8 Reasons I Switched From Windows to Linux

There Was Light…

I used Windows for most of my life. I just accepted that it was there during my childhood in the 90’s, but I only started to really pay attention to Windows when my family had first gotten an HP desktop with Windows XP in the year 2004.

Experiencing the jump from an aging Windows 98 system to a capable XP machine was incredible. I didn’t quite realize it at the time, but Windows XP would go on to be my favorite Windows ever. I loved tweaking and customizing my system with the uxtheme.dll patch and visual styles I would download all around the web.

…And Then There Was Darkness

Vista came along. A few years after it launched, I bought a cheap laptop at Best Buy for a Black Friday deal, and, wouldn’t you know it? It came with Vista.

I did not like Vista. At all.

I wasn’t alone. Looking back, I know the hardware hadn’t quite caught up to Vista’s minimum requirements, but that didn’t make the experience of running Vista on a mid-range 2007 Toshiba any less painful. The OS slogged on my hardware like a fat man in a tuxedo trying to run a marathon.

I had a part-time job at the time, but the idea of spending over $100 on a Windows XP key just to “upgrade” seemed like too much.

Trying Linux for the First Time

That’s when somebody, I forget who or how, suggested I just install Ubuntu if I didn’t like Vista. After all, I could download it legally for the low price of FREE. I gave Ubuntu 8.04 LTS a spin and fell in love with how different and quirky computing could be. I could tweak things to my liking and make everything feel fresh just like the days I would tweak XP. A few years ago in 2020, I even went as far as digging up the Ubuntu 8.04 ISO and giving it a spin in a VM to relive some GNOME 2 nostalgia.

Looking back in hindsight, I thought I was a Linux expert at the time, but I realize now that I was a victim of the Dunning-Kruger Effect. I was a moron who thought that putting “sudo” at the start of a command automatically fix everything without understanding how. I would distro hop repeatedly (Kubuntu, OpenSUSE, and a few other distros I can’t really remember), but always end up back on Ubuntu, and running into an issue here or there would instantly prompt me to give up and reinstall the whole system all over again instead of trying to fix it.

However, I stopped running Linux regularly by the middle of 2010. But what changed for me? It came down to two things:

1. I built a powerful gaming PC for the first time. As a result, I had no problems running Windows 7 on my hardware, and I did want to play games without relying on workarounds like Wine.
2. I didn’t like where Ubuntu was headed at the time with the Unity Desktop. The launch of GNOME 3 didn’t have me excited for the future of desktop Linux either.

In hindsight, there are things I could have easily considered to keep running Linux, but I was dumb. I didn’t think consider running a different desktop environment, learning how to use a window manager, or just learning more about Linux. Plus, with my shiny, new gaming PC, I wasn’t limited to low-spec laptops anymore. Why run Linux to eke out performance if my new PC was strong enough to run Windows 7 without issues?

Using Windows for Years

So I was back on Windows, but a lot of my computing experience was rather lackluster. I mean, sure, Windows 8 came along, and I recalled not liking it like many others. However, I at least understood why Microsoft designed it the way they did; that still didn’t mean I liked it, but I got the logic.

Around the time Windows 8.1 dropped as a major update, it became abundantly clear that the market wasn’t going in the direction Microsoft had expected, where computers, tablets, and phones had a grand technological convergence and Windows would run consistently on all three.

It didn’t help matters much that Microsoft felt the need to disrupt the old workflow that its users had become comfortable with since the days of Windows 95. I, of course, am talking about the Start Menu being replaced by a Start Screen.

Regardless, it didn’t really bother me too much. Not that I was a fan of the changes, but I felt it was easy to install a third-party tool to restore the familiar Start Menu. I know there were several great, free options, but I still shilled out a little cash for Start8 from Stardock back then.

After a few mishaps with my Windows 8.1 setup, I had to do a clean install, but simply reinstalling from my Windows 7 Professional disk proved to be much simpler and, after just a few minutes of using it again, more desirable. It was still supported at the time around 2013, so why not stay on Windows 7? Besides, there were already plenty of themes and tweaks available for Windows 7. I recalled downloading a nice theme that made my taskbar look like brushed, opaque glass. I believe it was from Cleo Desktop, but they don’t seem to have the exact theme available anymore. With a minimal background to match, it was gorgeous and I only wish I still had screenshots of it.

Then Windows 10 Came Along

I saw the notification tray pop up one day notifying me how I was eligible for a free Windows 10 upgrade. After looking into it, I was even allowed to completely skip Windows 8 and 8.1 in my upgrade path; I could go straight from 7 to 10 with no issues.

Then I upgraded.

I was dismayed by how flat and boring everything looked, a complaint I had with the whole Windows 8-era aesthetic. Gone were the delightfully skeuomorphic designs of shiny, solid bars and glass-like surfaces, replaced by flat colors and surfaces. But you know what? People at the time largely didn’t care about that; all that mattered was the Start Menu was making its big comeback. But since I used Start8, it wasn’t news for me. In fact, I thought the live tiles in the Start Menu were annoying and overengineered for the likes of a desktop system. They looked great at the time on Windows Phone 8, sure, but I didn’t want them on my PC.

There were many little, incremental updates to Windows 10, as Microsoft promised it would be the last version of Windows ever released (humorous considering that Windows 11 now exists). But I was generally okay with Windows 10 despite how plain and drab it looked. Microsoft did try to spice things up by enabling a dark mode, but it was dull as expected. Your choices, much like using macOS today, boiled down to light mode or dark mode.

Coming Back to Linux

Eventually, I found myself wanting something different for my day-to-day computing, and I decided to give Linux another look in 2020 during the lockdown. I had nowhere else to go, so I decided to install Kubuntu for the first time in over a decade.

I fell in love with it. Despite running into occasional snags with snap packages or not really knowing how to install a few things, my computing experience improved drastically. Plus, I had my customization back! I could pick popular color schemes like Dracula, Nord, Gruvbox, Solarized, and many more. I could change window decorations to any style I liked. I could set any keyboard shortcut my heart desired. I could see that Linux had improved tremendously over the past decade.

The best part? I finally knew what I was doing when running Linux.

I eventually checked out Arch Linux in a virtual machine, but found myself liking it so much that I decided to replace Kubuntu with it. (Que the “i use arch btw” jokes.) I considered this would be one of many distro-hops and that I would eventually find myself back on Kubuntu sooner or later, or that I would perhaps settle with another distro entirely.

I’m still running the same Arch system daily three years later. Never reinstalled.

I’m more than happy with Arch Linux these days, although I used my Linux knowledge when I shopped for a laptop in 2021. I bought a Lenovo X1 Carbon Gen 8 with Fedora Workstation preinstalled, and I’m still running that for work-related tasks. I went as far as setting up the same workflow and color scheme across both my Fedora and Arch setups.

So Why Did I Leave Windows Again?

I had a few reasons I was already wanting to get away from Windows by the time I had switched, although one of them seems apparent by now.

Reason 1: Lack of Customizations

For someone who liked theming the system, great people out there still released packages to customize Windows 10 and patch files.

What made everything so painful, however, was Microsoft constantly releasing updates that broke everything.

I recalled getting an Arc-Dark theme setup for Windows 10 and loving it. Fast forward to a few weeks later when an update destroyed it all and I met a black screen on login.

I know the data say that most people don’t bother to tweak or customize their systems, that a simple light and dark mode is enough for most use cases, but I still didn’t like the fact that we regressed in this regard. People could call me a dork all they like for wanting to tweak with my UI, but why couldn’t I make Windows 10 look and feel the way I wanted like with Windows XP? What was so wrong about that? Would it have killed anybody to at least make it less difficult to keep our themes and settings together without drive-by updates undoing it all? Sure, I could have gone to Stardock to download a third-party app like WindowBlinds, but why should I pay money for theming when I did it for free for so long?

I use computers frequently. If I’m going to be using a computer, it may as well be nice to look at. That’s why “ricing” a Linux system has always appealed to me.

Making it easier to use is also always welcome, which is why I love setting my own keyboard shortcuts and binds. In fact, I’m even willing to share my own personal setup for keyboard shortcuts. Those of you who know how fun it is to run a Linux system will more than likely “get” the appeal of this whole idea.

Shortcut	Action
Super + Q	Close focused window
Super + Shift + Enter	Open Alacritty
Super + B	Open browser
Super + R	Open Rofi prompt
Super + F	Open file browser
Super + L	Lock screen
Super + K	Open Thunderbird
Super + Shift + O	Open Obsidian

Reason 2: Desktop UI is King

I recalled seeing the doom and gloom just a decade ago regarding how the desktop PC was dead, that phones and tablets were coming in to replace everything. I was ready for them to try and pry my PC from my cold, dead hands.

Despite how capable phones and tablets have become since then, I still use my computer for nearly any task my phone could otherwise do. Checking my bank is nicer on a desktop browser than a dedicated mobile app. Accessing documents is much better with a hardware keyboard. Updating my budget is so pleasant when you have a numpad at the right. Transferring and moving important files is easier with a mouse and some cloud-syncing (I can even share them to a phone or tablet of choice this way).

Why is this such a point in why I switched? Because Windows 10 has signs that it was built on top of Windows 8, the OS that gambled (and lost) on a big PC, phone, and tablet convergence. Even now, with Windows 10 having a clearer identity as a desktop OS, I can still see remnants of the convergent design in the interface. The inconsistencies are unappealing, especially when you recognize the Control Panel from Windows 7 exists alongside the Metro UI settings menu. The latter was obviously designed for touch-screen users. There’s also the notifications bar feeling like it was designed with tablets in mind.

This has been a “thing” with Windows for the longest time, the feeling of legacy components being left somewhere in the operating system, but it became more egregious than ever with Windows 10.

In short, I want an operating system and UI that feels consistently like it was made for a PC, not some half-baked, hodgepodge system that tries to do everything with mediocre results. Linux delivers and Windows doesn’t.

Reason 3: Drive-By Updates

I give Windows some credit for at least trying to make this less of an issue, but I remember shortly after Windows 10 released and updates were awful. It was a time when you could leave your Windows machine on to do a long task. Maybe it was downloading a torrent, maybe it was rendering a video or 3D model, or perhaps it was whatever other task where you could conceivably walk away and check several hours later on the progress.

Then you came back and saw a fresh lock screen. You logged back in and saw a notification on how your updates were installed successfully. You would soon realize Windows found and update, applied it, and rebooted without asking. Whatever time-consuming task you were up to had to be resumed or restarted. It was worse if you tried said task overnight and woke up to the lock screen.

Windows 10 did try to alleviate this annoyance with more prompts and notifications asking for what specific time you would want to restart and install updates. However, it always felt like it wanted to railroad you into installing them. The notifications would always come back and nag you sooner or later. If you put them off long enough, you would eventually click to power off your system just to see “Update and Restart” or “Update and Shut Down” buttons with no other options to skip or postpone.

Microsoft accurately noticed security issues were usually caused by systems not having the latest and greatest security updates, so this was likely their solution to try and curb malware from spreading. I understood the reasoning, but I was never a fan of how everyone had to deal with it. Microsoft decided they knew better than the rest of us, and that’s why unwanted updates became so annoying.

Of course, as I mentioned before, updates usually broke my visual tweaks and customizations. I had to postpone them often if I wanted to keep my custom icons and visual styles, but sooner or later, they would trickle through and I would have to deal with the fallout.

Reason 4: Workflow

I could have easily lumped this in with Reason 1, but I feel it deserves a special mention.

Like many others out there, I once loved the tried and true Windows workflow. You could have satisfied me with a single taskbar on the bottom, a Start Menu on the left side, a notification icon tray on the right, and a window list in the center. Then I could manage floating windows to my liking and use window decorations in the top-right corner to minimize, maximize, or close any window.

I don’t really use that workflow anymore. These days, I’m somebody who has tiling windows, no window decorations, a single bar atop the screen, and a heavy emphasis on keyboard shortcuts.

Could I get Windows to work the same way? Not even close, because you can’t really change the Windows workflow.

If you like something more popular like the macOS workflow (which I still really did back in 2020, I admit), you can’t really get anything like it without some radical third-party software like Cairo Desktop. If you want optimizations to your window snapping or simply a Spotlight-like prompt, you’ll at least have the option to get Windows PowerToys, but why aren’t these utilities just built into Windows in the first place?

If you want anything like a global menu on macOS, window decorations to the left, or a centralized dock that behaves the same way, it’s going to be nigh impossible other than a third-party dock that behaves almost like the real thing on a good day.

The Start Menu and single taskbar suits a vast majority of people quite well. However, if you want to change things up, maybe optimize efficiency, maybe try something different, then you don’t have options.

I mentioned liking the macOS workflow for a while, which was why I ran KDE as my default desktop for a long time. I could easily add a panel at the top, set up a global menu, get my notifications tray in the top-right corner, and set up Latte Dock on the left side of my screen. With the right window decorations, color scheme, and folder icons, it could look just like a Mac if I wanted. Of course, at some point, I moved on and started using tiling window managers, but the point is I actually have all the options I like for customizing my workflow on Linux. Hell, KDE out of the box typically looks and feels a lot like a traditional Windows 7 system. If I ever miss the look and feel of Windows, I could scratch that itch without leaving Linux.

In my workflow, new applications and windows open up and split up my screen, maximizing the space available. I can snap my mouse across apps using keyboard shortcuts. I can move open apps to other screens and workspaces. If I ever decide this isn’t for me, I have limitless options.

But in the Windows camp? Windows 11 doesn’t even let you customize as much as you once could. You even need to activate Windows 11 just to move the Start Menu and quick launch icons to the left where they feel more familiar.

Reason 5: Unwanted Spookiness

I generally don’t have any issues helping developers improve their software with reporting and simple telemetry.

However, Windows 10 goes too far. In addition, it tries to opt you IN to everything possible upon setup. By switching anything off, the screens try to phrase everything as if you’re somehow missing out by switching settings off. I ended up trying to use third-party software like ShutUp10 or some other app just to try and limit it as much as possible.

But even then, Microsoft began to bundle and install software in Windows 10 without asking. Want to play an exciting game like Candy Crush Saga on your Windows system? Too bad, because it’s going to be installed on your system anyway. Want to install the Spotify app? It doesn’t matter if you prefer to run Spotify somewhere else because Windows will still install it for you. Wanted to use Cortana as your digital assistant (back when that was a feature)? Tough luck, because you couldn’t get rid of it without running a script through cmd.

There’s also the matter of Microsoft accounts. I finally caved at some point and just got one, but the workarounds to bypassing the Microsoft account got increasingly convoluted and harder to pull off than I would have liked. Still, I can easily understand why people just don’t feel like signing up for one; having an offline account on the system is much simpler. But why wouldn’t Microsoft just let you have the option? Obviously because everything tied to your Microsoft account is something they can access and monitor in some way.

And the worst part of all? The advertising. Microsoft has tested ads in the Windows 11 file explorer. I know there was a backlash against it and Microsoft admitted that they weren’t supposed to be seen at the time, but who’s to say that Microsoft won’t try to find some other shady way to push it again in the future? It’s not like Microsoft went on record saying it would never happen.

If you wondered why there were so many stalwarts who stuck to Windows 7 until the bitter end, this is part of the reason. However, Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 users weren’t safe for long; Microsoft backported the unwanted telemetry to those systems once Windows 10 was released.

Still, telemetry may not bother a good number of people. There are plenty swear by the fallacious creed of “nothing to hide, nothing to fear.” That same camp may adopt the idea that privacy somehow doesn’t matter because they were unable to protect some of their privacy and, therefore, they shouldn’t bother to protect any of it. Even ignoring how that mindset doesn’t make sense, telemetry and unwanted installations use up your system’s resources and storage space. Why squander your system’s power and capability?

Reason 6: Package Management

I won’t mince words here: The traditional way of installing things on Windows is garbage. In case someone needs a refresher on how the average Windows user installs apps, it goes something like this:

1. Go to your browser.
2. Search online for something you want to download and install.
3. Find the .exe file and download it.
4. Double-click it to install it.

Doesn’t seem so bad, right? Now factor in how:

• Search results can be manipulated into prioritizing malicious downloads that look like the apps you want to get.
• Updating is inconsistent from app to app.
• Installers might try to bundle in some toolbar or antivirus you don’t want.
• You get different apps from different sites. (Get App A from Website B, then App C from Website D, and so on.)

Don’t even get me started on updating the apps.

Meanwhile, in Linux Land:

1. Open a terminal.
2. Type a command to install or update.
3. Enter password and hit Enter to accept.

That’s really all you need to update a system in Linux.

Even if you wanted to forego the terminal for whatever reason, you could open some GUI app of your choosing to update or install software in a click or two. Even factoring in alternative package management methods like using git clone, installing Flatpaks, and so on, updating and installing your packages is much simpler and smoother with Linux than it is with Windows.

Microsoft has been aware of this for years now, which is why they announced a couple years ago how they were working on “winget,” their own solution to let you install and update packages from a PowerShell or Command Prompt window. While I imagine Windows users thinking this was a neat idea, it was largely met by longtime Linux users as mundane. Despite that, I’m sure other Windows power users already running Chocolatey or Scoop, two similar third-party cli package managers for Windows, found the announcement unexciting.

Reason 7: Security

This reason seems so obvious that it’s easy to wonder why I didn’t write about it sooner. However, I did touch upon it in the issue of drive-by updates. Microsoft seems to need to force updates more often on users than usual because of security.

Security has always been an issue with Windows, as malware devs and hackers target it due to its giant market share. They want to cast a wider net in hopes of catching more users rather than wasting time on operating systems that have a much smaller share.

To be fair to Microsoft on this one, I don’t think they can do a whole lot about the fact that so many people actively use Windows, and a few longtime users may mention that they’ve never gotten a virus once in over 10 or 15 years of running Windows. They might claim that you just need to be careful about what you do online. While that is largely true, the belief that you are invulnerable to any security threats could cause one to be less careful due to a false sense of security.

On the flip side of the coin, it’s also why I try to be careful when installing things on Linux, because that same false sense of security could compromise my own safety. Though I understand a Linux system is certainly not invincible, I at least feel better not having to spend money on antivirus, or that the latest ransomware won’t bother to attack my Linux desktop.

Reason 8: Windows is Slower Than Linux

What better way to end my list than the biggest, single reason I even gave Ubuntu a try in the first place?

Windows is less efficient than Linux. There’s no denying it. I can get a vanilla Linux system running with a window manager that uses under 500 MB of RAM on boot. I could only dream of getting that with Windows without the need to run some fancy debloat script on a fresh install.

It’s no secret that Linux is faster and more efficient. Getting anything done is faster and snappier with Linux than a Windows installation on equivalent hardware. If there’s any reason to switch, this one is one of the most appealing.

Conclusion

These are the 8 reasons I decided to switch away from Windows once and for all. While I do like gaming on a PC, I don’t do it often enough to justify using Windows regularly. Besides, with the advent of the Steam Deck and Proton, Wine getting better with age, and dedicated apps like Lutris, there’s really no reason for me to run it these days.

Do you use Windows or Linux on your desktop? Maybe macOS or BSD? Have you or have you ever considered switching? What do you think of your computing experience? What are some non-negotiables you have when using your computer?