Windows
Before becoming a developer, I pretty much only used Windows as my operating system. This is not strange of course, Is well known that Windows owns the majority of the market related to computers because it appeals the regular users with its ease of use.
I have used Windows XP, Windows 7, 8, 10 and it’s latest installment Windows 11. In comparison XP, 7 and 10 were a good experience because of their clean UI and not a lot of bloatware, 10 had the most bloatware compared to XP and 7 but that makes sense given that those OS are just OLD. And that is the thing, the more we modernize stuff companies seem to take advantage of this in order to install software that does not serves really a purpose, or fill with ads in every opportunity they have.
Well, Windows has been doing this aggressively and its noticing more on its latest version Windows 11. Not only has bloatware, but for some reason it’s also noticing on the performance, more bugs, the UI is not as responsive to user inputs or interactions. I never wanted to use Windows 11, I was one of the people that was fine with Windows 10, but of course they forced us to update in order to receive security updates. So this is when I decided I needed a change.
Before changing to Linux
I love videogames, and the best platform for playing them is on Windows, their market is so big that video game companies just use as their default Windows to launch its games (talking about PC games). That is changing tho, Linux has been doing amazing work with the help of Valve, the company behind Steam. A few years ago they released Proton, a tool that helps to run a lot of the Steam library on Linux, and gamers noticed this change and a lot of people is ditching Windows and going to Linux because of the reasons I mentioned before.
But for me, the real change was that development became a hobby. I started to code more and play less video games which I never thought it was possible because I’M A GAMER! (cringe warning). Jokes aside, I’m being serious, playing on Windows is good, although on Windows 11 theres been a lot of issues recently on performance; but developing on Windows is not the best, the majority of tools are either developed for UNIX operating systems like MAC or Linux operating systems like a lot of distros. And I can assure when you start obsessing with development you end up wanting to do more but Windows restrict you with their ecosystem. So that is why I ditch it and changed it for Linux (Linux mint).
Linux
I’ve been using Linux for what I can recall almost 2 years. I have it on my personal laptop and my desktop PC. I mostly use my desktop (main), it’s just more comfortable for me. Before starting using it I write another blog post explaining that my main PC had Windows, but a couple of months later I also installed Linux on my main because my experience on the laptop was pretty smooth.
I use Linux Mint. Is just a good distro and really stable. I don’t like fancy stuff and I just wan’t things to work and Mint provides that without having to do long configuration sessions (Arch based ditros lol). I’ve been tented to try another distro Arch based like CachyOS or Omarchy, and I probably will but at the moment I haven switch. I would try it on my laptop since I don’t have much on there. But thats a talk for another day.
I love Linux, developing on it it’s been more efficient, I can install whatever I need, and the performance is excellent. One of the benefits of using really stable distro is that not a lot of things break so I am not worried about that. Of course that I have snapshots enable in case of a disaster (wood knocking). But it has been a blast and I have learned a lot about the operating system that I never would have learned If I stayed on Windows that I really think it will help me on my professional life.
What next for me? Well I really want to build a home lab, I think I have the knowledge to do that, I want to use it to have media on it and ditch subscriptions on services like Netflix, spotify, and more. But is a long process since I need to buy the parts, built it, and having a space on my house dedicated to it which I really don’t have because sadly the economy is making me still live with my Parents lol. I’m 26 so I think im really close to move to another place but not that I’m worried about it. I’m privileged and I know it.
The end
Enough is enough, this just was a post to express my feelings on why Windows is not a it’s best state right now and how Linux is gaining a lot of trust even from day to day regular users which I think is great. Lets see if Windows can make its OS reliable again, and maybe, just maybe I can try it again; but idk, because I really like Linux.