Linux

Pros:

• I never have to worry that my OS is working for someone else by design.
• Never surprised by ads.
• Never surprised by updates that move/remove something in the UI.
• Never have to be worried about some new feature that windows is forcing everyone to use that accesses all my data and might go rogue and delete it all or upload it somewhere.
• BTRFS feels decades ahead of NTFS
• package manager makes it easy to try new programs
• I can try multiple desktop environments
• I can write scripts to customize my experience

Cons:

• Occasionally there is a program that only officially supports windows and I have to figure out how to get it working in proton or a VM. This happens much less now than 10y ago.
• A game might say it works on Linux, but I hit some issue that my friends on windows aren't hitting, and have to determine if I'm just unlucky or if it's something to do with proton/Linux.
• there are still some remaining kinks being ironed out with the x11 to Wayland migration.
• sometimes there's a bug in a package and I have to downgrade it. But that's not really even an option in windows.

All in all, there is nothing from windows I would say I "miss". And it feels refreshing to know I'm out of the line of fire of msft.

As someone who uses Windows for work and Linux for pleasure: SMB, UNC paths, and ubiquitous network sharing. Being able to “cd \\server\c$” and expect that to work with 99% of programs made in the last two decades, is pretty great.

“Hardcode a few pre-selected paths and their credentials in /etc/fstab” just doesn’t cut it. Neither does autofs.

Windows? lol no.

The only thing I miss is GarageBand on Mac. It's always been my fave DAW. I haven't found a decent substitute.

Just pros, no one cons! Freedom is most important for me.

I don't miss a single thing from Windows

The pros are that it cannot be used as leverage against your interests by the vendor, and it's basically UNIX. But I mean, by that criteria, one should run BSD.

Tips:

• You will, at some point, fuck something up. Resist the urge to type in whatever console command comes from a Stack Overflow problem that's similar, though not exact, to your issue.
• Keep a log of changes you make so you can identify what change may have made things worse or not done what you wanted.
• Have a data backup off the machine of anything you can't bare to lose. Keep it for at least a year in case you lose the original data.
• Be patient with yourself and expect to feel like a noob at computers again.
• Don't try to make your DE like Windows, embrace the changes and discover better or new ways to set up your desktop.
• Again, be patient and take your time. It's like riding a bike for the first time.
• Ask Linux communities for help if you have a good, positive source of helpful individuals.
• Have fun!

My biggest pain points with Linux have mostly been audio related. Audio is serviceable for general users but whenever it comes to either professional audio work or high end consumer audiophile stuff, Mac and Windows unfortunately blow Linux out of the fucking water at this point in time.

Pros: OS doesn't spy on you, better privacy, freedom, the OS will not tell you what you have to do. Just do whatever you want to do, change whatever you want to change.

Cons: Maybe gaming support, this is what I see people complaining. I don't game myself, so can't say much here. After using Linux for 20+ years, I personally don't have any cons. The OS works perfectly fine for both professional and personal life.

Unlike windows or mac with their expensive licenses , once installed, Linux is yours

My main gripe with linux is still game and other software support.

Other than that everything I can think of is so much better than windows for me.

Pros: it doesn't do anything you don't make it do.

Cons: it doesn't do anything you don't make it do.

I'm mainly going into the negatives because the positives are fewer in number. Though those few do outweigh the negatives I'm about to write about. In my opinion at least

From what I've read it's a lot better than what it used to be, but you can still bump into some weird issues that require more knowledge of your computer (compared to Windows) to get it fixed. Usually it's audio, Flatpak permission issues or some application that comes preinstalled but crashes anyway. (i.e. Kontact on Fedora's KDE spin). And in one case NetworkManager just disappeared on the family computer.

Gaming can be an issue, depending on what you like to play. AAA games with an important online component usually don't work on Linux because of their anti-cheat. Not all of them of course like CS2, Rivals, and Dota 2. It was a bummer since I switched to Linux with the expectation that I'd still be able to keep on playing League, only to see it being unusable after a year. But if your friend group doesn't play those kind of games (and I got lucky on that part), you're fine. For example Peak and Gambling with Friends just worked on launch. I didn't even bother looking at ProtonDB

I've seen a lot of people downplay the fact that you may not be able to play the games with invasive anti-cheat. But if that's the game you (or your friends) like to play, that's the game you like to play. No shame in that, especially if you don't care/mind the anti-cheat. It's your computer, you don't have to be fully into foss to use Linux and you should (in my opinion) be able to weight the pros and cons yourself.

Another con (for people who just want to use their computer) or pro (for those who like to thinker around) is choice. There are so many distro's with a ton of DE's and ways of customising those DE's where a new user will probably get stuck just deciding what they want to pick. Or you can just as easily look at something more technical and decide what compositor or init system you want to use. It's a lot and for many users the deeper stuff doesn't really matter to them.

I wasted* at lot of time tinkering with my Nix configs and my Arch install to not even use either distro anymore. It can get a bit much, especially if the thing you're tinkering with is your main computer. Now I just have a separate second hand laptop to mess around with now so it doesn't get in the way of actual work.

All of my most painful issues wouldn't have been too bad if I just had someone to guide me in the right direction. This became really apparent when a friend of mine bumped into a lot of the same issues I did when he switched. He got his fixed fairly quickly since I was there to explain, for example, what was wrong with his fstab config and why he got into emergency mode because of that.

*It was a ton of fun looking back at it (and educational). But if you go into it with the idea that it'll help you (in part) with productivity, you're going to have some regrets with the time you actually spent on it in the moment

Pro: It just works and does what its told. Cons: I am concerned that long term viability of open source software in an AI and profit driven via job cuts world.

Miss from windows? Absolutely nothing. It just pisses me off. I have to manage Azure, Windows Server, Deployments, and other microsoft crap. It always just sucks.

Pros it's not windows.

Cons its Linux.

You will curse it and praise it in the same breath for the rest of your life.

Windows has better accessability features than linux does. Itsn ot talked about much but ive been in meetings with people with disabilities, survivors of accidents, etc... and Windows is the only real option. If you are blind there are standard programs that they use.

Its the one area i think linux could use real work. A couple of places ive put in pull requests to help out from time to time.

Otherwise linux is generally better ;)

Depends what you do on Windows. As someone who never really got into gaming and who loved programming it was the obvious choice.

Windows singularly fails in some of the most basic operations you could want from an OS. It makes me so angry the way it takes so long to copy a bunch of files, for example. Or if it won't delete some files because one 'is still in use' but it won't tell me which one or which program is using it! Why? Its infuriating.

Linux has none of these issues. And with a enough time, native ports of some of the games I used to play became available. I would never go back to Windows now.

Linux Pros - I don't even notice anymore after decades of use. I think it's great. I guess i could say that it's nice that it won't try very hard to protect you from yourself.

Linux's Cons - CAD software still sucks which means i'm never going into a career based on design, engineering, or 3d printing. Also, I guess I could say it won't try very hard to protect you from yourself.

Linux's only objective is to get better.

Any commercial OS has the sole objective to make money for its owner.

Linux is how home computing was supposed to be.

Pros :

• Reliable, I have nothing to fix and no unusual behaviors or settings on Cachyos. If I set something up the setting won't change on its own.
• Private, no telemetry. No NVIDIA service sending all the apps I launch to HQ.
• No forced software. I can choose to remove most components I dont like and replace them.
• Gaming works as well or better than Windows once its setup.
• I can revert to a previous image of my system right at boot. Very reassuring to know it's easy to revert to a previous state/version of my system.
• More lightweight system, I use way less RAM on idle than on Windows. That's more RAM to use for actual useful stuff like gaming.
• it's free. Doesn't require an account to use.
• it's secure. Much less risk running a linux system than windows. You are a harder target and also a less attractive one for hackers.

Cons :

• I can't play games with kernel level anticheats.
• I sometimes have to spend 10mn when installing a new game to set it up on proton.
• You are still expected by most people to handle their proprietary files coming from Microslop. You have to be able to sign PDF files and return office files.
• HDR support is not really good for games and it often is difficult to have working.

Overall, having switched 4 months ago, I have no regrets and honestly it was a great upgrade for me. Beside the money lost on a game like BF6 I'm very happy to be on linux.

I was really annoyed by my W10 setup anyway. I constantly had settings that would change on their own. I often had bad days where you feel the system struggling even though nothing changed. It was very frustrating. Linux solved that. I dont have bad days on my system. It runs exactly as I left it when it was shutdown. And this expected stability is very comfortable for users.

Highly recommend the switch to cachyos for all Windows gamers. And even for non-gamers it's a very functional and reliable operating system.

Pros:

• Trustable.
• Free.
• The user is in control.
• has many UI.

Cons:

• Still has a bad error message style. I blame GNOME for this. If GNOME follow macOS's error message style, we won't have this problem.
• Still has an annoying app installation way. This is why I use AppImage.

I am sorry if my English is bad.

If you have bleeding edge hardware then Linux driver support is usually a pain in the ass. On windows there’s one, maybe 2 Windows versions. And manufacturers typically make drivers for windows first.

Got older hardware? It’s probably gonna work great on Linux.

A pro is that is not Windows 11

So, there is some aggravation (not really a con) in terms of package management systems.

You have MANY options not limited to your standard repo tools like yum, pacman, apt, etc. You also have 3rd party ones like flatpak and snap. You could also throw in the AppImage format to that. Arch has the AUR on top of that which usually means you're running paru or yay. And then you have things like brew and crates which you might run into.

Working in any of these is straightforward, the problem comes from having to manage them all independently of one another at the same time. Pacman will update standard repo, but not AUR. Paru will update standard repo and AUR, but that doesn't help with flatpak/snap. Then docker/pods/lxc are in their own little world while you get those handled.

In the end, the more complex you build a system the more complex it is to manage, but it still is an aggravation. I'd still take it over the one-size fits all approach Microsoft has, though.