With the growing number of users jumping from Windows to Linux, I decided to fully take the plunge and dive deep into the Open Source ocean. A few months and several headaches later, it has proved to be the best computer-related decision I've made in over a decade (and perhaps in my entire life).

There. That’s out of the way. I recently installed Linux on my main desktop computer and work laptop, overwriting the Windows partition completely. Essentially, I deleted the primary operating system from the two computers I use the most, day in and day out, instead trusting all of my personal and work computing needs to the Open Source community. This has been a growing trend, and I hopped on the bandwagon, but for good reasons. Some of those reasons might pertain to you and convince you to finally make the jump as well. Here’s my experience.

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It’s no secret that Windows 11 harvests data like a pumpkin farmer in October, and there is no easy way (and sometimes no way at all) to stop it. The operating system itself acts exactly like what was called “spyware” a decade or so ago, pulling every piece of data it can about its current user. This data includes (but is far from limited to) hardware information, specific apps and software used, usage trends, and more. With the advent of AI, Microsoft made headlines with Copilot, an artificial assistant designed to help users by capturing their data with tools like Recall.

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After dealing with these issues and trying to solve them with workarounds, I dual-booted a Linux partition for a few weeks. After a Windows update (that I didn’t choose to do) wiped that partition and, consequently, the Linux installation, I decided to go whole-hog: I deleted Windows 11 and used the entire drive for Linux.

  • Hanrahan@slrpnk.netEnglish
    7·
    21 hours ago

    Maybe people will even learn that the fragmentation isn’t a weakness of linux, but one of its strengths

    Maybe but its also super off putting to people looking on from the outside and wju do we need 500 flavours of Debian based distros when interested developers perhaps would be better tasked working om a few projects to inwprove things

    • morto@piefed.socialEnglish
      1·
      4 hours ago

      But that’s not how humans work. All those developers wouldn’t be together working at the same project. because each one have different viewpoints on how things should work. Also, the different complexity of projects, both on code and on management, will attract or repel different people. The idealized single project in which all foss developers work together, maximizing innovation and maintenance, is impossible and will never exist. Fragmentation in the end is also a way to maximize the human work put into foss, and making people who don’t agree or even dislike each other collaborate indirectly.

      Also, users somewhat decide how much fragmentation is acceptable. For example, a few forks of debian will attract some user base, because they might offer something people have a demand for, but the hundreds of minor forks will just die from lack of userbase. Some could say that they’re then a waste of developer effort, but would those developers work in debian itself? Probably not, for many reasons

    • Libb@piefed.socialEnglish
      5·
      17 hours ago

      Maybe but its also super off putting to people looking on from the outside and wju do we need 500 flavours of Debian based distros when interested developers perhaps would be better tasked working om a few projects to inwprove things

      maybe those newbies would not have a single ‘linux’ to look at at if that was not for that fragmentation that seem to be so much of an issue…

      The people working for free to make Linux what it is are doing it on the simple idea they have been promised: their freedom (and right) to make Linux what they want Linux to be. Not to make it what some group of users or some manager want them to make it.

      It’s many flavours, like you called it, is in the Linux DNA like freedom is ;)

      Edit: rephrasing (it’s early around here, not slept much ;)

    • evol@lemmy.todayEnglish
      4·
      20 hours ago

      It’s definitely annoying how we have all these wrappers of wrappers of debian, like Linux mint is wrapping packages from Ubuntu which is then wrapping packages from a certain snapshot of Debian. All of which creates a unique set of dependencies an apps running on that can cause bugs (Though sometime the distro is more like a installation wrapper for another distro which is better).

      • youmaynotknow@lemmy.zip
        21·
        12 hours ago

        Go back to Windows, then you won’t have to worry about any of that. I’ll keep dealing with all that stuff though. Fuck Microslop.