Desktop = Fedora

Home server = AlmaLinux

Mobile = GrapheneOS

Router = OpenWrt

I’m on Windows. It’s the only OS I use that I know will run anything that I have on my machine without having to extensively grind myself down into researching or patching to make work.

I’ve at times thought about going Linux but I’m always facing the same set of problems before making the jump. That is, how much of my utilities, tools, and software that I use on Windows will work on Linux without using Wine or having to ditch it? How many of my games that I have that will run on Linux? I mean, I love Diablo II for example and Blizzard won’t ever make the Blizzard.net client for Linux. So there goes that option, just for example’s sake.

To me it’s just not worth the switch. A lot of people usually hop on Linux for cheap clout while making exaggerated claims about how Windows is declining as if they’re losing millions of users a day, which simply isn’t true.

But Linux, least for desktop users and not addressing it’s capability to be a good tool for server/programming uses, doesn’t have an awful lot to offer and your options are limited. That limit is tied to how many software developers in general, who care at all about Linux to develop for it when they know it might be easier for Windows for users to just simply run it.

Freebsd for servers

Linux for everything else a user interacts with, including gaming

I use MacOS at home as I have to support the fam.

Work is windows despite my best efforts to move to Linux, any flavor…

My laptop has macOS and Ubuntu and fedora and win11 (I have a vm problem and I enjoy it)

I wish I could use Fedora full time. I’m really open to whatever gets the work done. I just prefer software were open.

I tried MacOS on my work machine for a couple of years, because everyone says how easy is. It never clicked for me. It felt like the short cuts all needed another key. It was also unintuitive for me. Of course that could be because I grew up on Windows. Either way, I did not like it.

Linux is crazy easy to install and really cool that you can run a live USB so easily. It’s also secure, stable, can run on garbage hardware, and has a thousand cool flavors. Intuitive and easy for (Mint, Ubuntu, etc.) common stuff. An absolute minefield to install soooo many things- if they even can work. I just want to double click shit and then run it. Much of that is on Microsoft for making things a challenge on purpose.

Windows gets more intrusive and obnoxious every year, but it runs almost everything I need.

Never really tried iOS. I don’t like the idea of being locked down.

Android can do a lot of cool stuff, but gets more intrusive every year too. So I run that for now.

Some day I’ll probably try some other OS on my phone, but I have less patience and time every day.

At home, I run Linux on one machine, Windows on another, hoping to cut ties with Windows entirely, but probably won’t ever get there.

My setup is:

• Arch (BTW) & KDE on my laptop, that’s the tinkering machine that only I use.
• Dual boot Pop!_OS & Windows on the desktop, that’s the one that other people use too so I’m not allowed to break it.
• I also have a bunch of other OS’s in VMs that I mess around with like little specimen jars lol

Debian GNU/Linux

I like the LTS style, I love the organised way they have for documentation and configuration, is well supported and I like the adaptations they make for a lot of software such as Apache HTTP Server (their custom layout).

Trisquel GNU/Linux

https://trisquel.info/en

Because it is a fully free distro, which is important to me.

I use Trisquel because it is the most user friendly I’ve found in the free distros.

Some hardware drivers are unavailable, but that’s fine, just transferred away from non-free hardware.

For compatibility, usually export to PDF.

–//–

Also GrapheneOS on phones and tablet. Has less nags and bloat. Privacy centric mobile OS.

Linux Mint on desktop, laptop, and home server. Doesn’t hurt to have the full install on the server, and I have a monitor hooked up anyway - but makes maintenance easier with everything the same distro. Batocera on the retro gaming pc.

Android on phone, but if there was a distro for my phone I would use Linux there too. F-droid for apps where possible, but Play store for some essentials.

For desktop I’m a Linux or macOS guy. I use Fedora Workstation on my main laptop because it’s been damn stable while also being up-to-date, and I like the workflow of GNOME and the flexibility Linux offers (experimenting with tiling windows managers is a recent example). I have an old MacBook with OCLP for easy access to creative software like Adobe and Ableton etc, but I find macOS takes a lot more configuration to make it comfortable – it’s not a perfect OS and it’s no privacy bastion, but it sure beats Windows. I also have a relatively powerful Windows laptop I used for gaming (yes I agree, not the best choice), but I’m using it more rarely since only a few games with anticheat keep Windows necessary. I’ve just always felt like I have to actively fight Windows to get work done, its automatic updates are way more intrusive than they need to be; it’s annoying as hell to be playing a game when suddenly the system decides it wants to download updates right now, tanking my network performance.

In the mobile world I tend to prefer Android of really any variety just because it doesn’t pretend it’s not a computer: file managers aren’t as underpowered here as they were on iOS last I tried. More than ever I’m in the Android camp now that software update guarantees are more reasonable, and the whole texting between iPhones thing is much better after iOS 18. I’m not opposed to an iPhone in the future since they do still have great software support and iOS is somewhat more customizable now, but I’ll probably sooner get a solid Android phone to run CalyxOS or GrapheneOS, that’s my ideal outcome.

Honestly, aside from Windows 11 and its insanely inconsistent/unpolished UX and awful AI integrations, operating systems have been pretty damn good lately. This opinion mostly coincides with modern desktop Linux being such a joy to use now that I’ve found what I like, things are stable and modern, and it’s just not as annoying as Windows.

Nobara. Because it makes gaming on Linux very easy. It’s based on Fedora, and out of all the operating systems I’ve tried, Fedora and Nobara are the most stable on my laptop.

NixOS is a bear to set up, but it is easy to keep it running for ages since the config is declarative & irons out configuration differences better than other OS since you config will refuse to evaluate.

I am thinking of moving to SailfishOS next year if my LineageOS phone keeps acting up.

for Mobile OS’s

for mobile OSs*

Arch.

you rebel/rapscallion

It’s simpler than that. Arch is dead simple. Everything is documented. If you want to know how to do anything, they tell you how. Where’s the config file? Right here, per the wiki.

People pump it up to be this impossible thing but it really is just the most blunt, to the point Linux distro and that’s what I enjoy about it. You never have to look two places for anything.

I run windows enterprise which is a little better than professional and home.

But anything that’s headless I run a mix of Debian, Proxmox, and Ubuntu server.

Trying to get into PopOS! But I had some discord growing pains and moved back to windows.