1. It fulfill all my needs. Stable, speedy, highly customizable. No, Windows and macOS are just not that customizable.

2. It is free! Free as in speech and free as in beer. Yes, you can pay to get Linux-related software or services, but usually you can get everything legally without cost of money.

(I use Linux as my primary OS for two decades.)

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Question for you (and Linux users in general): do you have a background in IT, coding, etc.?

Speaking as one: nope.

No.

Yes, but I'm fairly new to (GNU/)Linux.

Thanks, and sorry to hijack. Seemed like an opportunity to ask a question I'd been wondering.

I use MacOS because I generally like the way it works. Freely customizable OSes seems like more headache than its worth for me. *shrug* Knowing me, I'd just fuck it all up anyway. ;)

I use Windows because that's where all the big name games are, and features far better (backwards) compatibility in a lot of cases.

I'm in the "yes" camp. I use Linux as my main dev OS in fact - it's leaner and does less things behind my back.

I use Linux because:

1. Windows changing (first in Windows 8 then with what 10 ended up being) made me keen to find a platform that was not built on personal data gathering or reducing my ability to do things easily in the OS. Compare where Windows was in terms of user control vs what Windows 10 is now for the majority of users.

2. I picked Linux as it is open source and that means it makes it hard for things inside it to be hidden or harmful for the end user; lots of eyes on the code tends to get things reported.

3. It's pretty secure for the most part. Not 100% bullet proof, but much safer than any type of Windows.

4. It's free, like properly free.

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Overall it's been a fine OS for the three years i've been running it and all my internet is run via Linux now. I keep Windows just for games and will stick with Windows 7 as my last Microsoft OS.

It's quite a liberating feeling once you have made the jump :)

I'm with you on this. My desktops are running Windows 7. I made the mistake of buying a WinX laptop. After hours of tinkering you can get it to look, and run like 7. But its an OS built on Spyware, not to mention the many features removed like a DVD player. I can't believe I had to throw VLC on a brand new machine just to watch a movie.

So when my current rigs die, I will have no choice but Linux.

After Win10's first or second (can't recall) major update, it got too slow to work on my Celeron + spinning rust HDD. And the Win8 the machine came with, was a Windows with Bing version, so I no longer have a Win8 license to fall back on.
So on that machine, I don't have much choice. Linux it is.

Also, I like that the way a classic, no hand-holding, distro just works, and keeps working without odd little quirks coming and going from time to time, like a peripheral refusing to work on wednesdays with a full moon.
Once you've set it up, of course.

If I still had the time to maintain it, I'd be using the absolutely rock-solid Slackware, but since I don't even have the time to seriously dent my gaming backlog, I run Debian. Easy to install, but doesn't hide the nuts'n'bolts too much.
The user-friendly distros (Ubuntu, Mint, RedHat, Mandrake^H^H^H^H^Hdriva^H^H^H^H^H^Hgeia) seem only marginally more stable than Windows, IMHO.

And, as the question came up, I've been programming and working with electronics for 30+ years and using Linux for 20+.
So yes, I know how to get it working. Including writing the necessary support code for a keyboard's non-standard wheel implementation.

I could just say "me too", since all three of your statements apply to me as well, but instead I'll be more specific.

I use Linux because old habits are hard to break. Linux became usable* at exactly the right time for me: just as the Amiga was as good as dead, and PC clone hardware was cheaper and sufficiently capable to replace it, and I knew just enough UNIX to get by already. With Linux, I could switch to cheap hardware with a future without having to switch to MS-DOS/Windows (actually, my first PC clone was given to me, and ran along side my Amiga for a long while). Now I'm just too used to it to want to try anything else (and what else is there that's any good, anyway? I still feel like I'm wearing a straitjacket whenever I use Windows or MacOS, and the BSDs don't have the hardware or 3rd party software support). Same goes for my current distro of choice, actually: I get more frustrated with it as time goes on, but there are no alternatives worth the effort of switching to. I'd probably just have to maintain anything I actually use myself again. Same goes for a lot of the software I use regularly, too. I made some changes early on, but I've been using fvwm, rxvt (actually urxvt now), zsh, xjed, etc. for too many years now.

* Some people will never consider Linux to be usable (see e.g. the "Why use Linux?" thread). In 1994, Linux was good enough for me. I could still use DOS/Windows if necessary to launch games, just so I didn't have to spend too much time in the "OS".

Off Topic: The title just reminded me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HaqxxgPoEE