Linux

I actually switched from OSX Snow Leopard after college. But several years prior, the last version of Windows I used, on the family computer, was XP.

Windows Vista

Same as you, I was somewhat already leaning towards Linux but seeing Windows 10 EOL announced around 3 years ago and seeing what new "features" are going to be implemented to Windows 11, I decided to hop ship.

The main reason for switch was privacy concerns, got redpilled by Mental Outlaw while he was still making regular Linux videos.

Windows Vista. I absolutely decked it out with free/open source software (LibreOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird, KDE for Windows) before I dual booted Windows and eventually made a more permanent switch. Never looked back.

I did have to use Windows for my old job (Win10 from memory?) but now I have a job where I can use Linux.

Next step is to switch my partner over from Windows 11 (she's already on board with the idea).

Technically I still use Windows at work, but I don't manage that machine. At home the last version was technically Windows 7, but realistically I only had that out of reflex. The last Windows I daily drove was XP.

Windows XP. The moment I realized the mess Windows Vista was going to be, I knew I had to switch over.

Windows XP. Windows itself was fine, I only moved because the programming languages I wanted to use ran better on Linux and ran in a way that was more likely to be the same as in production.

Windows 7 I think? I don't really remember tbh

Windows 10. End of life, constant nagging to update to W11 and my SSD dying created the perfect environment to change over.

Early Windows 7. I was fed up with Windows and switched to hackintosh. 6 years ago I switched to Linux only.

I had Windows 8.1 but as the end of its maintenance was approaching I saw the writing on the wall with Windows 10 and especially 11 and I wanted no part of that. When 8.1 was put to pasture I returned to Linux and I have been content ever since. Seeing where Microsoft is taking Windows I'm more and more convinced that Stallman Was Right. I control my software, not the other way around.

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I still have a Windows 10 or 11 PC that I only use for gaming so I don't really "use" Windows anymore. I basically use that computer like a really kick-ass game console. Which is why I neither know nor care what version of Windows is on that PC. All my other computers run Linux now.

I had played around with Linux back in the day, but it never stuck. It was the "upgrade" from Windows 7 to 10 that pushed me to commit to Linux permanently. Now my daily driver is EndeavourOS on the laptop and Proxmox on my servers.

What was so bad going from Win7 to Win10? Win10 is painfully slow and shockingly bloated on older hardware, and doesn't provide any new benefits that I care about. I would have had to replace my laptop for no good reason to stay with Win10. Anyway, once I installed Linux and KDE, I saw how awesome the Linux desktop experience has become and that was that. I will never go back to Windows now, even when I get a new laptop. Windows just isn't a good operating system anymore while Linux has improved tremendously in terms of user experience.

I used Windows 7 before, but my first computers all ran Linux. (Raspberry Pi 2b with Raspian; First 64-bit PC ran Ubuntu Mate)

Vista bricked my laptop after a year without a reliable way to recover. Made the switch over in 2009.

Vista on one machine, 10 on another.

Vista was actually good, it just started running slow because the computer was old. Switched to Mint and Lubuntu, those ran faster.

I got a new computer, and went, gasp... BACK TO WINDOWS! Kept planning the switch to Linux for years, because I liked the operating system, then got an SSD and just did it. Installed OpenSUSE, currently on Debian.

Um, iirc it was Win8? I've had to open a couple Win10 installs since then (mostly to prep the machine for a Linux install) and I can tell it's only gotten worse.

Back then I could probably hack a Windows install down to my preferences in a week or so, disabling or removing as much bloat and spyware as possible — but the amount of hoops I had to jump through to have a tolerable system was just becoming oppressive.

First moved from 7 on home PC as a daily driver

And then later once I stopped distro hopping (stopping at Arch) and could do my work in full from home... ( by porting time tracking app to Linux )

Moved from 10 on work PC

Win 10.

Slowly have been moving odd big tech platforms. Recently got a Fair Phone. Read win11 disasters. Trying Linux for the 20th time.

Its been longer than 3days now so that's something.

Been making these moves over 5 years or so. Slow and steady.

Right after Windows 8 got released, I upgraded to it on my 2011 budget laptop. I don't know what exactly the problem was, I think there was both a problem with there being a high chance of not getting any output on the display after waking up from hibernation, and it also frequently bluescreened when booting. I was playing around with various distros before then but that was when I nuked Windows and switched to it as primary OS.

(That bluescreen bug on the laptop still wasn't fixed with Windows 10 when that came out. Lmao)

I've also made the switch from win10. There are a lot of "small" things that add up. The constant nag messages. Updates. Start menu ads. That was mist of it on Win10. I've had some experience in win11 at work, and I can say the new UI is abysmal (honestly I couldn't care less about the UI as far as look/textures go, but one thing I can't stand is slow animations for every little thing. If I open the start menu, I want it open as soon as I press the keyboard button, not 0.5s later. When I snap a window, I don't need 0.5s of my life wasted on watching the "beautiful" animation. I just want it on half the screen instantly. Whenewer I close a window, I don't want to have it fade out and distract me, I want it either gone or a popup asking me wether to save, discard or cancel show as soon as I tried to close the window. I want the Control panel back. I knew how to use it, and navigating menus wasn't animated to consume 0.5s for every screen change. The animations were what pushed me away the most. I assume you can turn the off, but I never bothered since I changed computers often and would just rather put up with it rather than spend time tweaking each and every computer I wanted to use. The UI is why I don't like win11, and the MS requirement is why I won't let it touch my computer.

I have to say, switching to Linux was very frustrating as I had to google every little thing and most sites are filled with ad garbage even with uBlock on Firefox turned in with most of the lists, so that was frustrating. But now, after just under 2 years of Linux use, I can say the switch has paid great dividends. I can do a lot of menial tasks much faster (highlights are fike conversion with ffmpeg, combining PDFs with pdfunite, navigating folders using cd and tab completion (I'm the type to have a lot of folders in one parent directory to whkch I know the names, so typing the name is faster than looking for it manuakly and clicking on it), not to mention all the programs I used that are on Linux open 3-5 times faster.

Another big quality of life improvement are updates - updating apt packages with one command and Flatpaks with another, not having to reboot while doing it and not having programs prompt for updates individually is all something I never knew was possible before switching over. Linux has really impressed me with how well it works and how much of a laid back attitude it resembles, as opposed to the whiny Windows forcing its will upon you with its updates, ads and bloat.

The extremely short version is: I started playing with Raspberry Pis and learning a bit about Debian right about the time my old Win 7 laptop died, I got a new laptop with Win 8.1, which A) sucked and B) had major hardware problems for months, during which time I only had a couple Raspberry Pis to do my work on. So by the time I got a reliable Win 8.1 machine, it felt less familiar to me than Debian, so I switched, ended up running Linux Mint 17 on that machine.

Win7. I use LMDE+Cinnamon now and I have it looking suspiciously like how I had Win7. Old habits and all that.

Though you didn't ask, Win2K was the probably the best Windows, IMO. Then came the bloat and the ugly UIs. (I've kind of got used to bloat these days. Storage is cheaper than it was, and LMDE isn't exactly the slimmest distro.)

Maybe I would have liked Win10. Similar to how it was with the old Star Trek movies, it seems like every other version of Windows is terrible, and if that remains true, maybe 12 will be better than 11. Probably not going back to find out though.

What was the last version of Windows you used before hopping on over?

Windows 10

So what’s your reasoning for the change to the reliable and funni penguin OS?

Freedom and privacy

Windows wasn't my first operating system. I don't even remember what my first was, but it ran on top of DOS and had a 5 and a quarter inch floppy drive. I've used pretty much every windows desktop version since 3.1, but really only installed or maintained XP, 2000 server, and Windows 10 on my own hardware. But I've also installed and maintained various Linux and BSD distros since about the turn of the millennium, including a brief relationship with a Mac laptop with OSX.

There was never a switch. I always ran whatever I could get working that would get the job done. For some tasks that was Windows, either because it was good enough and came pre-installed or it was required by the software I needed to run for school or work. I've handed in many assignments on 3.5 inch floppies. I haven't maintained a server with windows since Windows2000 server. I've tried Slackware and Corel Linux. I bought SUSE Linux in a box from a big box store. I've gotten those brown Ubuntu install CDs in the mail. I remember being delighted with the development of BitTorrent because now my downloads would check themselves for consistency as they downloaded the ISO. No more getting to the end of a download only to discover the md5sum failed to check. I've used Knoppix and Clonezilla for system recovery.

There was never a change. I'm a tech nerd that likes Linux, not a Linux nerd that likes tech. But, it was the way windows kept destroying my Linux partitions that drove me away from dual booting and installing windows on anything in general. Also the windows situation with viruses, updates, and lack of security that drove me away unless compelled. Now windows lives on its own hardware or in a VM for me.

For me it was the jump between Windows 7 and Windows 8. I hated the UWP apps, the "simplified" control panel an d the full screen and tiled start menu. It worked great as a phone UI but terrible on desktop. I used it for like a month and switched to Linux Mint, which I felt was closest to W7 at the time.

I used Windows XP not for too long after switching from Windows 98. It was that time when Vista was just released and I knew this is not what I wanted to put on my brand new PC.

Switched around the time Windows 7 was out. The reason is Windows Update. It took FOREVER to do its thing. And it was janky as all hell. I distinctly remember clicking on the "check for updates" more than once, because it didn't find any updates the first time dor whatevee reason. Anyway, I had one update breakage too many and I snapped. Had Linux as my main OS since then and a few years later it became my only OS.

Basically, I wanted an OS that stayed out of my face and Windows wasn't it.

I’m trapped in Adobe’s ecosystem because my school contracts with Adobe to provide their softwares. Since Adobe stuff only works on Windows, I’m still on Windows.

I was at work and I spent a full day trying to figure out how to do something work-related on Windows, but every program for it was for Linux. This was before WSL, so that wasn't an option. I don't remember exactly what the task was, but I remember growing increasingly frustrated before I decided to just dual boot my work laptop with Ubuntu. I never booted back into Windows a single time after that. I eventually deleted that partition to reclaim the space.

I didn't install Linux on my personal laptop until about a year ago because of how awful Windows 11 is. I was reading about how Windows 10 is going EOL fairly soon, and decided to just make the switch now.

I've been a fan of the dual boot option (sometimes separate hard drives)

Boot PC. Press F8. Select Windows drive and boot to windows 10 for gaming.

Most of time it defaults to Linux and that's where i live the other 97% of the time

I have the same setup on my laptop. There's always something easier on Windows whether I like it or not and it's good to have the option.

Never had an issue with them coexisting.

I had dabbled with Linux before, both at home and work. Stood up a server running Ubuntu LTS at home for serving my personal website and Nextcloud. But, gaming kept my main machine on Win10. Then I got a Steam Deck and it opened my eyes to how well games "just worked' on Linux. I installed Arch on a USB drive and booted off that for a month or so and again, games "just worked". I finally formatted my main drive and migrated my Arch install to it about a week ago.

I'm so glad that I won't be running Windows Privacy Invasion Goes to 11.

I still use windows. Theres a bunch of stuff which needs it.

Seriously though, for about twenty years Microsoft has released patches on Tuesday. Don’t wait till Saturday, go ahead and restart on Tuesday. It’s easy and predictable and more often the patches are important.