Why do you use/choose Linux?

1. FOSS. I’m a software engineer and making the world a better place and helping others is why I love my job and what I study. FOSS is the thing that can make tge world a better place and help others.

I also have a plethora of technical reasons, but I’m sure others will cover them. Just this ideological and philosophical reason is enough for me to be using Linux.

Privacy performance and fun

20+ years ago I grew tired of having to constantly buy upgrades or find cracks for Windows and a friend suggested i check out thi s new OS that was coming out called Ubuntu. I believe it was around 2004 when I installed the first distro and I have never looked back. I find it amusing that all my friends and family think im some super hacker because I use linux lol.

I got tired of Microsoft. I had seen that Linux was now good enough for what I wanted to so, so I decided to jump ship.

It wasn’t a quick decision. I only transitioned from Windows because I finally got around upgrading the PC.

So far? I mean, there was the kerfuffle with the AUR recently. And I still haven’t figured out a few issues here and there. But damn it just works and there is no worrying about updating or not updating or anything like it.

Freedom. Having my computer not actively work against me.

Skype and OneDrive. They just WOULD NOT GO THE FUCK AWAY. My hard drive died, so I already lost everything OS related, and re-installing windows 10 was already infuriating me, and then every reboot, even after disabling them, skype and onedrive just kept popping up at boot. I used windows to download i think 8 different distro ISOs, gathered a gaggle of flash drives and set them all up. Then I tried them all out until I landed on one that did everything I wanted it to and haven’t looked back. I kept that windows drive for about 6 months before I realized I was never using it and the storage space would be better served reformatted to btrfs for the linux system to use.

I want to use open-source software, developed from people for people. I don’t want corporates to exploit my data and take away my freedom.

IT worker, close to 50 years old, only ever could afford low-mid range tech, gamer. Been using windows for over 30 years and linux for 8. Linux works better than windows and it allowed me to improve my tech skills beyond a desktop machine.

It’s better.

Because window is genuinely more of a pain to use in 2026.

It’s better.

I swap PCs regularly and I hate how long it takes to install windows.

Also windows borked a games drive once and I never forgave it.

Then I learned all the privacy stuff.

I didn’t choose Linux. Linux chose me.

But in all seriousness, back in 2015, I got a PC that came with Windows 8. It had the horrible, completely unusable Metro UI. But my main gripe with that OS was how it forced me to use Microsoft’s solutions over everything else. Quite often, the PDF files I opened would launch in the Metro PDF reader instead of the one I had chosen. Usually, this kind of things happened after a Windows Update, which ‘accidentally’ reset my default application choices - including the PDF reader - and, as a final spat in my face, added an Internet Explorer shortcut to my desktop.

I started to feel as if I had no control over my PC anymore; it was Microsoft deciding what software I should use. Then and there I decided it was time to give Linux a chance. I had already noticed how Valve was pushing the gaming industry toward Linux, and I thought, those guys can’t be completely wrong.

It’s open source and not owned by an evil corporation. It doesn’t have ads. It doesn’t mine my data and sell it to the highest bidder. It doesn’t have AI shoved in every nook and cranny. It’s much lighter to run. I can easily run it on a 10 year old laptop.

I was tired of listen the computer fan