Why I left Linux
Why I left Linux“
It wasn’t an easy or spontainious decision to leave but it was one that was gradually building over the past couple months. I just got tired. I wasn’t tired of the distros or the package managers or any of the FOSS applications. It wasn’t about compatibility or any of that. Things worked and they worked well. Sure I would find myself spending way too much time in the config hell, especially on NixOS, but that wasn’t it. It was the community.
It won’t happen because of you
The tipping point for me was Omarchy. The “distro” that many hailed as the second coming of Linux. That this thing and this thing alone would introduce SO MANY people to the wonderful world of Linux. “Please use our Operating System! please ignore the bigot and racist behind this distro…please ignore the ai slop that is it’s entire codebase…please” This is ONE of the reasons why the age of the Linux Desktop is never going to happen. Linux is a community that is divided amongst itself. And the divide is extremely polarizing. Either embrace the LLM or absoluting shun it. NEVER use it as a tool, Never. Either you end to end build EVERYTHING with it or you do everything in your power to ensure it never sees the light of day. The Linux community is the only one that will wage war with itself over a hammer. It’s the only community that will yell at the top of the mountain for Trans Rights and yet prompty show off it’s “Hyperland rice”. It’s a community that will drill you into the ground if you don’t use their DE of choice in THEIR specific way. It’s a community that hates facists and yet thinks Omarchy is Jesus Christ incarnate. It’s a community that hates corprate america and tech bros but when said tech bros fund 10mil to FOSS then “you know what, not so bad”.
This is my point. You see these types of constant contradictions daily within Linux. A community that says they hate AI and yet when Linus says they use AI for assistance on the Kernel then suddnely “well…it’s not that bad”. The Age of the Linux Desktop will NEVER happen because you, the Linux Community, will never allow it to happen. You’re too divided and divided over the most idiotic and tiring shit.
You drove away the best Linux Content Creators
There were a handful of content creators I enjoyed watching. Primarily Veronica Explains and BreadOnPenguins. Their content was great, cozy, interesting, I learned stuff. But the Linux community either drove them away or forced them to hold back on releasing content. Other content creators just either embraced the bullshit or decided to divide the community even more. I don’t need to watch anymore Bradie videos where his opnions change as frequently as I hope he changes his underwear. I don’t need to watch another LinuxGamer video where he acts all nice and says “use whatever distro you want” and then goes on BlackDon’s discord to try and ride that guys coat tails further or simply insult his viewer base or people simply asking for help. I shouldn’t have to dig for quality content and hope I get to it intime before the rest of the Linux crowd comes in and ruin it.
“How Nice” a community is shouldn’t be a Distro qualification
The fact that distro recommendations have to include how “nice” that specific community is should be the proof in the pudding. I shouldn’t have to avoid certain distros because a group of assholes have decided to embrace it. And yet with Linux, it is. If someone needs help with Arch they shouldn’t have to fear if their forum post will be ridiculed by a certain DBZ loving Arch Mod. I would have hoped the Linux Community would have been better than the StackOverflow community of old but rather than evolve from it, they decided to double down.I’m done.
So does that mean I’m going back to Windows? not quite
I found the BSDs. I love the BSDs. I settled on OpenBSD as my daily driver. it stays out of my way and the things I need to work on it just work. Wifi works better on it than FreeBSD, my USB Headphones actually work on it, and setting up a small Debian VM for my web builds and deploys was smooth as silk. As was setting up a VPN. I daily drive OpenBSD now. It’s solid, it’s stable,I don’t have to think about it. So that left the matter of gaming. On my main machine I have two drives. a 256GB SSD and a 1TB NVME. OpenBSD lives on the 256 because I don’t need much space for it. That leaves me with the NVME to load up with an OS and a whole bunch of games. I primarily play older PC titles and ROMS from various consoles. At first I settled on Bazzite and while it was fine I just wasn’t digging it. I hate the sandboxed nature of flatpaks. As someone that needs to use Push-To-Talk on Discord I hate how wayland handles keybinds. Push to Talk ONLY works if you either have discord or a game focused. I hate that. I hate the fact I needed to quickly set up a VM on Bazzite to test something was a chore ESPECIALLY going through flatpak. I just had enough. Sure I could switch it to something like PikaOS or even just straight up Debian but, man, I’ll be honest with you I missed playing certain games. Battlefield 1, League of Legends, and some sneaky fortnite every now and then. I missed not being able to easily mod certain games like Sins of a Solar Empire. And to be honest I missed not being able to easily pirate stuff or install repacks. I got tired of waiting on various Proton updates or vulkan shaders or runtimes with Steam. I just need an OS I absolutely don’t have to tinker with or think about to simply play a game. And unfortunately that was Windows.
I really hope it gets better, but i’m tired boss.
I’m too old for this shit. I’m in my 40s now and I’m tired of reading about what drama is currently going down with the Linux Crowd. I’m tired of see videos pop up in my feed where DHH calls the Linux Community a “bunch of clowns” and then the replies are always “not me! I use Omarchy!” I’m tired of the lack of self-awareness with Linux. I’m tired of the constant contradictions. I’m tired of JetBrainsMono being the defacto Linux Font and rounded Neon borders or “pills” being the “peak” of design. I’m sick and tired of all of it.
But I hope it gets better. I really do. I might come back one day. Or I might just stay chugging alone just fine on OpenBSD and Windows. Windows sucks but man at least most of its users are aware of it.