Since it seems it's in circulation again, I think I'll share some of my experience switching to Linux.

I'm a slightly above-average user. I'm not afraid to use a terminal as long as I have some idea of what I'm doing. I'm not afraid to fix things myself if I have some idea of what the problem is and the solution feels comfortably in my skill level. Just to give you an idea of my tech literacy.

I grew curious February of last year. I had heard that Linux changed substantially since I last heard about it. So I decided to check it out. On the surface it was a little daunting, as you have so many versions or "distros" to choose from. So I boiled it down to the one that was heralded as the best option for beginners: Linux Mint.

It wasn't hard at all to get this setup. I had an old thumb drive and all I had to do was format it to be bootable and flash the ISO to it. Following tbat, I was just a reboot away to my very first experience with Linux.

Mint came with a handy installer that did all the heavy work for me. It even set up dualbooting, so I could experiment with it with the comfort that, if it didn't work out, Windows was right there.

But it couldn't have worked better for me! I challenged myself to spend a month on Mint without booting into Windows unless it was absolutely necessary to do so. And I never looked back. Mint's UI felt reminiscent of my Windows 7 days, comfortable and cozy. The general flow of everything worked with my muscle memory, rather than against it. And that smoothed out the times where I went *"this really isn't windows."*

There were new things to learn, and it was different. Not everything transferred 1 to 1. But it wasn't hard, and almost every game I played worked. The only two notable games I can think of that don't work as of now is Destiny 2 and League of Legends. Both because the devs won't let it, not because it's impossible.

Thanks to resources like Protondb, the Arch Wiki (helpful even if you don't use arch), Flathub, and channels like the Linux Experiment, all the things I needed to learn were presented in ways that were easy to understand. And it's very rare, if ever, that there's something I can only do with a terminal; most distros come with desktop environments that have a GUI to use, making them entirely point and click. Many of them are very familiar and customizable, making them easy to learn and entirely able to be bent to your preference and needs.

My experience surprised me. And February of last year was the last time I used Windows for something other than work (they wont let me put Linux on my work laptop).

I share this story because I see a lot of people voicing their concern over the path Windows is going down. And I'm not here to tell people that they're stupid if they don't switch. I'm here to show that there is an option. You do have a choice. Setting up Linux is easier than Windows these days. If people continue to use Windows I will trust they know their use case better than I do. But I want people to continue using Windows because they choose to, on their terms, not because they feel like there isn't another option. #linux #windows #Foss