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.

  • Ephera@lemmy.mlEnglish
    16·
    17 hours ago

    Gotta love Linux newbies talking about their first experiences and they’ve already tried 3 distros that I have barely on my radar. A few months in, I hardly knew what SystemD was and this guy’s already on a distro that explicitly removes it.

    • HaraldvonBlauzahn@feddit.orgOP
      6·
      17 hours ago

      While I just land a recent Debian stable on my laptop, install cargo for new Rust apps (for things like jujutsu), and Guix package manager (for stuff like kakoune or vis), and call it a day.

      Well, after 25 years the pursuit of agressive distro-overoptimization becomes a bit boring. But who am I to criticize what other people spend their free time with?

      • Emily@lemmygrad.ml
        2·
        4 hours ago

        I started with Debian and the spiciest thing I’ve done in almost two years of exclusive Linux usage was changing my desktop environment from Cinnamon to KDE while updating to Debian 13. I haven’t seen a need to hop around to other distros, it’s nice to search for the few problems and almost always find answers.