[NiInJa]

I used to have Linux on my PC and used it during my bachelor days, used to like troubleshooting and getting things work, but as time progressed, work and personal responsibilities and office provided laptops having Windows installed meant my personal machine accumulated a lot of dust. Plus, in today's world when we need things to just work without much efforts, Microsoft's OS offers that ease of use in plenty. As an example, I don't have to worry about downloading specific tar files to make the bluetooth hardware on my laptop work.

Having said that, I do believe that people, especially computer engineers should start education with Linux as one can learn a lot of things fiddling with that OS.

[PraNeel]

My take on why Windows:

1. Windows is fast enough in booting and response with a SSD.
2. Now a days most of the laptops have Windows 10 home version included in the price and Home and Student version of Office is given as free. So this takes care of piracy and leads to a stable software for daily grind.
3. There is no learning curve and maximum compatibility.
4. The price band is wide for Windows, while Mac is premium and Linux versions are unsupported. People can learn to use Linux but not modify drivers and code apps (I mean the aam junta aka Mango People).
5. Enterprises prefer windows as an OS on their company devices.

[Sid MVN]

I have 2 laptops, one is running on Windows 10 and second one is running on Ubuntu. I use Ubuntu system most of the times just because it's quick.

[AnandB]

Comparing Linux to Android is not a good one as Android ecosystem is one of the most insecure and inefficient one. With 6/8gb+ ram becoming common on android devices, apps are becoming bloated and inefficient. Whereas 4gb ram is perfectly fine for a basic PC. Don't use Linux though, am a Windows user.

[narayans80]

Originally Posted by Vishfull

I will happily move to Linux once MS Office provides Linux support, period .

Actually with Crossover you can install and work with MS Office, just not the latest version. O365 is not supported though

Originally Posted by ohaak

CentOS is way more stable than Ubuntu

Ubuntu over the years has become a big resource hog. Last time I worked with Ubuntu was with XFCE, so the experience was better. KDE or Gnome on Ubuntu were all painfully slower. Same workstation had no problems with Gnome over CentOS.

[dicor]

I am related to IT and my bread butter comes from Azure, Visual Studio, Microsoft Word and these products are available for Microsoft. Nowadays they are available for other OSs as well but not with full-fledged features. Thus I need to have Windows as a primary OS.

I do have Ubuntu 14 LTS as a virtual machine and I boot it occasionally for the fun cum educational ride.

Originally Posted by KL01toKA03

I blame the herd mentality. Windows Phone was launched a few years after iOS or Android. That meant that most of the manufacturers had already decided on using Android for their devices. The only manufacturer to really give a chance to give Windows Phone a chance was Nokia who had already seen their Symbian OS shunned by consumers after smartphones became mainstream.

The first real smart OS was Win CE / Pocket PC which was launched long ago of iOS, Android. My boss had PDA in 2004 which had Win CE and then I owned HTC P3400 in 2007. It had Windows 5 (Pocket PC).

Every smartphone maker (except Blackberry and Nokia) were keen to grab Windows as their OS. Nokia made a big mistake by sticking to Symbian and did not try Windows. Eventually Android came and Nokia was still reluctant to adopt windows.

Late in 2011, when Android and iOS both have almost killed the Blackberry OS and Windows OS, Nokia dropped Symbian and adopted Windows. Again it was a disaster.

Samsung was also trying to develop its own OS (Bada) to compete with Android but soon they realized their mistake and merged it with Tizen.

[AirbusCapt]

Originally Posted by 2000rpm

Your point of view is from a techie, I guess, but most of India is very technologically challenged.

This is true not only in a technology space, it is true in almost all areas. People today are dumbing down majorly, don't know cooking? Hello processed food and 300 pound " I'm not fat but large" babies. Don't know driving? Hello Uber. Don't know personal finance? Hello manager and so on.

[rajeshsundaram]

GAMES! Lack of games on Linux was my tipping point to switch to Windows.

When I assembled my desktop 4 years ago, I chose AMD FX 4 core processor and a humble 4GB RAM and connected to my LCD TV. I thought of making that as a Media Center by installing KODI.

After assembling I downloaded a version of Ubuntu and installed without any issues. WiFi had issues, but I overcame by buying a USB WiFI adaptor which was supported by Ubuntu out of the box. But the major problem was with the USB Bluetooth adaptor. Had a tough time locating proper drivers, and finally it worked. Also, thankfully the graphics drivers that were bundled with Ubuntu were good enough for a HTPC setup.

Movies, and Kodi worked extremely well. No issues, no lags.

I also played some Linux ported games through STEAM linux client. But the lack of mainstream games in Linux made me think again, and finally I installed Windows 10 legit version. It burned a hole in my pocket, but it came with all drivers and support out of the box. And then I never bothered to switch back to linux. Right now, that desktop is serving as our family HTPC, and occasional gaming rig for myself and my son. Unfortunately powered by Windows, and not by Linux.

As others pointed out - Linux is there, but not there yet. Lack of drivers are the main culprit for people who plan to use Linux as their mainstream OS. And for desktop gamers - there is a huge void of games on Linux. Steam is there, but it does not offer a full spectrum of titles for Linux.


I really wish, Linux has a Linux foundation managed authentic store- something like a Driver Store where linux aficionados can download / upload drivers for various hardware.

[needmorebhp]

I have been windows free for almost 10 years now and here's my experience. A lot of bad rep Linux gets is because of experimental nature of desktop experience Linux had to offer till 3-4 years back.


Canonical, Ubuntu's parent company, has put in a lot of work to fix and improve things. Their decision to build unity as desktop environment was the forcing function behind gnome upping their game to polish and, more importantly, stabilize their desktop experience. This worked out really well because eventually Canonical decided to ditch Unity and go back to Gnome.


As long as your work doesn't involve gaming, serious video editing, like need a 8GB graphics card to run your workflow serious, or MS Office, Linux(Ubuntu/Debian) now offers equally competitive, if not better, options than Windows.


I won't compare MacOS because, one, it's an ecosystem thing and two, because it's still *nix.


All the hardware issues people face fall in two categories. 1. Microsoft forcing hardware OEMs into locking down hardware specs and 2. Inability of Linux engineers to keep up with these specs. My solution has always been to stay 1 generation behind on hardware and 1 major version behind on OS.


Gnome: Major Linux desktop environment project
Debian: One of the many flavors Unix/Linux comes in
*nix/Linux/Unix: Don't bother. If you're new, stick to Ubuntu.


I will be happy to talk for hours about why Linux is not just better but an ethical choice but that discussion is for nerds. If you have any questions about adoption, software choices, installation troubles - message and I will happily suggest solutions. Some useful suggestions:


Photo Editing: Darktable, almost as good as Adobe Lightroom - seriously
Documents: Google/Office 365 - It's actually better than their desktop counterparts
Gaming: Have you tried Steam yet!
And by the way, Android is Linux as well.



Pro Tip: Software updates on Ubuntu are actually friendlier than Windows and security updates reach Ubuntu faster than Windows can ever manage


And did I mention, if you value security and privacy you must move off Windows. I can't believe how hard it is to get vanilla windows on a new laptop, without having to worry about removing all the adware and bloatware OEMs package with Windows.

[Romins]

Ubuntu is much cheaper than Windows and MS Office, unless you are running pirated software. GIMP a nice tool for photo editing for beginners. Openoffice for MS Office, it lets you save files in MS Office formats.

[SH1N1G4MI]

Gaming basically, Wine has come a long way in the last few years but it still has tonnes of niggles when running games, with a definite performance hit.

I did once use Linux Mint for a couple of years as a secondary OS and once you set it up properly(which in itself was a task), it was pretty good for day to day stuff. I liked how modular and customizable it was. But at the end of the day Windows was just easier to use. As an example; I used a 3G modem for internet back then, on windows it was a simple plug and play affair but on LM the included driver was broken and I had to spend the most part of a day trawling through various forums to finally get it to work.

In retrospect a hackintosh install was much more user friendly and manageable(even android-x86 was better once ARM emulation got implimented).

So now I just stick to a debloated LTSB win10, it does everything I want without making much of a fuss.

[bluevolt]

While I have used Ubuntu extensively as dual boot in my personal laptop and also worked on CentOS in one of my assignments at work, I will anyway prefer Windows OS.

The simplicity and ease of use is unmatched. You would not have tough time figuring out things here and there. Personalisation is quite easy in windows OS.

It is easy to say Windows OS is a failure when considering Mobile OS area, but it's just that people were already got comfortable with Android ease.

Same is the case with Windows OS for PCs, straight forward PC users just got comfortable to Windows offering and don't prefer to take pain in understanding Linux!

[gkveda]

I think it is first love syndrome that prevents me from using Linux.
A simple analogy. Bahubali was released in multiple languages. I saw it first in Telugu.

So, even today, i am not comfortable watching it in either Hindi or Tamil. Not that I don't watch Hindi or Tamil movies. But, as far as bahubali is concerned, only Telugu is the best language.

Similarly, for laptop, I am more used to Microsoft and cannot imagine Linux. Reason being, first experience. For mobile, only Android or Linux and not Microsoft.

Probably, same psychology works for everyone.

[civic-sense]

Originally Posted by SH1N1G4MI

So now I just stick to a debloated LTSB win10, it does everything I want without making much of a fuss.

How did you buy a license? Internet says that it is only available for enterprises and in a bulk licence model.

[naveenroy]

I too started off with Linux many years ago. I think the first distro I tried was RHL - I loved it. But as is now, many of the drivers were unavailable. I remember using this SiS graphics card that had some drivers somewhere on the internet. I had to download them, configure etc and recompile and install. I remember that it worked though and I could get the GUI on RHL. It was interesting and I had time on my hands. I did not have the "right here, right now" mindset that I am getting into. I had the patience to try different configurations and see how I could make them work.

I remember that me and a friend started off with Wine, then Wine-X to make M$ programs run on Linux. IIRC, we even managed to make Diablo run on Linux.

I then became so interested in Ubuntu and have even got 3 releases from them on discs - the old days when they would ship it to you. I loved Ubuntu. Stable, so easy to install applications and upgrade etc. Dual boot and I used it extensively. I was such a hater of M$ that I would edit documents on Linux - you know how that ended LOL

After joining work full-time, I just lost interest gradually. And the company I worked for actually had their own version of Unix but weren't interested in running Unix/Linux on any of their employee machines (I even asked them). Lost touch with Linux after that and I just saw too many "distros" out there.

The last distro I tried was Mint - some 4 years back. Decent. Easy install.

Edit - love for Linux is still there. Android fan.