Scoffs derisively at the new popular thing and switches to BSD...
this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2025
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I'm doing my part! Switched to Linux earlier this year because Microsoft started showing ads in the start menu. I tried Nobara but ran into some glitches that I didn't want to troubleshoot so I switched to Bazzite. So far so good.
congratulations, you now walk with the righteous.
They've been showing ads in the start menu for years now. Since windows 8 honestly.
I hadn't seen a single ad until a few months ago. I had snagged a copy of Windows 10 Pro (and Windows 7 Pro before that) from my workplace so I imagine it was debloated to an extent.
sparky linux LXQt was the one i settled to in the end. Despite having a top spec laptop and desktop PC, i wanted a light weight Linux, based on Debian, with no "fluff" at all. PC boots fast, shuts down in 2 seconds, no updates, secure, every program is instant. Windoze is plain stupid now with ads.
I put Ubuntu on my year old Windows laptop and to my surprise, everything is just better. I mean better than Windows AND better than Linux ever was before when I used it previously. I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing some major manufacturers shipping PCs with Ubuntu pre-loaded in the coming years.
I bought a Dell with Ubuntu preloaded in 2019. I think it should still be possible (It's their "developer edition" models).
better than Linux ever was before
I did Linux on the desktop for 15 years. I was primarily Windows at home, Linux at work. With a job change, I took a detour through Mac for a couple of years, then WSL hit, and I ran Windows for quite a while.
I dropped back in, but only at home when Bookworm landed. I was playing Steam games with video acceleration right out of the gate. For a lot of people, it's just going to work right out of the gate, and updates are just going to work. Now that a lot of shit's going Electron, a lot of apps that had an edge in windows are now identical through their web interfaces.
If you're not playing games with a lot of anti-cheat, using proprietary hardware or don't need access to some windows-only apps (or you can put up with Wine), all the distros are up to the point where they operate just as you'd expect them to.
I will mainly switch to Linux whenever I feel ready for the headache of setting it up for the first time too. Already got another M.2 SSD to run it alongside my existing Win 10 for anything that doesn't run on Linux.
It really depends on your hardware. I have a Dell XPS with an 11th gen Intel i5 that I'm running Fedora (Gnome desktop environment) on and it was rock solid from minute one. Things to check:
-
Make sure your network card is supported. Intel network cards are some of the better choices for open source compatibility. On most laptops this can be swapped out if necessary.
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Camera
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Touchpad
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Fingerprint sensor
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Sound driver
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Any niche functions or modules. Think things like a secondary display on the keyboard, speciality ports etc.
Support is much better now than in the past and remember you don't need everything to work to have a good time. My fingerprint sensor doesn't work but it didn't work well under windows so no big loss for me.
- You can always use a live bootable USB drive to test your hardware without having to commit to anything. This will tell you a lot about the experience you might have after installation. Heck, if you're board you can try this right now and it won't touch your current hard drive or operating system.
As pointed out on hackernews, this is likely attributed to (a) decrease in desktop usage by non-linux-users, and (b) the gaming hardware industry embracing linux (steam deck etc.)
That HN thread was such a shitshow lol. Also I dont think there is anything credible to suggest this increase from 4.6% to 5% is due to 'non linux users' or steamdeck. Steamdeck has contributed sure but desktop linux is growing but every single metric (steam hardware survey, PH Desktop user survey, US Gov traffic, tech youtuber trends, etc).
useless antidote: My friend who is a non techie gamer and she plays a lot of anti cheat type multiplayer games ASKED me to help her switch to linux mint and even when I said thats a bad idea she shouldnt switch she still wanted to. She ended up loving it even though there was a few pain points (fucken nvidia dual screen config on x11) and i think a few of her other friends have even switched after hearing her say it works well.
I'd honestly be curious to see what percentage of Linux is steam decks now
This doesn't give a complete answer, but according to Steam's Hardware and Software Survey, 31% of Steam's Linux users are using "SteamOS Holo". It's the name of SteamOS 3, used by Steam Decks. 2.57% of Steam users are using some Linux distro.
I hopped on the Linux train when Microsoft began pushing hard for AI integration and Microsoft accounts. I fucking hate AI and I don't need some corpo cunt looking over my shoulder and taking notes while I use my computer.
Same. It should be illegal for them to be forcing this shit on us. At least I only have to endure it on my work pc. No windows on personal devices
Welcome! Because we Linux aficionados are incorrigibly nosy and passionate, which distro did you pick and how are you liking it so far?
I went with Mint because my technical knowledge of Linux is very basic at the moment. I imagine I'll jump to a more hands-on distro as my familiarity with it increases. EndeavorOS looks interesting.
I think the fastest way for Linux to spread is for there to be a cheap gross dirty disgusting commercial version pushed at bestbuy/walmart...etc where people can become familiar enough with it to switch to other distros and out still feel familiar.
I think the fastest way for linux to spread are a) a state-sponsored (totally open source) product that sees a free and open OS as part of a commitment to a free and open society. or 2) one of these fuckhead billionaires drops $200M or so into a trust, rather like the Poetry Foundation, which has the singular commitment to create an OS for people and to support it indefinitely.
I don't think the answer to any of society's ills is to get Wallmart involved. ed: walmart however its spelled WGAS.
Im a long time Mac user but recently got a steamdeck. Desktop mode uses a version of kde and I really like it, if I had to switch from Mac I would definitely go with linux instead of windows. I think the steam deck will introduce a lot of people to linux.
Do you think ChromeOS could fit that role? At least it shows that an alternative to Windows exists.
Google will merge Android and ChromeOS.
It doesn't say how they got this number in the piece (unless I missed it), but it's likely more than 5% if they are, say, counting the OS by user agent strings hitting a particular tracker. Linux distros use different browsers and they don't report the OS in an accurate way all the time.
For a long time my UAS just said "Firefox, the version #, NT-based" or something like that, but now it reports Linux properly... I haven't been paranoid enough to use a agent switcher lately.
I made the switch recently for probably the strangest reason.
I’ve been running win 11 for over a year using a shell tool that allowed me to move my task bar to the top of the screen and some other win 10 functionality.
However win 11 removed the ability to move the task bar and my shell program lost most of its functionality. After that I was done.
I’ve Linux off and on since 2002ish so it’s not scary to me and I’m pretty happy with Arch and KDE right now. Still the occasional crash that appears to happen sometimes when watching YouTube.
Hey, don't knock customization as a reason. A couple of decades ago, I was sold on Linux by silly Beryl/Compiz videos such as this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=038RHEGu4OY
yo compiz is the shit. You can do ANYTHING with it. It took me a while to figure out because where the hell is the manual, but I have my own custom thing going on and it's brilliant.
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Iine go up diamond hands
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