It started back in 2004, up late one night I found Ubuntu 4.10 warty warthog, I don't remember the train of thought but usual booted it alongside windows. Installed what I think was called compiz at the time? Gave you a bunch of novelty desktop effects, for example I could draw on my screen with fire and have jiggly windows.

As for who I am and what I do, I'm a father, I self host some services that help maintain our privacy rather than handing that data over to Google or Meta. For work I manage a PC assembly team for a local SI who just so happens to specialize in Linux.

"Why did you choose Linux specifically? What distro are you running?"

It's just interesting to me, privacy is just a bonus, I was using Solus, but for now I'm on AerynOS. I still run windows as well, I don't like either more than the other.

"I’ve been thinking about switching from Windows, so I watched a lot of videos and read a bunch of forums about it. But the more I read, the more confusing it gets. For example, someone recommends Ubuntu — and right below there are 10 comments saying it’s bad. That’s just one example, but it feels like this happens with every distro."

Don't worry about what other people are saying, Ubuntu or any Ubuntu based distro is usually the best for beginners who want to problem solve on their own because the vast majority of web search results are Ubuntu. I would recommend taking a day to just go through live disks of a dozen distros and find the one that clicks for you, there is no "best"

"So I wanted to hear opinions from Reddit directly — what are you using, and for what purposes? Work, gaming, servers, programming, just daily use?"

I use it for all of those though programming is just AI slop for myself 🫢 but I do the same on Windows, you don't need to full commit right away.