Switching to Linux: hey this is actually pretty good
Ever since I've started using PCs, I've been using ones with Windows as its OS, going from my dad's XP PC to having my own one with 7, until eventually upgrading to 10. Then, a few years after upgrading to 10, Microsoft announced Windows 11, which from the trailer looked pretty interesting, but then came the first bad thing, increased system requirements.
Now, it's understandable that system requirements change overtime, but there was a certain thing that didn't allow me to upgrade, that being TPM.
Basically, my entire PC which was up to date in most components couldn't upgrade to a new version of Windows because of a single thing my motherboard lacked, and it's perfectly functional, so I didn't want it to go to waste either. Then, things like intrusive AI Functions and changes started being incorporated into Windows 11 (remember Recall?). That's when I started looking for alternatives, as I saw that Windows 10's EOL was getting closer day by day and I didn't want to upgrade to 11 after everything Microsoft was doing.
While looking for options, I've decided to go with Ubuntu at first... My PC bricked at the next day, it didn't turn on at all. I discarded Linux as a possible option for the time being.
Skip forward to a few years later, and Microsoft started adding some bad functions from Windows 11 to 10 too. I still remember when after a Windows Update my search bar was replaced by Copilot, ew. I was already getting tired of Microsoft's Shenanigans, and the thing that finally made me give up with Windows is when they replaced my background with a rotation of ones they picked.
It's pretty insignificant on the grand scale of things, but Microsoft was already pissing me off with what it was doing. I want to use my PC the way I configured it to, I don't want to deal with OneDrive changing my entire file directory just so that when I remove it, everything goes missing. I don't want an AI bothering me to use it whenever I search for something on my system. I don't want to change settings constantly after I've specifically set them up a specific way. I just want to use my PC the way I chose it to be.
Now, why did I tell you all about this Windows/Microsoft stuff? Because I wanted to show my frustration of dealing with Windows/Microsoft, which increased overtime as Windows 10's EOL kept getting closer, so much so that I decided to give Linux a try again.
Ever since my PC bricked with Ubuntu, I saw lots of people going against using Linux, citing reasons like "its very unintuitive/too tech heavy" and its "lack of compatibility with most things", which I ate up as, well, my PC literally wouldn't start the next day after installing it.
I decided to ask a friend of mine (thank you Null!) who knows about Linux for help in installing a distro for my pc so I could dualboot it (in case something went wrong), this time going with Mint.
I expected things to be very hard, that everything could break at a moment's notice, but... Everything went fine? Obviously I had to learn a few things here and there, but I didn't have any issues, it ran far more smoothly than Windows 10, I could customize it the way I wanted to very easily, I barely had to use technical things such as the terminal (and if I did, a quick google search made it pretty easy to see what I needed to do) and almost everything I use, may it be for gaming or for creative works, worked out of the box via native ports or with Proton (a compatibility layer), the only loss I had was with my Photo Editing software, but even then there's plenty of options to go with.
It went so well, that a few weeks after I decided to move fully to Linux (this time, installing it all by myself! my PC didn't die at the next day unlike last time, too).
It's interesting how when people mention Linux and its distros, there'll be a few to lots of people (depending on the place) going against it, when it does the job quite well. Sure, there's a few things that could and can improve, but for my everyday use it works pretty well (in some cases, even better than on Windows), so I can't really complain about it.
I'm just glad that my PC will be able to keep working without issues after the 14th of October of 2025, and it doesn't become E-Waste like it originally seemed like it was going to happen. Linux gave my PC another chance to keep living on, and for that I'm grateful
A few days ago I decided to do my first distrohop to Fedora (with the KDE Spin), because I wanted to give KDE Plasma and Wayland a try, and again, I needed to learn a few things here and there, but it was pretty straightforward, even more so than I originally expected (considering I used to hear that Fedora/KDE is pretty buggy), and by the looks of it, I'll keep using Linux-based distros for the times to come.
What i'm trying to say is, thanks linux for fixing my marriage and paying my debts
-AnubiArts, still uses a PC