Why do you use Linux (Reddit questionnaire)?
This is a Reddit questionnaire with most interesting selected responses.
I started with Linux in 1994. Back then it was about programming IRC scripts to take advantage of netsplits to take over communications channels in well established chat rooms (#hottub TAKOVER!)
I wanted to get a job in Linux but there wasn't any when I got out of college. So I waited. Eventually, Linux began to creep into the enterprise and for every single project surrounding it, I volunteered. Soon, I was running every Linux server and project that came about.
A few years later, I became a developer for one of the major distributions of Linux that was in the top 5 at distrowatch. I burned the candle at both ends and stepped away when I had TOO much Linux.
Meanwhile, I continued to progress in my professional life...starting to work with Linux VM's, containers, grepping logs for traceID's, rolling apps into Rancher/K3's. By this time, I had been using Linux for 20 years and was generally head and shoulders above most people with it.
Now, I am a senior devops engineer with a major company and I run Mac/Linux for just about everything I do...including personal life.
I don't know where I'd be without that first accidental join to # in IRC...where they had removed a password to join for a fleeting few minutes and some rando newbie with a sharp tongue joined them. I owe everything to those random hackers that befriended me and sent me down the rabbit hole.
I use Linux because it's part of my profession...but more because it's part of my life.
I HAD to upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10 and the machine I had was already 7-8 years old. Even though it had 32GB of RAM and an 8 core CPU, it still wasn't enough for Windows 10 to run smoothly. I had bought a fresh copy of Windows 10 (not an upgrade but a full version) and I installed it on a brand new SSD at that time and it took forever to open a browser. I was DONE with Windows! I downloaded an ISO of Linux Mint Cinnamon, put it on a USB stick, rebooted with that USB stick and that was the end of Windows for me.
I'm not a programmer. Not even close. I've always been a techie kind of person. Mostly knowing a lot about many software packages for Windows. But I carried that over to Linux. My wife and I both run Linux. She had the same issues with Windows 10 so I talked her into Linux Mint and she loves it!
I ran Linux Mint from around June of 2018 to February 2020. Then I switched to Arch Linux and a Tiling Window Manager. That's where I've been ever since. I'm perfectly happy where I am today with Linux. Again, I am not a programmer but I personally know a lot more about modifying configuration files to make things work and look the way I want them to. So, I guess you can say that I am kind of a programmer. But I'm not writing programs. I'm just making certain ones work better for me and to my liking.
BTW, that 8 year old PC that I was using at the time, lasted 4 more years with Linux. It's the first time I think that a computer has ran out it's life expectancy on me. I was shocked. I actually had a computer that NEEDED to be recycled because it was dead. Every computer I ever upgraded to another one from was still running. Heck, the one I had before the other one died is sitting on the floor in a closet and could probably run Linux on it. I think it has 16GB of RAM in it. I'll bet it could run a 32 bit version of Arch really well for a little while anyway. :)
I used to be an apple fan girl. I had an old power mac growing up, which eventually turned into a blue iMac, and then my very own iBook in highschool. It was on Apple tech that I learned to code, and i upgraded to a MacBook pro in my early 20s. But in my 20s, Apple started getting.... Evil. They were locking down music with DRM, and I could feel them trying to lock me into their ecosystem with my iPhone. I couldn't morally use Apple anymore, and Microsoft was well into their spyware era by then.
I had dual booted Linux in highschool for a little while and found it to my liking as a perennial tech nerd, so I bought myself a cheap HP laptop to see how long I could go without using my MacBook. I never touched my MacBook again except to transfer files off of it. I bought some nicer Linux compatible hardware, and for the past ten years I haven't used a proprietary OS. Even when I transitioned my career goals from software development to healthcare and research, all the tools I needed were already FLOSS. My hospital and lab both allow me to use Linux to access their systems, and I don't think I'm ever going back.
- No licensing. If I want to clone a VM, I clone a VM, I don't worry about the license.
- The OS is not spyware. I don't have an AI sitting in my menu bar watching what I'm doing so it can be "helpful." I don't have the OS doing a screen grab and using AI to decipher what I'm doing.
- The tools I need are want/need are free. This is probably more a MacOS thing, but it seems like any tool you want/need someone is willing to sell you it on MacOS.
I hate what Microsoft did with Windows. Poor software quality, too much ads, increasing focus on cloud services, mandatory account, data protection nightmare, UI changes that make no sense and make everything more complicated,...
I have more flexibility in Linux to adapt the system to my workflow.
An operating system that isn't there to make money for a corporation feels much freer. Have you ever seen how many questions you get when you install Windows? Microsoft is always trying to trick you. It's crazy. When I first installed Linux Mint, it was like going back to the good old days when you were taken seriously as a user.
Because I'm fed up with Windows being annoying and installing crap without my permission. And throwing ads at me. And not letting me customize my UI. And trying to dictate what I do with my own computer. The list goes on...
Windows got annoying.
Linux is faster and MUCH less annoying, I have more control.
I've never been a fan of Windows but for a long time it was a necessary evil as I like to game and I do music production and also Graphics etc. I've had an eye on Linux for a long time though. Right back to the days of Mandrake which I actually used exclusively for a few months. But Gaming and those other things kept me on Windows.
Now that Windows is even more horrible than it ever was and Gaming on Linux has been a thing for the last few years I switched at around the start of Covid. There have been some pain points but I muscled past them. I have now managed to find replacements for all that I do on my PC. As I don't play competative games, pretty much all my gaming needs are met. So I'm now very happy on Linux.
I use Linux because I don’t enjoy using Windows but I love PC gaming. I have a personal Mac and a PC.
I used to turn my Windows PC on, play games, and turn it off. I wouldn’t even browse the internet on it, I would go back to my Mac.
With Linux I don’t feel the need to use my Mac if I want to do anything else that is not gaming. So I ended up using my MacBook for work or on the go.
The Windows user experience is TERRIBLE. My Fedora Workstation just works.
- Security
- Linux does what I want, not the other way around.
- Many games run faster on Linux. Diablo 2 Resurrected has 45 fps on 0.1% lows in Windows. On Linux, it never dips below 75 fps.
I am not a programmer. I wouldn't say that I am much more skilled than your average user. My use case is pretty much gaming, watching videos, browsing the Internet and reading emails.
The other day my wife was sitting next to me with an Excel spreadsheet open on her Windows gaming laptop. That's all, and it's fans were howling like banshees. The cause? Windows search function was doing some bs in the background. In the past I have had these background processes congest my Internet connection to the point where I am unable to do anything on the Internet. This was on a brand new windows installation.
I use Linux because it is better than Windows.
I just think its neat.
My main reason right now is windows 11. I don't really trust their privacy settings any more, so effectively I'm assuming the OS itself is malware. Also, as a matter of general principle, any OS that displays ads alongside its basic functions can go die in a ditch.
Plus, control. I don't think it's unreasonable to want to uninstall some of the default applications. Uninstall, not just "deactivate" until the next system update shoves them back in.
I've been using linux off and on for a long time, but I did put up with versions 7 and 10 of windows on new computers. However, w11 is completely out of the question, and luckily I don't depend on