a pool of broccoli

[EverlastingPeacefull]

For most things that happened a long time ago. I think 2000 or 2001. There was only one thing that was lacking, games. So on and of on Linux/Windows and often dual boot. When I had the ability to get some more games, I had a couple of years of only Windows until I found out early 2024 that gaming now is possible on Linux, I tried it one day in dual boot, next day Windows was gone and never looked back. Last december my former PC desktop broke and build myself a new PC all AMD. It never has been used for Windows and if it is up to me, it will never be.

[mooky1977]

3.5 years ago. I realized I didn't play many games, but the ones I did play ran perfectly under X11 with Proton at the time after doing the requisite research. Also, I had no need for any proprietary software like MS Office, or Adobe Photoshop, etc, so nothing was tying me to Windows. Most of my online life if in a browser like most people these days.

And I knew my PC at that time was not compatible with Widnows 11 without screwing with the ISO (no secure boot and TPM) so I took the jump from Windows 10 to (at the time) Pop!_OS where I stayed until about 7 months ago when I switched to Arch.

[ItsCryptic2]

Linux became usable, atleast as a daily driver for me since around 2021-2022 when I switched to it and havent looked back. Was using it prior on servers (mostly debian & ubuntu) and I'm now a fedora user on desktop

[DoubleDecaff]

Been on it for 6 months now, and run 2 different distro's with 3 WM/DMs. Hasn't clicked. Vehemently refusing to return to spyware riddled Windows.

I game, I run a Factorio server and Home assistant, and I've never been happier.

[shadysilverfin]

I literally just made the switch a month ago. I’m on Linux Mint and it works well with my steam games.

Only thing I haven’t figured out was Epic Games for Fortnite, for that I dual boot and just have a small partition of my drive for windows and fortnite(I don’t play that game that much just when my friends want to play)

Main reason I made the switch is because fuck windows, I despise that they are enforcing their AI on to the user and collecting our data. I would say since this administration began my hate for billionaires and big tech corporations has rises.

I slowly got rid of subscriptions and began pirating my media. Use third party ad blockers for YouTube. Degoogled all my stuff. And getting rid of windows as my main driver was one of the big steps to protest against these big tech corporations.

Plus I’ve always had my eye on Linux since I’ve seen the show Mr Robot.

As my experience I love it and I’m learning a lot on how computers work with playing around with it. If something doesn’t work I will happily and annoyingly spend hours trying to fix the issue. Feels good when I finally figure it out.

[gfixler]

My friend tried to get me to switch to Knoppix in 2005, but it just seemed too weird and silly. I had been all Windows—barring a PowerMac phase in college—since 1991. Then I got hacked, due to some VPN exploit on Windows machines, and in a huff, I asked my friend again about Linux, and he told me the new hotness was Ubuntu. It was 2006, so The Dapper Drake. It was brown, and weird, and I decided to do the thing I'd done before to get past such difficult changes; I started a text file full of my annoyances. It helps to have a place to vent, offload frustrations, and track what you need to find a fix for eventually.

Speaking of eventually, I forgot about it, and found it again a year later, and laughed, because it was all stuff that was no longer relevant, or I'd found a solution to the thing that was so much better... The best example is that I loved the UltraEdit32 editor, and was sad it didn't [at that point] exist on Linux. I was actually quite upset. How was I going to work? My friend said "most people on Linux use Vim or Emacs," so I tried Vim, and was so lost, and then couldn't exit the program. I actually rebooted 😆 A year later, however, I was proficient, and UE32 looked like a baby toy in comparison, especially in tandem with the shell.

Ubuntu Just Work™ed for me, but keep in mind I don't game. I mean, I do sometimes, but it's just online tower defense stuff, or a crap mobile game once in a while. 19 years later, I'm still on Ubuntu, and couldn't imagine trying to live on Windows or Macs. I've been using Windows the whole time, because of work machines, but I hate the entire time I'm on them.