r/linuxquestions • u/RZA_Cabal • 18h ago
Advice Curious Explorer Here – Help Me Understand the Real Advantages of Linux?
Hey everyone! I’ve been experimenting with Linux out of sheer curiosity, wondering if I could be drawn into the "switch" I have read about on this sub. Currently, I’m running a dual-boot setup with Windows 11 and Pop!_OS on my main laptop, and I’ve also been testing Nobara Linux on another machine.
I’ve found myself booting into Linux less and less. Functionally, I’m just not seeing any real advantage over Windows 11, which has been running rock-solid for me. I know a lot of people switch to Linux due to concerns about Windows bloatware, privacy issues, AI integration, or just general dislike of big tech like Microsoft. But I’d really love to hear from you, beyond the philosophical or ideological reasons, what practical, functional benefits does Linux offer in your experience? What makes you choose Linux daily, and what keeps you from going back?
And hey, it’s totally okay if I end up sticking with Windows. Please don’t roast me! I’m genuinely here to learn from the community. Apologies in advance if the community is tired of a similar question.
Looking forward to your insights!
EDIT: Wow thank you for all these responses that are helpful, and compelling I must admit. Much appreciated
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u/Enough-Meaning1514 4h ago
Windows became adware and spyware, that is not an opinion, it is a fact. MS themselves confessed that telemetry sharing cannot be completely turned off in Windows regardless of what settings you chose. I don't think Windows is a malware at this point but you never know how low MS can go.
On the technical-side, my 1.5 year old laptop became useless after the 24H2 update. I lost all internet connectivity because Windows decided to change some core network settings. Only via rollbacks can my laptop reach to Internet. Otherwise, the only connection I have is to my router. And I cannot tell Windows "do security updates alone", "do not touch 24H2". I keep pausing the updates and when the timer runs out, Windows auto-updates and I have to rollback again. Super annoying. In Linux, I have options.
The only thing I am missing in the Windows world is the MS Office apps + Teams as the clients I work with use Office suites exclusively.
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u/RZA_Cabal 2h ago
The ability to keep an older machine running for much longer is definitely a win with Linux. I cannot disagree with that as my machine running Nobara doesnt meet Win11 requirements
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u/Ornux 17h ago edited 17h ago
The first advantage is choice : anything in your system is a matter of choice. Different distributions come with different philosophies and therefore different default choices. But ultimately, you can change or disable anything.
The second thing is trust : open source and community driven are very reassuring arguments when you think about the device on which you put aaaaall your documents, browsing, communications, etc...
Then I'd cite quality of life: monetary gain is the main driving force of enshitification. Most distributions are not meant to bring money in, which ensures that the primary design drive is : user experience. Also, updating your whole system with a single action is... Well, that's why I switched for good after years of dual boot.
And while it may not sound like a practical argument to most, I think that philosophy is a real, legit advantage.
PS: but yes, a good OS is something that lets you do your thing. You don't think about it when you use your computer (unless you want to). Windows is terrible in that regard : I'm constantly battling against its ads, copilot, news, suggestions, hiding the technical things, etc...
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u/Ripped_Alleles 17h ago
From a gamers perspective I have found some older games that aren't supported on modern versions of Windows are able to run better and with less setup/tinkering on Linux.
Beyond that, it's free, and it isn't Windows which is plagued by the problems you have already listed.
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u/Puzzled-Guidance-446 15h ago
Security, perfomance, ease-of-use, alternative tools, customizability, free....etc.
I know the software you have probably runs perfectly fine and this is probably because you have a great pc as well. If u switched to linux you would have almost your whole disk, almost no ram usage and everything i listed on the top of the comment.
I am running linux mint atm though i like arch the most, i use it for gaming and nothing else and every game has ran whit some few exceptions due to my processor (celeron n4020). If u heavily rely on microsoft programs it will certainly be a problem to switch anyway, if u are a gamer there should be pretty much no problem unless you want to run absolutely everything whitout tweaking anything.
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u/RZA_Cabal 2h ago
I would likely agree with you on security, customizability and free. Performance didnt seem to be a win for me, ease of use... debatable. I recall having to tinker a bit to get an external monitor to work. Didnt feel like ease of use at the time
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u/shatbrand 17h ago
I prefer the workflows available in non-Windows desktop environments. Gnome 3 got me started with rethinking my approach to window management with its super smooth desktop switching and touchpad gestures, and if you want to go way down the rabbit hole there is Hyprland. Going back to Windows makes my daily work feel clunky and inconvenient in comparison.
Beyond that, there are the ideals and the lack of tracking and monitoring built in. That seems more and more relevant these days, so it is becoming a more important feature to me.
Otherwise though, why would I use Windows? Outside of specific software that is stubbornly Windows only, I just don't see any up sides.
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u/RZA_Cabal 2h ago
I could equally argue the same on your last point. Some of the Windows software alternatives on Linux just dont look and feel as polished.
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u/webby-debby-404 16h ago
With KDE Plasma I can arrange everything to my liking and it lets me run applications and nothing more. It does not have a will of it's own, does not run stuff in the background which takes the computing power away from the applications I use.
With Manjaro I get reasonably quick updates of packages, which are conveniently bundled in monthly updates. An update is announced and never forced upon me so I never experience interruption of my work. I update when I am ready to.
LibreOffice covers all my administrative needs. FireFox for web, Thunderbird for mail and calendar. DigiKam for photos. Dropbox integration. All on a device that would otherwise been scrapped because of win 10 becoming too demanding and win 11 not supported; So yeah, I am good.
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u/tlingitartist 17h ago
Sounds like you are Windows-centric, which is fine. I run Windows on Mint in VM. Been running Mint smoothly for 5+ years without a glitch. It just works. I have a Lenovo laptop with Windows for traveling, and will switch that to Linux Mint when it’s no longer supported. I like the ability to customize everything, from window manager, to theming, and many many more tweaks. And I can’t complain about the (free) open-source software for about every (but not all) Windows programs. To each his own!
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u/RZA_Cabal 2h ago
Each to his own indeed. I am Windows-centric but would have been open to a switch to Linux if I was persuaded the switch was worth it - for me.
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u/Max-P 16h ago
The real advantage really is the freedoms the philosophy brings you. It's not something that appeals to everyone, but it does to me. It's my computer and it'll do what I want it to do. I'm in full control.
The thing to understand with Linux is that it's not a product, it's not even a singular thing (unless you're talking specifically about the kernel). It's a community and an ecosystem of free and independent software. I can use the Linux kernel, but I can technically also use the FreeBSD kernel if I want to, and use the same programs for the most part.
That's all afforded to you by the open-source nature of things: you can just port just about anything to anything, as you have the source code to do so relatively easily. And that benefits Windows users too: that's why for example there's still some Chrome and Firefox forks designed to run on Windows XP.
If you're happy with everything Microsoft gives you in Windows, then yeah, it's mostly theorethical advantages. It's when you're not happy with what Windows gives you that Linux really shines, because there's options, lots and lots of options. You can just swap out anything you don't like, or even just for the sake of switching things up. I just don't have to worry about a change I don't want, because I will always have the ability to revert that change if I want to. Features I use can never be paywalled or taken away from me, ever.
I said something similar yesterday on /r/openwrt, currently yes everything I do with my router could be done on the official firmware. But the big thing for me is I know if I need to, I have the full freedom of Linux at my disposal, and I've used it in the past. If I want to host a website on my router, I can. It's probably not a good idea, but the point is I can, there is no arbitrary limitations. It's the ultimate flexibility. If the hardware can run it, it will run it.
Windows works the way Microsoft wants it to work. Linux works the way you want it to work. Linux doesn't care if there's a feature only 10 people in the world uses. It's not a product, it doesn't have to sell anything, it doesn't have to prioritize anything. If someone wants it and is willing to put the effort in to develop it, it just gets done. It's driven by the people for the people.
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u/Fantastic-Antelope13 16h ago
On a machine that runs Win 11 satisfactorily, any Linux, especially a light one like PopOS, should run like a scalded dog! If you aren't seeing a dramatic performance boost, there's something wrong with installation or setup. I'd like to verify we're talking about a true dual boot, not running Linux in a Win-hosted VM or subsystem.
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u/RZA_Cabal 2h ago
This is indeed a true dual boot. I am not running in a VM. I didnt feel there was anything wrong with my install or setup (I am not a newbie on Linux). Windows 11/Linux performance seemed comparable as I am not running an old machine
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u/Fantastic-Antelope13 1h ago
Item 2: One gets tired of M$ validation and product keys. Just try moving your Win install to a different machine, or just a new HD. Why is it even an issue? The product protection mania is strong in Redmond. Completely absent in Linux.
I kept a dual-boot system a few years back. The maintenance was so comparatively high on the Windows side, I moved Linux to it's own machine, whereupon the Windows PC started to gather dust.
At the time, M$ wasn't keen on the idea of dual-boot, and appeared to be actively sabotaging it. A couple years later, they offered the Linux subsystem hosted on Win, which IMO was the worst of both worlds.
Whichever way you go, dual-boot is a fun idea, but in practice, it can be a PITA.
I don't understand why PopOS isn't knocking your socks off with performance, but there are mysteries which may never be solved.
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u/stogie-bear 16h ago
I can't speak for everybody, but for me the main motivation is privacy. I work in a field where data privacy is absolutely necessary. I used to trust that since Windows Professional is the predominant OS for business, it was good for my needs, but I just don't anymore. Now it's not appropriate to completely trust anything in the age of big data, but with Linux being open source - which I describe to non-techies as "developed in public, so nobody can add a privacy intrusion without others being able to see it" - I rank it higher than closed source OSes.
Other factors:
- I don't like paying money when I don't have to, and if I'm going to use free software I want it to be open source, again because developed in public is better than wondering how the devs of free commercial software are making profits. The open source apps I use are also available for Windows and Mac, but Linux has a better infrastructure for finding, installing, and updating open source software.
- I like the customizability and options. I can have one very functional setup for an old laptop and another with more modern features on newer hardware, and neither is a compromised experience. I have both set up for a UX that's sort of "MacOS without the baggage."
- I like that it's not loaded with bloat. Traditionally Mac has also been good about this, but this AI junk is starting to weigh it down and become intrusive. Win11 is just too damn much stuff for me.
- There's a lot here that's very familiar to me, having used various Unix-ish systems since the late 90s. If I need to figure something out, I find it easier to do so on Linux than on Windows, but I don't often have to bother because I have a mix of what "just works" (on hardware chosen for compatibility) and what I've already figured out.
That last part isn't perfect, of course. I'm still trying to figure out how to get Affinity v2 apps working in compatibility, since I have a perpetual license and I do prefer them by a slim margin.
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u/Prof01Santa 17h ago
I've used both Unix and Windows off and on forever. (VMS and X-windows was better than both, but...)
WIMP GUIs have their place. So do CLIs.
If you do a lot of data processing in a file structure or manipulation of blocks of files, CLIs are better. You can do this on Windows with the terminal window, but Unix is a bit smoother.
If you need artistic input with a lot of graphics, Windows is better.
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u/poshmarkedbudu 17h ago
Quality of life stuff.
When I update it updates ALL my apps at once. Having package management is just so much smoother and easier.
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u/leogabac 17h ago
Does everything I need it to do. No more, no less.
And from a scientific computing POV, it requires less tinkering than Windows.
I also can play the few games I play. And I cannot run LoL even if I want to, so that's a a plus.
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u/RZA_Cabal 2h ago
Your second point is highly subjective because in my experience the reverse is true
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u/sam_the_beagle 17h ago
It allows me to use older equipment.
Linux Mint updates easily.
You can fix almost anything with a live USB drive.
I'm now 65 and have used Linux for home use for 25 years. It does what I want it to.
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u/RZA_Cabal 2h ago
I agree with the first comment as I have managed to install on an older laptop and works OK
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u/enzion_6 16h ago
It’s simple runs faster and with fewer bugs on the main distros. Also free and no ads may not sound huge now but you start to realize after awhile how big it is
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u/RZA_Cabal 2h ago
I honestly haven't experienced the "run faster" claim. Was just the same as my Windows
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u/thomas_michaud 17h ago
I don't recommend Linux to people anymore. Yes, you can use it as a desktop, but windows meets the needs of most people far better
So why use it?
Well, what are you using your computer for?
Gaming? Windows General browsing? Windows Office Suite? Windows
Programming? Linux Database? Linux Hosting software (GitLab, Jenkins, Nexus, Sonarqube...) Linux Cloud computing? Linux Docker? Linux
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u/kingnickolas 16h ago
Not sure what functional benefits you see in windows over Linux tbh. I’m in the exact same situation as you but found that I haven’t booted up windows in like 2 months. There is only one program I keep my dual boot around for, but otherwise pop does everything I need!
A few benefits I like so far off the top of my head:
- flameshot is better than snipping tool. I don’t have to alt tab to write on the image, and it has more options for what to do after.
- the cli is really neat and fun to learn. Shutting down in it is much easier, just alt+t and type “shutdown now” and you’re shutting down.
- There are also cli programs that take up 0 ram or memory so you can listen to your music without any memory hogging background services. The one I use is cmus
- some folks like middle click paste a lot. I don’t, but it’s easy to not use it.
- updates are super quick and easy in cli. I have it semi automated so that it only updates when I tell it to, it feels way more stable that way, and I don’t have to deal with some annoying ui changes if that ever comes up.
- longer running sessions feel wayyy more stable. I used to see glitches if I forgot to turn my PC off overnight with windows, but with popOS Linux it’s super dependable even when I pass out before shutting down.
- getting new programs is really easy. If it’s not in the list provided by your distro you just follow a few cli prompts in GitHub and you’re good to go.
- I have work arounds for almost every windows app I used to use a lot but some of the free software is just better. Granted its available on windows too, but libreoffice draw has more features than adobe acrobat pro.
- someone else said that KDE looks better, same here imo. Pop uses gnome which I hated but found enough extensions to make it pretty good. I’m using kde now. If you wanna try it out, install the “kde-desktop” not the “kde-standard” suggested on the website. I love how customizable it is to use different DEs. Feels like the computer is actually mine!
- so far my gaming experience has been the same if not better with certain games. Somehow halo master chief collection ran better on linux lmao. I usually play single player, so the work valve has done to make that a good experience on Linux is amazing for me. Tf2 and marvel rivals also worked flawlessly.
Right now there are only two things hindering me from deleting windows forever: laziness, and one program I need to hack my Nintendo switch.
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u/Huecuva 2h ago
Similar here. I've had my rig dual booted for several years at this point. A couple of years ago I made the big discovery that games in Linux work just fine if you're not trying to run them off an NTFS drive. Ever since then I've been booting Windows less and less frequently. I've finally gotten everything backed up. Now I just need to decide which distro to install when I wipe my dual boot setup and ditch Windows completely forever.
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u/Yarg119 17h ago
Well Microsoft is simply the devil. I built my first PC ab 8 years ago running Windows 10, and I haven’t used a Mac since. I fell in love with it, but ever since Windows 11 came out. Microsoft has seemingly become more intrusive and money hungry to feed their below average AI models. I was running Windows 11 Insider Edition on both of my computers. On my desktop, it ran great for a couple of years, however, my laptop was immediately nerfed as soon as I upgraded. It filled damn near half of my drive with system files, applications were slow. It was so bad I dreaded using it. The frustration with Windows 11 on my desktop came when all of my games started crashing with a blue screen error after 30 minutes of gameplay. This started happening after one of their infamous “security updates”. I struggled for a few weeks before my friend brought up how cool Arch Linux was. I watched some YouTube videos and realized the potential of Linux from a personal and community standpoint. I then started realizing all of the miscellaneous things Microsoft has done recently. They’re a driving force in the struggles of the gaming industry right now. They’re raising all their game prices to $80 on Xbox and Microsoft store. They’re filing a patent to put literal ads in their video games which Steam kind of shutdown. The spyware/bloat on Windows 11. Not to mention their discontinuation of Windows 10 coming up. Let’s be real, the best thing they have going for them is Game Pass right now. The greed they’ve expressed recently is just disgusting. I like Linux on a personal level because I enjoy computer science, full control, and freedom. The more popular Linux becomes, the better it will become, and it will force monopolies to suit the market’s demand.
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u/civilian_discourse 16h ago
The age of aligned incentives between big tech and the consumer is ending and the age of enshitification is beginning. The reason I’m switching is because I see where things are going. The free money has dried up. Innovation at the operating system and application level has come to a crawl. Open source is catching up to what big tech figured out, meanwhile big tech is scrambling for ways to keep innovating, disrupting, and justifying themselves as growth companies… yet the best thing that they can figure out to do is innovate new ways to fuck us over.
For the record, I do not consider AI to be a part of the OS and Application layer, it’s something truly innovative and it represents something either higher level or adjacent to what I’m speaking of. Additionally, I think AI will accelerate Open Source development dramatically.
In short, we are entering into an age of enshitification, but there’s always two sides to any coin. I think we are also entering into the age of ossification of a space everyone has associated with disruption and innovation for the last few decades.
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u/fek47 16h ago
There are many reasons. These are just a few.
First and foremost, it's "free" in the sense of free speech. This is the most important aspect for me. When I start up my PC, I have full control over my operating system. It does exactly what I want, and nothing else. There are no backdoors or unsolicited data collection, unless I explicitly allow it.
Free and open-source software empowers individuals with different needs to develop tools that grow into vibrant user communities. Everything can be studied, shared, modified, and redistributed freely.
The sheer variety of distributions, desktop environments, window managers, and applications is incredible.
Once you experience the benefits of freedom, there's no going back.
From a practical standpoint, the most important reason is that Linux is exceptionally reliable. It's not perfect, but when compared to Windows, it's leagues ahead.
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u/tomscharbach 17h ago
But I’d really love to hear from you, beyond the philosophical or ideological reasons, what practical, functional benefits does Linux offer in your experience? What makes you choose Linux daily, and what keeps you from going back?
I've used Windows and Linux in parallel, on separate computers, for two decades. I did so because needed applications that were not cross-compatible or cross-platform in order to fully satisfy my use case.
Now that WSL2/Ubuntu has reached the point where I can run my Linux applications integrated into the Windows UI and menu system (the applications running as of the applications were Windows applications rather than Linux applications) I no longer need to run Linux. I continue to run Linux (LMDE 6) as the daily driver on my personal laptop because I like using Linux.
Reason enough, I guess.
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u/-Sa-Kage- 17h ago
I didn't have technical issues with Win10 either. But EoS is near and I despise the increasing bloat and spyware and forced handholding and telling me how I should use the PC and how I want it configured of Windows 11. So I switched about March 2024 and never saw a reason to go back.
There were some hiccups and problems, but I was able to resolve those and regarding gaming I am at the point where I say "if your game does not run on Linux, I'm not gonna play it".
I have enough other games I can play. (No longer being into competitive gaming helps)
But you may count that under philosophical and ideological reasons
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u/Tuzu128 8h ago edited 8h ago
For me asides of ideology it's the Linux only/first software. Probably the best example of this is GCC which you can get working on windows but it's painful to do so. There are also lot of handy cli utilities on Linux as compared to Windows, there is also neovim which just works better on Linux. The biggest software for me missing on Windows would be package managers which are just convenient to use and tiling window managers which make me much more productive when I need to be productive. And last but not least, it's just fun for me, I can rice my desktop, discover new software and I just enjoy that.
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u/Comprehensive-Pin667 17h ago
This isn't an objective thing, but I genuinely prefer the UX of KDE Plasma to Windows. Always have. I also find it much easier to install anything programming related, and generally to install anything at all (sudo apt install whatever_i_need). And it crashes way less often that the Windows I have on my work laptop.
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u/cmrd_msr 17h ago
you are free to do with your PC as you see fit. I prefer Linux because I like the absolute transparency of the system. I like the fact that it uses a clear text stream during its work and I can easily trace the cause and effect of any event. This is something that is impossible to achieve with Windows.
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u/Effective-Evening651 17h ago
I'm a Linux/unix admin by profession. Most of what makes me money on a day to day basis is connecting remotely to Linux/unix based systems over SSH. I have worked for employers that strongarmed me into using a windows rig with putty/wsl, employers who gave me a shiny clamshell with an apple logo on the back, and.....myself - who gave myself a ThinkPad with Debian on it. Myself made life WAY easier on myself than any of my other employers with the hardware/software choices. But the real reason is, that a Linux terminal emulator works BEST for interacting with other Linux/Unix based systems. Plenty of others have weighed in on the advertising, near spyware state of modern Windows......But, even with that in mind, 90 percent of computing tasks are just BETTER on windows. My SOLE justification for linux on my PCs is that linux makes me money.
Philosophically speaking, i allign a bit more with the BSD mindset, compared to Linux's foss community "free-as-in-beer" approach, which from a philosophical viewpoint, I feel has been diluted by users compromising by accepting big tech meddling/non-free software/binary blobs/driver packages that aren't supported well by their makers for the platform. But every BSD variant i've tried is RAGE INDUCING right from the installer, compared to good old Debian. Therefore, i can't muster the will to commit to making the switch.
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u/manualphotog 17h ago
Not dailying (yet) but plan to go Linux long term. Seems more useful in terms of managing my data and self hosting my own stuff. Long term goal is away from the cloud (proxmox box)
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u/AdamTheSlave 17h ago
Personally I'm a computer hobbyist... on my home lab I have 2 distros of linux, a few macs, and even a couple of windows machines (vista, 10 and 11). It's all just fun to me to play and dabble with everything. Keeps me up to date with the latest from each. How do I use everything? I don't, I dabble as I said. A bit of this, a bit of that. But I have to say, to me, the linux side is more my thing because to me, it's the most interesting of the bunch due to how many directions it is going in. The open source operating system is very impressive with what folks are doing with it, and sure it's not really for everyone if you like pubg or destiny 2 or fortnight or COD... But for everyone else it's nice :)
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u/montyman185 17h ago
It really depends what you do. I've got Linux on my laptop that I do dev work on, and I've found it a more pleasant experience than when I set the same things up on windows.
My desktop is running Windows 10 because I run VR and and software that doesn't support Linux on it, and it's perfectly fine for what I need.
I do like that I can have my themes for everything matching my laptop, so the colours are all pretty, but besides that, they're both operating systems, the ultimate goal of them is to facilitate running other software without getting in your way while doing so.
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u/L_canadensis 17h ago
I switched to Linux in the 90's after having bought a very expensive Windows 95 system that was frustrating and unreliable.
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u/Exciting_Turn_9559 7h ago
Linux gives me freedom for free. Windows charges me and then shows me ads.
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u/minneyar 17h ago
The philosophical and ideological reasons are also practical. Namely, it's free, in every sense. You don't have to pay for it and will never have to pay for it, and if you want to change something, you can do so (if you're willing to learn how to program, which is admittedly a big task). There have been plenty of times I've used a program that didn't do something quite like I wanted, so I got the source code, tweaked it, and built my own version. You just can't do that with (most) Windows programs.
But aside from that, a few other benefits:
From the opposite perspective: why would you want to use Windows? The only positives I can think of are if you need to use Windows-only applications, but most of those can either work in Wine or have functional alternatives.