Linux has been a wonderful operating system for many people. It’s free, it’s open source, it’s customizable, secure and much more.
We, like many other open source enthusiasts around the world as well, have been trying to convince people to switch to Linux from Windows for many reasons. These reasons should be all known for you by now.
But we have to be honest and admit that Linux is not for everybody. There are some specific cases where staying as an avid Windows user could be better for you than switching to Linux, and we’ll be seeing some of these in today’s article.
1- If You Don’t Have Time to Learn
Anyone who tells you that Linux is so straightforward to get into is lying on you. There is a big learning curve that you have to go through in order to fully start understanding how your average Linux distribution works.
Things like package management, desktop environments, drivers, games optimizing and others will need huge time to learn. It is an investment in one’s self for sure, but for many people, they may not be able to afford that investment.
There will also be some edge cases where two or three things will not work with you on Linux (E.g some Windows apps you depend on, some hardware drivers, fractional scaling… etc), and fixing them will take part of your time. Yes you’ll only have to fix them once, but you still have to fix them by yourself nonetheless.
If you are a very busy person who just wishes to use his/her computer for Internet browsing and gaming, and have no time to do any technical debugging and learning, then Linux may not be the best OS for you.
2- If You Are Deep In Microsoft’s Products
Some people, especially in the US, depend a lot on Microsoft’s products and services in their daily lives. They could be C# or .NET developers, MS IIS sysadmins or even normal students who use Mircrosoft 365, Teams, Office, OneNote, OneDrive and other MS services.
While half of these products do work on Linux just like on Windows, the other half does not. More importantly, you would lose the default system integration offered in Windows for these services in Linux, as you’ll never find a distribution that offers the same unique user experience (No shame in that, it is a proprietary ecosystem at the end).
A developer can use Mono on Linux for example to develop C# and .NET applications, but that wouldn’t be a pleasant experience to have, especially from the first time. There would be a number of hidden bugs, incompatibility issues and missing helpful features.
If you are heavily depending on Microsoft’s services in your work or study life, then Linux may not be the best default OS for you.
3- If You Expect Linux To Be Like Windows
The other more important thing to get is that Linux is not Windows, and never will be.
Things on Linux are done in a different way than on Windows, for example:
- Software does not come from the random Internet, but from official repositories created by distribution maintainers. It may be hard to get a software from a verified source if your distribution does not offer it.
- A distribution typically consists of hundreds of different components developed by tens of different vendors and put together. The OS is not controlled by one vendor, and hence these components may sometimes not work nicely together.
- Most open source software developers, especially on the area of the desktop, are developing software for free. This means that there is no one to shout at or fire if things don’t work as expected.
- Famous software/hardware vendors have ignored Linux and its users for far too long, that’s why some hardware drivers may not work in the same way as on Windows, and some software applications (E.g Adobe) may not be available at all.
The above points combined with the open source nature of the Linux ecosystem have led into creation of a different user experience than on Windows or other proprietary operating systems.
Don’t enter Linux and expect the same Windows mentality to be here; leave it behind because you’ll be otherwise shocked for your unmet expectations.
4- If You Can’t Learn
It wouldn’t be recommended to install Linux for people with no technical knowledge or ability to at least Google for the problems they are facing. Older folks like those in their 60’s or 70’s may want to stay away from Linux.
Like in the first point we talked about in our article, not just the time but also the ability to learn is important when you enter Linux. If the user can barely understand the difference between an HDD and an SSD, then it would be harder for him/her to understand the key concepts in the Linux desktop such as permissions, package management, desktop environments, driver issues… etc.
It would be a fun experience for sure, and they could try testing it in a virtual environment (Like on VirtualBox) before going for the real thing, but going straightforward for that could be a mess.
5- If You Are An AAA Gamer
Thanks to Proton technology on Steam, Valve successfully allowed many people to run their favorite top AAA games on Linux. You can check websites like Protondb.com to see which games work and which don’t.
However, most of the newest games from other vendors do not work on Linux. And you’ll also notice that some important hardware and software pieces are not working well.
E.g AMD does not provide its AMD Radeon software for Linux (They only provide the drivers, but no the software control center), and many gaming accessories manufacturers only release their hardware-adjusting software for Windows, which would prevent you from getting the full gaming experience you desire. NVIDIA has been a known bad player on Linux for many years, too.
Of course, you can have many entertaining games on Linux, but if you are aiming for the most recent AAA games in the market or if you have gaming hardware from many different vendors, then it would be hard to get these to work flawlessly on Linux.
So to sum up, Linux is a good OS for many people, and it has been solving many use cases for millions of users, but it is not for everyone. If you are one of the user types mentioned above, then delaying your Linux conversion could be a wise option.
Don’t let the mentioned points prevent you from trying, though. You can easily install Linux side by side on your computer so that you can choose between Windows and Linux at boot time (Dual-boot), and in this way, you keep your Window installation intact while you explore the Linux world and learn it anytime you wish.
Here is an entertaining video for a bunch of monkeys trying to switch to Linux (Just kidding! /s) and see what problems they stumbled upon:
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Show comments Hide commentsWell, the number reason to stick with Linux is Apple, not Microsoft integration.
Software is readily available from other source other than official repos. Lots of websites (e.g. NVIDIA) have *deb abd *rpm files available.The 60’s and 70’s thing is just ageist.
That vid started off with them promoting the single most shite case company on the planet.Monkeys is an understatement.
I agree with everything outisde of Ealderly people that are right now in their 60-70.
My mom is in this category i slapped Ubuntu in her computer when Windows 8 was released because she kept calling me about shit, i put her e-mail on Thunderbird, installed Firefox renamed to ‘Internet’, renamed Libreoffice Doc? i don’t even know the name of the program, to Word.
She only print stuff for her job, fucks around on the internet and read e-mails… idk if would work for people that will be 60-70 in 10 years because they do more stuff, but current 60-70 yrs old? Way better. Everytime i visit and sleep there i check if everything is updated and she is happy, i’m happy… she even control her spotify on Linux.
Better them that only if she was rich as fuck and lonely, because she would enjoy the Apple store elderly meetings and not be financially ruined by sales persons trying to push stuff.
The information about C# and dotnet is pretty out of date. The dotnet sdk has been available for linux since 2019, version 6 has just been released and even V3.1 has long term support (that’s only 2 major versions ago as they skipped V4). The only thing you can’t run is Visual Studio, but Visual Studio Code works well (even on ARM) as does and JetBrains Rider, and is perfered by some .net devlopers over Visual Studio.
i tried doing .NET 6 and c# on Linux once (Ubuntu), it was pain. Without VS you basically use text editors to program (even if they had some good features), just because sdk is available it doesn’t mean it is suitable for development.
I tried switching to linux. I liked learning bash and modifying linux desktops etc. but many of the softwares I already enjoy using does not run on Linux or not very well. Fl studio and many VST do not run. Blender freestyle rendering doesn not work. Hardware wifi driver avaliability is also an issue. especially with external wifi usbs.
Also windows has wsl which can run alot of the bash scripts I use. This is why I am sticking to windows as my main OS. but linux skills is still cool to have.
The best reasons to use Linux:
1.) It’s not Windows! Especially 10 or 11
2.) It doesn’t make you surrender rights to YOUR COMPUTER
3.) It doesn’t spy on you
4.) It is very powerful
5.) It is free
6.) It is more secure by default
7.) You can recycle old Windows machines headed to the scrap heap, giving new life to them and free machines for you
Top reasons not to:
1.) You are a Windows user who does not want to learn and expects everything to be exactly the same
2.) You don’t have time or will to learn
3.) You believe the fear
I was a Windows user for 20 years and DOS before that and back to BASIC/BASIC A, etc. I was a developer of Windows apps for 15-20 years also and even did maintenance programming with them for a software company. After 7, I saw the writing on the wall and dumped Windows for Linux. The learning curve is s bit steep if you want to do certain things.
However, if you just want to hit the Internet, can use Thunderbird, Firefox and Libre Office and be just fine.
You could download a KNOPPIX CD, burn it, boot from it live and be on the Internet in a minute. You can do that without harming your hard drive or OS installation at all. It is a bit slower than installing on the actual computer.
You do need to be careful what hardware you buy to make sure compatible, but you can get a lot of free hardware as Windows users have to continually upgrade hardware because their OS magically became slower near upgrade time and like a drug user they just kept on going back for the next big fix. I’m still using a 10 year PC that I bought and built. I have others people gave me. They were getting slow on Windows, I slapped Linux on them and brought new life to them. Same goes for older scanners and other things that were purposely made “obsolete”.
I have been using Linux for many years now and love the freedom to do what I want to do with MY computer instead of some corporation forcing installation of crap all over my computer and spying on me.