Linux

Windows 10, but before Windows 11 was even leaked I believe.

I think it was win 8. I've dual booted excessively until dxvk basically made such a dent in the gaming exclusivity that I just stayed and enthusiastically followed it grow into perfection

For personal use it was probably Windows 98 SE.

For professional use i'm currently forced to use Windows 10.

Windows 11. One day my system just shit itself & I’d heard about Microsoft adding ads into Windows. So I figured if a SteamDeck can run games on Linux, so can my PC. Looked up what version SteamDeck ran, downloaded EndeavourOS since it’s Arch like SteamOS, and have been gaming on Linux since.

Windows 10 when I made the switch last summer. A full year now on EndeavorOS and I'll never go back.

I moved to Linux full time about a year after windows 10 released

Vista. Why the change to Linux? See previous answer.

Windows Vista

WinX. If you are asking what was the catalyst. Their seizmic change from attempting to listen to what customers want. To Cloud and AI first to exploit the customer. Security, and privacy means little to nothing.

Every product team no longer targets what the customers want, none. Everything is to extend AI and rent charging at all cost. A small team infiltrated Microsoft in early 2000’s and warped what success looks like within the company to profit, at any cost.

It was Windows 10 for me but it was not my first attempt.

The first time I failed to install linux was when I was a teenager in 2003. I don't remember which Windows version I had then, maybe 98, but I was hating it with a burning passion which hasn't improved with the next versions. It seems every new Windows version was specifically made to piss me off even more and make the experience of using my computer worse. I tried installing linux as soon as my parents bought a new computer and gave me the old one, chose Red Hat (not RHEL) because it had an installation guide that was marginally more understandable than what I found concerning debian, but it was still pretty lacking and I failed :(

Then last year I finally tried again after accidentally letting through a Windows 10 update ("accidentally" because I had a firewall blocking everything, especially Windows services). That was the update with fucking EdgeView, which broke all my work flow by breaking the CTRL+Arrow keys+Space to select multiple files and requiring to release and re-press the CTRL key each time. This came six months after I had to wipe my entire drive and reinstall Windows after getting infected, probably by cryptomining malware, by running a random exe from github to remove the Edge browser, which I only did out of desperation after all the other solutions to remove it failed (command line, powershell, registry, etc). To be fair to the malware though, it did remove Edge, and I can respect malware developers with professional ethics. I'm much less mad at the malware than I am at Windows for stressing me so much to resort to running randoms exes. Besides, there were so many times where random exes from the internet saved my sanity from Windows induced breakdowns...

As for the why :

• I don't want my OS deciding how I should use my computer.
• I don't want it to serve me piss and tell me that I should like it.
• I don't want it deciding what configuration I should be allowed to do, what needs to be hidden to make it as inconvenient as possible to change, and what it won't let me do at all unless I try third party apps to basically hack my system.
• I don't want it to stress me so much with the lack of control, transparency and understanding that I am often left in a burnout state, too mentally exhausted to attempt to change anything with my setup, all from the strain of constantly having to find very convoluted hacks for simple things while having no clue as to how or why anything works or doesn't work.
• I don't want it to prevent me from doing what I want to do. Even if what I want to do is incredibly stupid, let me do it and learn why it is stupid.
• I want to be able to actually understand how it works, at least somewhat.
• I don't want pre-installed apps, if I want something I am perfectly capable of installing it myself thank you very much.
• I don't want to have to spend 1-2 weeks debloating at each new reinstall.
• I don't want updates running automatically and installing random stuff, reactivating features I had disabled or resetting stuff I had configured, all without ever telling me what it's doing. I don't want to get so stressed by updates that I set my firewall to block the updater, and security be damned.
• I want to be able to choose how I interact with my computer and not be forced into one way decided for me.
• GIMME BACK MS-DOS ! Or any non graphical session. I don't care if I can do the same thing more easily and efficiently in a GUI, I want the option not to use one if only because it makes me happy. When I was a child and I thought computers were like magic, my parents showed me the magic spells to type in the DOS to run games from floppy disks or to launch Windows 3.11 and I felt like a computer wizard. I even read the MS-DOS manual that came with the computer, in secret because I wasn't supposed to actually use the DOS except to launch games or Windows, but it was just too fascinating to resist. Then Windows 95 came along and since then I've felt like a child being constantly condescended to.
• I don't want it to be a RAM blackhole.
• I don't want it to collect information on me.
• I don't want it to require an internet connection or an account that is not local.
• I don't want it to be controlled by a corporation.
• I want to be able to play video games (that's mostly what kept me from trying again to install linux for 20 years).

Since switching to linux and distro-hopping a lot I have added the following, which I hadn't even know were even possible before :

• I don't want anything at all preinstalled or preconfigured. Just give me a tty and let me waste my time building my system from there and learn how it works, maybe I'm crazy but it's fun (yes I ended up on arch btw).
• If I ever again have to use a desktop cluttered with shortcuts or a start menu I'm going to scream. I used to Windows+R most of my apps because I can't take the time wasted by endlessly clicking everywhere, but even that was a pain (rofi is great, rofi is awesome, rofi is god)
• I'm NEVER going back to floating windows. You'll take my tiler from my cold dead hands.

Definitely not going back =D

I used 11, but had tried linux when I used 10. I was never really trying to switch, more just distrohopping with windows in the mix, and eventually I just never went back.

Windows XP pre-SP1 at home. For Work I always had to use Windows.

Vista. Tried to make Ubuntu work for a while but that was a shit show back then... Moved over to OS X and I was home - a beautiful UNIX where everything just worked. Stayed there for close to a decade (Lion-Mavericks-El Capitan-High Sierra-Mojave), mostly on non-Apple hardware.

Sadly, the iOS-ization ramped up so I had to rip tons of iCloud related stuff everytime I did a fresh install and then Catalina killed off 32-bit apps and brought other irritants, so I tried Fedora 35 and escaped with close to no issues.

And here I am, on Fedora 40 five years later.

I've flirted with Linux for years, all the way back to Fedora Core 6. I still use Windows, so 11 is my most recent version, but it's stripped down using the AME playbook. I use it to play some games with anti-Linux anticheat. I also have a minimal Windows VM on my desktop for playing Destiny 2.

That being said, my primary computers run Arch (custom built desktop) and Fedora (Framework laptop) and I have zero intention of ever using Windows as a primary OS ever again.

I left Win8 to go full time on Linux. For several years before this, I used to host web sites professionally and build them so I was used to Centos and Debian servers but not comfortable enough to be able to manage them deeply. In other words, just enough to make them work, but more complex troubleshooting was not my strong suit.

I later landed a job where their primary systems are Linux based and through that training and learning, I became more comfortable in the CLI and have never looked back.

Windows 2000 was my primary desktop at the time, though I continued to use Windows XP, 7 and 10 both at work and home for various reasons. I still think Windows 2000 was peak Microsoft. Classic shell, minimal app spam, solid gaming performance, etc.

Windows 3.11 or Windows for Workgroups. Maybe they were the same thing, I don't really remember.

I needed reliable networking, the ability to process large documents (which word couldn't do at the time), and actual multitasking was nice. The system was a bit rough but quite usable. It's not as if Windows was great at the time anyway.

Looming back it was probably Windows XP as the last time I used Windows as my main OS. I switched not because Windows was enshittified like it is now, but because the FOSS movement sounded interesting to me. I loaded Ubuntu on an old laptop, and once I got drivers working it covered everything I needed besides gaming. As I became more of a casual player I used Windows less and less until now where I only use it at work. It's been an interesting journey.

The last property OS I used before Linux was OS/2 warp.

Windows Vista. I absolutely decked it out with free/open source software (LibreOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird, KDE for Windows) before I dual booted Windows and eventually made a more permanent switch. Never looked back.

I did have to use Windows for my old job (Win10 from memory?) but now I have a job where I can use Linux.

Next step is to switch my partner over from Windows 11 (she's already on board with the idea).

Windows 7, but newer versions were already a thing. If I recall correctly, I made the final switch around the time Windows 10 started becoming available to the general public, but I had been dual booting for a while then.

Started with Mint, btw.

Windows 10, still using it but am browsing distros and aim to switch before August. Most likely candidate for me right now is Pop! OS, but given that they have halted development for it to work on their own DE (by the looks of it at least) I may go for Fedora or regular Ubuntu instead.

Last Windows I used exclusively was 98. I dual-booted XP at home but gave it up when I realised Linux had everything I need and I never used the Windows partition. Still had to use Windows 7 at work for a few years but since then I've worked in a position where I can bring my own OS.

Since I was personally called out here, Windows 10 was my last home version of Windows, but it was earlier days of 10. For work, however, I manage about 1700 Windows workstations and servers, so I know all those problems still. To be fair, I've been running Linux in some form since before Ubuntu existed. I think it was Debian in 2001 or 2002 that was my first Linux desktop.

I “switched to Linux” from Windows 2000 but I have also had machines running with Windows and macOS during that time. My last work computer was Windows 11 ( but I hardly used it ).

Hard to really put into words what kept me in Linux. At times, it has required work and knowledge Windows would not have demanded of me. At the same time, Linux has been largely free of “nonsense”. It just always felt like home.

[ Edit: thinking about I more. I have used Linux since 1992 and honestly moved from primarily OS/2 to mostly Linux. I really liked Windows 2000 though and used it well into the XP era. ]

Windows 10. The reason I switched was pretty funny - I had previously bought a cheap SSD and moved my install over to it, and installed Arch on my HDD hoping to experiment with it.

I never really did that, but one day before Christmas my computer booted straight to Arch to my confusion, and after a while I figured out my SSD failed. I ended up installing gnome to have something to use in the meanwhile, since I wasn't gonna be buying a new SSD in the next few days, but then I just decided to stick with Linux. As I learned more about it I realised I was barely missing anything, and I preferred Linux for what I had.

Personally, XP.

Professionally, I've been subjected to Windows 10, but promptly installed Linux (and win 10 in a VM). I have refused job offers that insist on windows 10, and will refuse Mac centric press as well.

I still use Windows for work, but the last version I used on any of my personal computers was XP.

I’m trapped in Adobe’s ecosystem because my school contracts with Adobe to provide their softwares. Since Adobe stuff only works on Windows, I’m still on Windows.

Vista bricked my laptop after a year without a reliable way to recover. Made the switch over in 2009.

Windows wasn't my first operating system. I don't even remember what my first was, but it ran on top of DOS and had a 5 and a quarter inch floppy drive. I've used pretty much every windows desktop version since 3.1, but really only installed or maintained XP, 2000 server, and Windows 10 on my own hardware. But I've also installed and maintained various Linux and BSD distros since about the turn of the millennium, including a brief relationship with a Mac laptop with OSX.

There was never a switch. I always ran whatever I could get working that would get the job done. For some tasks that was Windows, either because it was good enough and came pre-installed or it was required by the software I needed to run for school or work. I've handed in many assignments on 3.5 inch floppies. I haven't maintained a server with windows since Windows2000 server. I've tried Slackware and Corel Linux. I bought SUSE Linux in a box from a big box store. I've gotten those brown Ubuntu install CDs in the mail. I remember being delighted with the development of BitTorrent because now my downloads would check themselves for consistency as they downloaded the ISO. No more getting to the end of a download only to discover the md5sum failed to check. I've used Knoppix and Clonezilla for system recovery.

There was never a change. I'm a tech nerd that likes Linux, not a Linux nerd that likes tech. But, it was the way windows kept destroying my Linux partitions that drove me away from dual booting and installing windows on anything in general. Also the windows situation with viruses, updates, and lack of security that drove me away unless compelled. Now windows lives on its own hardware or in a VM for me.

For me it was the jump between Windows 7 and Windows 8. I hated the UWP apps, the "simplified" control panel an d the full screen and tiled start menu. It worked great as a phone UI but terrible on desktop. I used it for like a month and switched to Linux Mint, which I felt was closest to W7 at the time.

I switched two times. WinXP to Mandriva, because of devastating rootkits. Win8.1 to Mint because of performance decrease.

I had dabbled with Linux before, both at home and work. Stood up a server running Ubuntu LTS at home for serving my personal website and Nextcloud. But, gaming kept my main machine on Win10. Then I got a Steam Deck and it opened my eyes to how well games "just worked' on Linux. I installed Arch on a USB drive and booted off that for a month or so and again, games "just worked". I finally formatted my main drive and migrated my Arch install to it about a week ago.

I'm so glad that I won't be running Windows Privacy Invasion Goes to 11.

Right after Windows 8 got released, I upgraded to it on my 2011 budget laptop. I don't know what exactly the problem was, I think there was both a problem with there being a high chance of not getting any output on the display after waking up from hibernation, and it also frequently bluescreened when booting. I was playing around with various distros before then but that was when I nuked Windows and switched to it as primary OS.

(That bluescreen bug on the laptop still wasn't fixed with Windows 10 when that came out. Lmao)

I still use windows. Theres a bunch of stuff which needs it.

Seriously though, for about twenty years Microsoft has released patches on Tuesday. Don’t wait till Saturday, go ahead and restart on Tuesday. It’s easy and predictable and more often the patches are important.

i moved from w10. always felt that it requires a lot of fighting to keep it from doing stuff i don't want it to do. used win11 on our school computers and decided to switch because that garbage ain't coming near my hardware. and it's satisfying to use something that not a lot of people understand about. i distrohop every now and then, but always come back to mint because no other distro fully works on my system.