Linux

48332 readers

819 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
No misinformation
No NSFW content
No hate speech, bigotry, etc

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

214

why did you switch? (lemm.ee)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

255 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hey everyone,

I am exploring switching over to Linux but I would like to know why people switch. I have Windows 11 rn.

I dont do much code but will be doing some for school. I work remote and go to school remote. My career is not TOO technical.

What benefits caused you to switch over and what surprised you when you made the switch?

Thank you all in advanced.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

When I was 5/6 years old, I loved computers, but I wasn't necessarily a hobbyist. I learned almost everything on my own. I used to heavily modify my Windows desktop back then with skins and Stardock programs to make my desktop look like Mac OS X. I was a big fan of Apple's user interface (iOS/iPad as well, both the skeuomorphism and, well, the flat design a little bit).

So when I was 9, I saw Linux. I decided to use wubi and Ubuntu, tried this brand new OS.

It was awesome. I could modify it as I wanted to. I slept on my primary school classes. Ricing at the time felt great, you had so much control over your own desktop.

I have no idea why I stopped at that point. I think Windows 8 looked cool enough to me, but now I think it's one of the worst OS I've ever used. But games just worked there, honestly. Linux felt more like a toy, while Windows was my comfort zone.

Eventually a few years away from a decade later, I did use Debian 7 for hosting stuff like my bots in GCP. Having used Linux to customize the DE and the exposure to the terminal really helped a lot in making things more familiar to me.

Then I thought why don't I just use Linux desktop again. I started distro hopping. I finally found home in KDE Arch Linux, Proton-GE, the AUR, and Arch Wiki. I rarely do ricing if at all, only because I finally found the setup I'd rather be comfortable with than changing it frequently for no good reason.

I still use W11 to this day on my laptop but only because of school requiring me to use Visual Studio among other things. That's where Docker, WSL2, scoop, MSYS2, and several open source projects to improve QOL comes in. I can be comfortable with Windows and continue to use Linux without any annoying differences in my workflow. I also just use Vim on everything, and the CLI when I want to do productive work.

I've rarely held my mouse on the computer and neither did I work hard to memorize anything. You'd start getting intuitive with everything the moment you start to try understanding the rationale of how stuff is designed to be.