Recently moved to Arch Linux after 25+ years on Windows. It was a LOT of work (my whole career is on the computer and I have a lot of custom scripts and tools), but I'm so happy with the result.

No more hundreds of background processes sapping my battery life and performance.

No more blatantly manipulative ads every time Windows updates, about how I won't be "safe" unless I sign up for OneDrive, switch to Edge, and subscribe to Office Live Dynamics Pro Limited 365, because now word processing and spreadsheets are a subscription for some fucking reason.

No more 3 different generations of UI styles sloppily bolted together (though Linux desktop styling can be plenty sloppy).

No more news feeds in my start menu and task bar filled with the outrage and statistically improbable evil human acts of the day, no doubt with MS ads, alongside prods to install Candy Crush and other crap.

No more whack-a-mole MS telemetry I have to read obscure guides to find out how to turn off.

No more needing to sign in to a FUCKING CLOUD ACCOUNT to use my own computer.

No more stupid crap like copilot, sucking screenshots and forwarding them to MS and OpenAI, and other sparkly AI icons on every damn thing.

Haven't booted Windows in a month or two. So happy to have switched - my computer belongs to me again, for the first time in a long while

> No more whack-a-mole MS telemetry I have to read obscure guides to find out how to turn off.

My routine at some point after moving to W10 was to create/update system partition image, turn off all bypasses/tweaks that kept update components tamed. Then do the update, reboot and quickly run through all setting that in the past tend to reset "itself", apply tweaks again and reboot to see if these still work, and finally - look up if some processes or services were added.

I was dualbooting, using VM's for years and pandemic gave me something to do so I finally escaped from Microsoft grip.

Tho, it wasn't issues-free ride. Mint and Manjaro would randomly soft-hang for no reason; some Manjaro updates would made me few times reinstall the system (that would be still faster than manually correcting everything). I had to freeze GPU drivers for older card because newer ones would crash games. Keeping unified look across all types of applications is indeed a sloppy task - especially with all Gnome shenanigans regarding theming but atm is still doable. But overall, I'm happy and I see how much changed and improved since Mandrake 8 times when I tried Linux for the first time.

For majority of people, for doing basic tasks plus playing some games Linux should be fine.

So refreshing isn’t it? It’s like having an OS that’s actually designed for you, not them. Imagine!

Occasionally I will boot into a Windows partition because I have to do something windows-only. I’m so out of the Windows world these days that I mentally have to prepare myself not to get too fired up with it all, just calm down do the thing and get out. :)

Agree that it’s a lot of effort to switch though, so good for you on making the switch!

2 years ago i replaced my last win10 installation with linux mint and i literally never think about going back. i am a pretty technical person and i still run into issues sometimes that take a few sessions to resolve though. i wish it was an easier sell to my friends. i began to feel extremely creeped out by my computer running windows which was was ultimately motivated me, but i not only avoided the evils of microsoft, i feel much more in-control and capable of doing more on linux.

it's crazy to me when my friends will say shit about configuration and i'm like, what's the tradeoff? configuring windows to just work like a normal computer is MUCH more work. the only way to put in no work is to be farmed for data and treated like a child by your own computer.