15 Years of Linux as my Desktop OS: Overcoming Challenges and How It's Become Easier

[@esra_erimez]

I didn't have a choice, I bugged my dad for a computer when I as a child. He gave me an old Dell D600 with Kubuntu on it. I really haven't know any other operating system. I just love it.

[@LiveWireBT]

Best dad.

[@andrewjohnston359]

Your dad is a legend

[@bentownsend1872]

'Recall' was the final nail in the coffin for me. I was already wanting to migrate to Linux but that pretty much sealed the deal. I like both Debian and Arch for different reasons, and I've opted to stick with Arch for a hopefully better time gaming.

[@evileyevirtue]

I have been running Pop for about a year now on my desktop, and it's been pretty great overall. It's been working so well I also installed it on the family laptop and we've had no real issues.

[@Marc.Google]

I just want to say thanks, Tom. You’re a big reason of why I made the switch to Linux and currently on PopOS. Keep up the great content and friendly personality.

[@LAWRENCESYSTEMS]

Thanks and happy to hear the switch went well to you.

[@mihoshiproductions9809]

When info for Vista started coming out I began looking into Linux and testing out various distros, I stuck through Win 7 while testing Linux in virtual machines finally settling on Linux Mint and trying it out on a spare Laptop. When Linux Mint 17 released I fully took the plunge and have been running Mint ever since. So at least since 2014 I've been a Linux Mint user.

[@f-s-r]

I switched from windows 7 (after it's EOL) to mx linux, but finally decided to go with debian xfce. It's an old computer, a Phenom II X4 955 with 8 GB RAM, but debian with xfce is very llight, and rock solid.

[@jm67x]

I installed Mint a few months ago on my home pc and right away it was a breath of fresh air to be away from the Microsoft Ecosystem. Now I'm running hyprland on Arch and loving every minute of it.

[@Cyco_Nix]

I have been using Linux since the very beginning. Actually, first heard of it on a dial-up BBS. I would certainly say that anything is easier than installing Softlanding or Slackware using 40+ floppies, which sometimes had a habit of going bad at the wrong time.

[@lifefromscratch2818]

I installed PopOS basically because you and a few others in the space seemed happy with it and it really does feel like home.

[@debarkamondal6406]

Try Arch. Endearvour OS if you don't wanna go through setting it up via terminal.

[@chrismay2298]

I've been back and forth for years since early Ubuntu but never committed. Been on GNU/Linux for about almost a year, Zorin OS for a few months and have had a great experience, but will probably be going to Debian soon. Running a 3D print farm and using CAD a lot, Ondsel is a great alternative to fusion and so far I've had great results from flatpak slicers like orca. Nice work.

[@McGregorMX]

watching this on my fedora KDE laptop. I also started with ubuntu, but I didn't like their move toward snap packages, so I ditched it for Linux Mint, and then Linux Mint Debian Edition. I moved to fedora because they seemed to be a bit better at giving you that modern and pretty desktop feel, while maintaining the simplicity that users like. I haven't found a reason to move away from it yet, but like many linux users, I'm just a distro hop away from something else.

[@AngryGibberish]

I've started playing with NixOS on out of date Chromebooks. I'm also exploring using Linux for gaming on computers that won't run Windows 11. My default game system right now is my Steamdeck.

[@pip5528]

I salute the people who have managed to daily drive Linux for years or decades on end because I haven't. I got into Linux in 2015 and have used it on and off, my longest hiatus being 2019-2023.

[@angelnaydev5801]

Man, I miss the old days! Back in the early 2000s, I used to tinker with Slackware 4 and Mandriva on my old PC. I even compiled Gentoo on a Pentium 90MHz, following instructions I'd written down in a notebook. Crazy, right? But Debian has always been my go-to distro. I prefer Debian or Ubuntu servers for work, and Ubuntu Mint is my daily driver. Nowadays, I prefer distros that just work out of the box. I'm too lazy to compile or configure things anymore!

[@bearwolffish]

Yes, you were there. Reed hat 6.2 '99 was my first, then Mandrake (before it became Mandriva), Slackware was the arch of the time. Moved to gentoo built from a stage 2 tarball, just because I could craft the install enough to massage it onto an old win 95 potato. They were good times.

[@KenPryor]

I honestly have no idea how many years I've been using Linux at home, but it's more than a few. For a while I split time between Linux and Windows but for the last few years I've been all Linux, all the time. Yes, I have some Windows VM's for malware analysis, etc but those VM's are running on a Linux host (Proxmox). For all my normal use it's Linux for me. I love Linux for work and leisure computer time both. I'm using PopOS right now and am mostly happy with it. May eventually go back to Linux Mint but I haven't decided yet.

[@guilherme5094]

I started using Linux in 2009 and installed it for the first time in 2010, it's been amazing ever since.

[@graywolftheheathen3005]

Being a SysAdmin in a Microsoft environment I'm stuck with Microsoft at work. But at home I switched full time to Linux with the release of Windows 10. At work I've used SUSE and CentOS but I'm more comfortable with Debian based. So I always stay with Ubuntu flavored OS's. Linux Lite, Linux Mint and Pop OS.

[@questionlp]

I had been a FreeBSD-head back in the 3.x days and daily drove it for a couple of months (including covering OSCON 2003 with a ThinkPad). I eventually went back to Windows until 8 came out and I switched to macOS. At work, I daily drove Ubuntu and Debian for a while, but went back to either Windows or macOS when I changed jobs. I've been thinking about switching over to Linux for my personal daily driver for a while and gave Debian, Ubuntu, KDE Neon, Arch and Fedora a go. I opted to go with Fedora + KDE and have been using it on a secondary laptop for over 6 months and now on my primary laptop for about 3 months.

[@bsdslacker]

I really hope big app makers start creating native versions for Linux, as bad as Windows is, people won´t switch cause apps are needed, most users don´t care or use the OS itself.

[@noranoxica]

3 years on Manjaro and has been a huge boost to an art career. Gateway drug to building out a homelab and content management and then archival and then managing art provenance. Truly wild journey.

[@Spencerhadley]

I’d love to hear more about your setup and approach. Do you have a video or blog post about it?

[@CristobalWatsonHernandez]

I've been using Linux for a while starting with Red Hat Linux in 2003. My wife had never owned a real computer before meeting me (only ever had a phone, she grew up very, very poor), I got her two computers, a Linux desktop that came with stock Fedora (I changed it to Cinnamon), and a laptop running Windows 10. She had absolutely no experience with or knowledge about either OS, after a year of using both she asked me to install Fedora Cinnamon Spin on her laptop as it was much more intuitive, easier to use, and significantly faster than Windows. Linux used to be "for nerds only", but now, some of the distros and desktops are now easier for non-technical people than Windows.

[@albanabraham5295]

I really had no choice, I bought a new laptop with Windows Vista, I was getting the BSOD on the first day. I moved to Kubuntu and never looked back.

[@johnathangreeley4293]

I have Ubuntu on the main media laptop in the living room, and on a media laptop in my kids room. I use it as a second OS on my laptop at home (work at an office that is all Windows so no luck there) Also have a steam deck and have been in and out of Linux for work and home for years. Run GNS3 and have it installed on all the laptops for big labs when if needed. Just from that alone I can see its come a long way and I try to use it more than Windows as much as I can. Good info in this Video and thanks!

[@truckerallikatuk]

I went with Linux Mint just recently. It's been a reasonably easy task. Most of my games work fine out of the box, and everything else I do daily is rock solid.

[@RockstoneVideo]

I've run fedora now for almost 3 years and love it. I've also tried pop!_os which is a greaet distro (especially if you have nvidia gpu). I won't be going back to windows ever and I'm happy to stick with fedora. I'm glad that many distros are coming along

[@JacobOvergaardMadsen]

Because of the zen kernel's implementation of the ACS patch used for PCI passthrough in KVM, I chose Arch with zen-kernel and GNOME after having tested a lot of distros, kernels and desktop environments. I haven't touched Windows much since. I still think I'll keep my dual boot setup though, even though I have considered letting Windows be just another virtual machine.

[@eggman9713]

I was planning to build a new gaming machine this year to replace my aging windows desktop, still running windows 10. We switched to windows 11 at work about a year ago, and it drives me absolutely crazy for the reasons you mentioned. Before I build a new machine, I am definitely going to replace windows on this old 6th gen Intel machine with a linux distribution and test out my games from Steam to see what works and what doesn't before I commit to new hardware. I might end up going linux for that desktop machine.

[@gopies]

nice video. I have been tinkering with linux for many years even as a daily driver back in the vista/win8 days. For the last 3 years I settled on Fedora and have gone all in. No dual boot, no win VMs there is no going back now.

[@wehavetogoback369]

I've been moving away from Microsoft. The extensive workarounds to use a local account, the "let's finish setting up your PC" flash bangs, the changing of my settings on updates, the telemetry all over an OS that I PAID for, and the final straw being anything and everything about copilot. I switched to Bazzite and it's been pretty much great so far. I also run Mint on an N100 mini PC and gnome fedora on one of my laptops. I've left my gaming laptop as a purely Windows machine so far in case I need it for certain multiplayer games that demand Windows, but so far that hasn't happened.

[@c0p0n]

I started using Linux on the desktop with Mandrake v7 if I recall, it was the first one I could get at uni that wouldn't kernel-panic on my brand new Duron 700. Good times! I've hopped a lot over the early years but I've been on Ubuntu since 2010 I think. Always been very happy with it. When Unity was set aside I switched to sway. I use Ubuntu a lot on the server as well, as a devops engineer; both at work and at home. The level of first and third party of support is second to none on both desktop and server side.

[@JEgkt]

I'm currently testing Ublue Blufin (Fedora SIlverblue under the hood) which eventually install them on my family computers so far it is very easy to use. But for me i still prefer OpenSuse Slow-Roll on my laptop as a daily. I'm a rolling release distro kinda guy. Its great that we are spoiled with choices to choose from.

[@in2webelieve997]

I used Ubuntu and all it's spins from 2006 - 2009 but switch back to windows for many years. Now I'm on Debian XFCE. Some day I'll quit being an old man and switch to Fedora or Pop

[@leftcoastbeard]

2020 was the year of the Linux desktop for me, I went to POP_OS for my work laptop because we had issues getting enterprise windows to behave over our corporate VPN. I haven't looked back. Now I'm tempted to start moving my personal gaming system to the same distro, as it's too old for Windows 11.

[@sherrilltechnology]

Great video Brother and I love PopOS I am going to their headquarters this weekend! Also thanks for the software recommendations as well!!

[@draskuul]

Around 1997, moving away from OS/2 Warp Connect to one of the original Redhat releases. It was partly thanks to the amount of open source software I was using under OS/2 plus using Linux in college. Moving back home after I had my parents and my little brother and sister using Linux as their only PCs (KDE for the desktop). I switched around over the years spending a lot of time on LinuxFromScratch and Gentoo. Eventually I got into more online gaming that meant I ended up in various Windows versions for years and my years of Linux desktop zealotry mostly came to an end. I use it for all my server needs and do maintain a dual boot setup (PopOS as well), but just not in it for the desktop as much these days.

[@JeremyMarkel]

This brings back memories. I've been managing and administering Linux servers for almost 30 years now and have dabbled in various desktop distros many times over that period. However, I'm a PC gamer and have pretty well just decided to live in Windows Land rather than give that up. I did the dual boot thing for quite awhile but eventually found myself just staying in Windows. Someday, perhaps, Valve's Proton and other Linux gaming systems will enable all games to work but that day has not yet arrived. Take the games away and I'd be all in. My needs are simple.

[@livreene7250]

That's just looking for excuses, it's easier than really making effort, that being said, almost all games run flawlessly on Linux with Proton or vanilla WINE, I use lutris to manage games and it works really really great.

[@TuxUser-X11]

I have had my fair share of issues trying to game on Linux. I used it for more than a year as my only OS and found I spent more time fixing things then actually playing games.

[@wojtek-33]

2001 Mandrake. Been using Linux as a secondary OS ever since. Won't ever be my primary OS, but I still enjoy using it.

[@timburns2374]

Mandrake was my first choice back in the day

[@TuxUser-X11]

​​@@timburns2374 Yep I remember trying out Mandrake and Redhat back in the late 90s and early 2000s. Those were fun days. Still tinker with Linux from time to time and tried it for a year as my only OS. But my main use case is gaming so ended up back on windows. Linux is close but not quite there yet.

[@freebs3545]

After distro hoping for a few years.. I settled on Arch. I love the rolling release of Arch.. been on linux for 25+ years.. but also have a couple windows boxes but i rarely use them, only when i have to. I do have a system76 laptop running pop OS.

[@timburns2374]

I fell in love with Linux in 1998. It was hard back then. Today it is a different animal and I'm still in love with it! I forget how to use windows and don't really care. I don't miss the blue screen of death.

[@michaeloppliger2518]

For me, the day I definitely switched to Linux was Windows 7 EoS in January 2015. As far as I remember, I was trying out many different distros over the course of these years (Ubuntu, Debian, Mint, PopOS etc) but finally settled with Fedora two to three years ago. I haven't had any meaningful issues in all those years as far as I remember - having my system lock up (BSOD or other) is way, way less an issue compared to my workplace with Windows 10... :-)

[@Cobinja]

My very first experience with Linux was as a teenger in 1998 when I installed Suse (I think some 5.x version) from a cover CD of my favorite PC magazine. The first thing I learned was how to compile the kernel because the prebuilt one didn't come with a module for my sound chip but it was included in the kernel sources. I have now been daily-driving Fedora for more than 10 years on my personal machine..

[@JustBCWi]

I lived the Linux desktop experience from 1998-2009, then took a break to 2024. It is much closer to other desktops at this point.

[@MuseHijinks]

Been using linux for about a year and a half now and I gotta say I feel like I own my computer again. The big hurdle for me was gaming. As soon as I found out my whole steam library and everything outside of it worked I uninstalled windows.

[@Indigenous_Patriot_1175]

GREAT video!!!! I love your platform. I am torn between Ubuntu and Arch Linux but I'm ready to switch. my other concern is that I have recently taking an interest into PC gaming and it seems to be dominated by MS windows OS. I am definitely pro Linux and not a fanboy of Microsoft at all

[@noggan]

I'm in the gaming industry so I really need to be able to install our games but other than that pretty much everything I use to do my work is either web based or it supports Linux so there's only that thing holding me back a bit. But hopefully in the future we will get more support for Linux and gaming.

[@kalifornia909]

Really enjoyed this video. I did a lot of distro hopping for a while and I always found my way back to manjaro. Was using manjaro gnome back in about 2020 but then tried kde plasma a couple years later and fell in love with it. I do a lot of flight sim gaming, and I dont even want to think of all the tweaks i would have to get my new pc to run all this and the game on to work. Audio issues are also a huge issue for me to switch full time. Thanks Tom for the honest and realistic view on the linux desktop evolution.

[@kinomotosakura9550]

I started with Ubuntu 7.10 and tinkered around with Linux as a hobby for several years after that, but quit using it because there were too many problems for me to use it as a daily driver. I've been using Fedora 41 after not wanting to be dependent on Windows anymore, and after 12 years since last using Linux, it has become so much better, I don't think I'll be returning to Microsoft.

[@antoniom.andersen6704]

Used linux in the early 90's, switched to Windows in the mid 2000's to game with friends, back to linux around 2010 and have been using it ever since. Debian sid + kde on my main box and void + lxqt on a Pentium laptop. I'm not a big distro hopper but I also like to mess around with gentoo from time to time.

[@esra_erimez]

Great video! Watching on KDE Neon.

[@jameshudson5095]

I've been using Linux for a few years in VMs, mainly Ubuntu Server, but recently took the plunge and installed Ubuntu on my laptop and it doesn't have any of my main bugbears with Windows. The wifi card (which for some reason is a Mediatek card despite it being an Intel laptop) works better, it doesn't reboot if I ask it to shutdown (something Windows has an annoying tendency to do when updating) and sleep actually works, which shouldn't be a novelty, but is these days. The only issue I've had is with screen scaling and games. I haven't installed it on my main PC yet though as I use Photoshop on it, but maybe one day.

[@mastermoarman]

I found a old intell 4150 laptop a With spinning rust and windows 7. Picked up a 1tb ssd and put ubuntu 24 on it and been using it as a daily driver for the last few weeks. As a long time windows user it's quite the learning curve but been interesting and frustrating at the same time not knowing what I'm doing lol

[@fatalisticend]

I use Linux Mint personally for most of my machine needs. Last thing I need is windows forcing an update reboot while I have a 4 hour cnc job running or 2hr laser job. Ive had issues with this in the past. I still use windows for my main stuff only because some of my software just works on it and not elsewhere. I also have used other distros of linux like redhat, debian, and centos for game server administration etc. I still prefer windows over any MacOS system though 😂

[@ltpinecone]

I had been using Linux in some flavor for years, usually manjaro. Day-today, I was dual booting for a long time on my primary PC, with all of my other computers and servers being linux based. My only reason was gaming. Well, these days ALL the games I play and want to play run flawlessly with proton or GE-Proton, so I bit the bullet recently and completely wiped out my primary PC and started over with a fresh arch install. It's amazing I should have done it sooner!

[@NexGen-3D]

Due to me getting a Steam Deck, I purchased a Legion Go, put Bazzite on it, then a Mini AMD machine for my living room, I put Bazzite on it, then I decided to get rid of the M1 Macbook after trying Asahi on it, and picked up a nice used Dell Latitude 2 in 1 and throw Fedora on it, but unfortunately my workstation needs Windows as I use Fusion 360 daily on it, so thats a show stopper for me, but I use the Dell Laptop daily as my KZbin streaming device around the house, and for emails, we browser and SSH client, and generally everything other than CADD :)

[@petersimmons7833]

I switched 3 years ago. I tried Ubuntu, then Debian, then Pop!_OS and then I bought a System76 computer. I tried stock Gnome, then KDE Plasma and then settled on COSMIC.

[@stevejjd]

I switched to Rocky Linux - took the deep dive. Was painful learning curve but I haven’t looked back.

[@Hatch3dLabs]

I was testing 3 machines with Linux Mint earlier this year. Now I’ve moved my Mac Mini to the side and have built a new machine with Linux Mint as my main machine. I converted 7 of 8 machines to Mint. Only keeping one offline Windows 11 machine for two specific games. I’m done with Windows. Thanks for sharing your history!

[@dansanger5340]

I'm definitely using Linux a lot more in recent months, but I have multiple computing devices (Mac, Linux Mint, Windows, Android, iPad, and Open Media Vault), and don't anticipate ever switching exclusively to one operating system, even for laptop/desktop. That being said, Linux Mint has quickly become a favorite.

[@Tinfoilhat311]

My son (Masters in CS) just built me a Framework laptop (Amd) with Linux mint. It does everything I need it to do and is rock solid stable. Nice having a software engineer for a son!!!!

[@Fiskaba]

I’m all in Linux Mint now, it runs everything I used on windows and even runs some games better. I don’t think I’ll go back, just don’t need to.

[@JoePosillico]

I've been daily driving linux for quite a while, maybe since 2010. Used many distros, but currently running Arch btw.

[@jackthatmonkey8994]

I use Linux Mint Ubuntu Edition. As soon as the Mint Team achieves feature parity I will switch to debian edition I think. Great experience. I'll stick with it until I feel very knowledgeable with it. I hope to convince people around me to make the switch to Linux and I consider mint to be most friendly to those particular people around me

[@pcfabris]

kde 6 and Gnome 46 performance, even on older intel hardware (circa 2012), got me on board.

[@monkeyrebellion117]

2024 is most likely my Linux year. I'm working on cutting down to a VM and my gaming box for Windows. Everything else is on Mint with 1 Bazzite exception.

[@matthew3353-t3o]

Been using Linux daily since 2001. I started with Slackware and haven't looked back. For work and some things I like Debian or Red Hat based Distros, but still prefer Slackware for most things.

[@FloridaDave-i6j]

after 24 hours offline , Windows 11 Pro has soo many issues just booting . They went away soon as I connected back to the internet. That was the final straw that pushed me away to Linux for most of my machines. I am hopping between PopOS and KDE Neon/Kubuntu right now trying to make my mind up. I prefer Debian based version cause I am somewhat familiar with the cli already .

[@sirstabbybeard337]

windows 10 was directly responsible for switching me to linux. i installed 10 started puking, called a good friend who had been on linux since high school. he helped me make the switch. best decision ever. windows is barf tastic

[@chaosfenix]

I do think that Linux is getting a lot more popular that even we might realize and the proverbial year of the Linux desktop may have passed us by without us even noticing. I mean stat counter says that Linux is up to 4.55% in the recent report. Admittedly that is still relatively low but it doesn't tell the whole story. ChromeOS is 1.73% which is basically just another Linux distro anyway so combined you would get up to 6.28%. That is a bit better but honestly is still a little lacking. My biggest question when looking at statcounter though is the Unknown Category which is pretty high at 6.77%. I would argue that those unknowns are likely also Linux desktops as Windows and OSX are pretty well known and classifiable OSs. Microsoft and Apple also have put in a lot of work to make it so that you cannot modify the operating system even if you are the admin so the likelihood of erroneous reporting from those two is minimal. Linux on the other hand has a lot of things that could cause unknowns in Stat Counter's data. The first is the sheer number of distros. Are the mechanisms they are using going to be able to properly classify every Linux distro from things like peppermintOS, GarudaOS, EasyOS, or GoboLinux? Then due to the controls you have on Linux there is a much higher chance that the tracking mechanisms will be blocked in a Linux distro. Even if it is a separate blocking mechanism like adblock or a pihole I would argue that the users that are likely to install one of those things are much more likely to run Linux than the general population especially since with a pihole you are either running it on Linux as well or you are running it is docker which itself is much better on Linux. I guess my point is that Linux may not have 4.55% market share after all but if you include everything here you may be much closer to 10% and as high as 13% which considering that OSX is only 15.5% is actually pretty impressive.

[@mattgphoto]

I'm 2.5 months into my Pop OS journey, I've tried to switch from Windows as I hate the direction the OS is going. Unfortunately, when I DO get the craving to play some games in my Steam Library, I can't play every game. I don't love tinkering around for hours to figure something out that 'just works' in windows like I used to. I'm more comfortable in command line, and have had linux cli experience for over 10 years. But for gaming alone, I sadly am likely going back to Windows.

[@al3nmicl]

Linux user since 2010 (Ubuntu 10.04). Since then I’ve always had one computer with a distro running on it

[@jojoba619]

I still use both Linux and Windows. I run GNS3 primarily on my Linux laptop because it runs better in Linux than it does on Windows. I run Microsoft applications on my Windows laptop.

[@ThisIsEduardo]

i am ready to ditch windows !!

[@Ajicles]

Nah

[@Simte]

Best decision you could make.

[@mason8714]

Good luck with that

[@seansingh4421]

Be smart, Use BTRFS so you can always revert back in case something goes wrong

[@mrrdwchldrn5056]

Great decision! PopOs, Ubuntu or Linux Mint are great distro's to start of with

[@brandonchappell1535]

PC im on now is Pop_os (22.04, dont bother with cosmic yet its a trainwreck) but got a couple installs of MX which is also really nice to use, and lower on resources, conky out the box is handy too. Unfortunately i use a special mouse for FPS games (sandio 3d) due to my disability, which is a company that went bust, with no linux version, and i couldn't get sorted with wine. But all my non gaming pcs i try run linux!! Screw the evil tech overlords i say !

[@someren2349]

Ditches windows and office 365 this year. PopOs and nextcloud. All I need. My son and his friends play games on steam without any problems. So happy linux user here.

[@CamdogXIII]

I just got my framework 13 and setup Ubuntu on it this morning! it was literally 'next next next finish'... crazy compared to back in the day where you'd spend hours/days googling all the CLI commands to even get graphics drivers to work.

[@Yamahog]

22 yrs now for me. ... I was delving into it as a replacement about 1 yr before Vista went XP.. And when XP said bye-bye, drives got scrubbed and RH got installed.... then fedora .... and yeah, BSD spins, then Linux spins again. After Mucho PC upgrades, ... taking off M$ each time, I have finally settled down a bit. Today, MX on both boxes and a lappy with MX, that are, ... yes, .... bridged with Barrier. So Currently, My AMD box, is the server , and is sitting between my Tosh, and my Intel I4 box. Stay Safe.

[@Yamahog]

Ohh Yeah, I forgot to add in that each of the boxes and the lappy are dual monitor set-ups. ,.... so when all are active, one mouse 6 screens, with a capacity of 40 desktops for each ...... what the heck am I going to do with a total 120 virtual desktops..... Nuff said.

[@ikkuranus]

My first linux experience was running counter-strike servers back when it was still a mod for half-life. I was using mandrake at the time.

[@hubert9111]

3 of my 4 pcs are on linux and have been for a year only the gaming one left, but that dosnt seem to be in the near future

[@davebilson]

Currently running POP OS on a Lenovo X1 Extreme laptop, Elementary OS on my Mid 2015 15 Macbook Pro, I have an old Eee PC 1005 HA that originally ran Windows XP (I purchased it for my wife, but she never used it so it is like new.) I installed the 32 bit version of Bodhi Linux on it, but they dropped support for 32, so it is currently running Debian 12 Bookworm (32 bit). I am trying to install Linux on a Late 2009 iMac 27 Inch, but I havent managed to get it working. The live USB works fine, but when I reboot I get a black screen. I think it is to do with a lack of support for the ATI Radeon HD 4850 GPU.

[@TomClaessens]

I run Arch, btw! Just kidding - I went Debian and then PopOS for my personal computer system once it was clear that W11 wasn't compatible with my older hardware. However I still find MacOS the best of both worlds. The careful attention to a "perfectly crafted" UI but all the popular tools at your disposal without the need of running virtual machines. (like Lightroom, Photoshop, etc.) If I wasn't that into photography, or didn't think Gimp & darktable/rawtherapee were such a mess, I'd be using Linux. Right now I only use my Macbook Pro and decommissioned my desktop. However I converted it into a server, which is now running Proxmox.

[@bradw256]

Thanks for the video. My biggest issue is that I can't seem to breakup with Adobe Acrobat Pro. I manage a repo of scanned documents, and I've not found a good substitute for Acrobat Pro + Windows. The search continues. Otherwise, I use Linux Mint and ChromeOS Flex on my other boxes.

[@phildegruy9295]

I have used PopOS for about 3 years on an old slow laptop. It has been trouble free and a very good OS just slow as it is a crap HP laptop so I don't use it much on a daily basis. PopOS really is click, click, click, done. My other laptop is a high end Thinkpad (I9, 2x1TB m.2s, 96GB ram) with Windows11 as I have to work with Adobe products like Photoshop, Lightroom Classic, Dreamweaver, etc. and a few other windows only specific software (some will run in Boxes) otherwise I would be using PopOS on it. I have found that Windows11 breaks something on every update and has done that since it came out. It recently has been forcing "features" I don't want or need.

[@Indianhomelaber]

Already ditched windows this year after copilot shift. Used to run it as dual boot. Now as main desktop OS (Arch with hyprland wm)

[@smccrode]

Are you still using MediaWiki for client documentation?

[@LAWRENCESYSTEMS]

no

[@peterfixit7221]

i like fedora based distros. currently going between nobara and bazzite

[@warthunder1969]

I've been exposed to Linux since the early 2000s.... some red hat CD my brother wanted to try on my computer. I myself didn't try Linux again until 2015, around the 14.10 release of Ubuntu. I've bounced around to many distros since then but I decided due to Linux Mint being the best expereince I'd had and Windows 10 being annoying I went all in 3 years ago and started converting everything to linux at the house here that was possible. 3 years now on Linux and its still wild to me how long its been and how well things have gone (it has not been without issue but it has been less problematic)

[@oliveirajmr]

They main issue for users in Linux is actually still software fragmentation! Distro packages vs flatkpaks gor exemple... m9st will not know when it's best to use one over the other. This will end up hitting brick walls, getting frustrated and give up. What percentage of people are willing to go dig up articles or KZbin videos trying to find out why the softwwre they needs isn't working?

[@Arch7z]

apart from Arch Linux, i use Pop!_OS, i love Pop!_OS, i know is not so advance or the best option for performance, but nonetheless i love it

[@cryptomnesiac]

Nice glasses, what brand are they?

[@Destide]

We're prob about the same age and I had a similar journey with Linux jumping to Mint when it shipped the mp3 codecs where Ubuntu didn't

[@Gerrit-Max]

I installed linux mint after my laptop f'ed up and wouldn't let me back in to windows 7. Bit of a challenge at first but getting used to things a bit. Only thing I sometimes find a problem is finding the right software to do certain things. For example, I need a drag and drop visual website builder that works on linux but that's harder to find than I was hoping.

[@H-RutherfordHill]

I use N-Able and I can’t easily remote into client PCs in Linux 😢

[@mrrdwchldrn5056]

Ditched MS 4 years ago, been running Ubuntu or Fedora as my GoTo distro's

[@eds464]

I started in 2008 on the ps3 with yellow dog linux before they discontinued . 1 year later moved on to ubuntu on a used desktop. Never really took the time to create a foundation. Abandoned linux after 2010 and came back in 2021 to be serious. Now with cachyos gnome/kde .

[@hal263]

Totally agree Linux has made leaps and bounds and is actually a really good alternative to Windows, however it's still not there yet, either from an end-user perspective, or from an IT administration perspective. Mac OS is looking to be the leader these days. It just works out of the box and is not horrible like Windows. Windows has been hot garbage after Windows 7, with no signs of improvement on the horizon.

[@thomasjones4131]

garuda dragonized gaming edition vs cachyos vs nobara? should I stay with garuda dragonized gaming edition or moved to cachyos ? Is garuda dragonized gaming edition a very good arch gaming distro ? i have a all team red(amd) build.

[@Bob_Smith19]

I’ve switched my kids entirely, currently on Pop . I cannot switch entirely due to some legacy programs. Thankfully they don’t require the internet so I can keep using them on Win10 on an offline only machine. At this point I will switch over completely and not look back.

[@LiveWireBT]

You should check, there is a good chance that these apps run now with Proton/Wine. I never thought Wine would have any success until I got a Steam Deck and understood what Valve did for over a decade together with Collabora. If it doesn’t run on Linux, some really does not want it to run on Linux, and that number has become very low from my point of view.

[@postnick]

As a home desktop user, I used it in college in 2008-2010 off and on until I bought a macbook. Then with COVID work from home, I Distro Hopped a ton in 2020 and have just kind of stuck to it on my laptops and desktops since then. I don't game so I don't care.

[@ToucheFarming]

i started using Linux I think at the age of 8. I've switched between windows and Linux but after windows 11 I've fully switched to Linux

[@davorinrusevljan6440]

Switched cca 10 years ago. Ubuntu, kvm for virtual machines. This spring I had semi plan to switch to nix, but then all that political thing blew, and I am too scared to touch it with 10 feet pole. Oh yes I was running proxmox for about year as VM farm, that was fun.

[@tarajoe07]

I've recommended Ubuntu for a long time. Now I recommend PopOS