Windows vs Linux

The classic "Debate" that's been going on longer than I've been alive, but has become seemingly become more popular as a topic as the years have gone on for various different reasons (shoutout the Steam Deck! love that thing). So why am I bringing it up, might you ask? Am I going to spend 3 paragraphs bashing on Windows and how bad it is and how AMAZING and life changing it'll be when you install Arch linux? No I am not, and in fact the reason I'm writing this is because I've honestly been annoyed the past couple years about how partial and borderline nonsensical a lot of the discussion has been (especially on places like Reddit).

Choosing an Operating System is not a question of "good or bad", despite what a series of extremely vague posts might imply, it's a serious of questions you need to ask yourself about what you actually value in both life and in the systems you use Some of these include:.

• What do I value from a philosophical standpoint about computers? (if anything)
• What would I be using this system for?
• What do I have to gain from switching from what I'm currently using, and does it outweigh the losses?

Obviously if you're a huge backer of the Free Software movement, you're probably going to suggest Linux to others and use it yourself (hopefully without non-free software ya hypocrite) but what if you don't care about any of that? That's exactly why you need to do your own guided research before wiping your hard drive and installing whatever random linux Distro someone peddled at the back of a youtube video because "Spyware" or something vague.

I have a lot of different machines, including Windows, a Steam Deck, a Ubuntu laptop, an Arch (btw) laptop, and even a really old Mac Mini I mess around with sometimes. I tried, long and hard, to give myself a reason to switch my Windows daily driver to Linux after getting swept up in this wave, but I couldn't figure out a solid answer that was actually personal to me. Case in point, don't take things at face value, and if you're the one recommending things to someone, then try and actually tailor your recommendations to their wants and needs.

Edit 7/25/24: Figured I'd do a micro update here instead of making a new blog post, but you know what, I installed Debian (Bookworm) the other day on a 20 year old, 32 bit laptop with 512 mb of Ram I used to play Flash games on and I can actually connect to the internet and do some basic tasks, I'm impressed. You win this round for hardware compatability, Linux!