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I made the switch back in 2020 when I learned how much Proton had improved Linux gaming. I tried it out of curiosity to see if I could make it work for me, and after a week, I had gotten settled. Most of my games worked, some right away, some with tweaking. Some didn’t work at all.

Fast forward to 2025, and now those few games that didn’t work (I wish I remembered which ones they were) do, and I almost never have to do any tweaking to make games work. I’m so used to the way my distribution works that going back to Windows for anything is jarring. I bought a used ThinkPad a while back, and the previous owner “helpfully” installed Windows 11 on it for me (which I promptly wiped and installed Arch Linux, later Debian onto). That was the most I used Windows 11 (about 5 minutes, to make sure the machine worked). I am glad I do not have to use it on my own machines.

I recall another recent time where I set up Windows 10 on a laptop for a friend. It was… not a pleasant experience for me. Again, I was glad I didn’t have to use it.

Linux isn’t ready for everyone, but it sure as hell is ready for me. It was ready for me years ago.

Interesting take. I definitely agree that the ease of “just do it in Windows” that comes with dual booting was a thing for me, in the years when I was dabbling and thinking about switching for good.

What finally motivated me was getting fed up enough with Windows and M$ to not care about possible collateral damage from switching full time to Linux. My switch was helped by the fact that I left a job with a lot of overtime work that needed to be done in Windows for corporate compatibility. Once I was free of that, my dependency on one or two critical Windows apps was gone, so it was easier to switch as well.

What I really enjoy is the freedom to keep exploring/learning/changing. I set up Home on a separate partition, so if I can distro-hop without too much downside,if and when I get bored.

This is what worked for me in transitioning to Linux. I had tried dual-booting previously and reverted to Windows for essentially the reasons the author listed. Ease of use, familiarity, etc. It was only once I fully committed and deleted my windows partition that I stuck with it, and I couldn’t be happier. Not having advertising spyware as my OS is top tier.

+1 for Davinci replacing Premier (and its built-in Fairlight replacing Audition, for that matter).

However, it’s kind of weird that they say GIMP is a reasonable alternative to Photoshop, but RawTherapee isn’t for Lightroom.

And there is no mention of Illustrator.

The reason for that is, for those that use Illustrator as a part of their professional workflow, there is no viable alternative. There is software that can do some tasks the same, some tasks differently but at the same speed, some tasks the differently but take longer to achieve, and some tasks not at all. It’s those last two that make switching unviable for folks that use it as one of their primary tools for paying the bills

Again, I know it wasn’t mentioned in the article, I just thought it was strangely left out when just as poor alternatives to Photoshop were cited.

To be clear, I hate adobe. I hate windows (and apple). I’ve been trying to break completely free since 2011. I do revisit the available Linux software alternatives every few years, but never hold my breath. I even donate to projects that show promise. It’s just not there yet. To make a claim that it is, for anyone but hobbyists, is asinine.

So many people are in that same “would if they could” boat. But you can’t simply restructure your entire workflow if the resulting workflow doesn’t work.

My producer, Neigsendoig, and I have been using Linux for 5 years. I will say that it was a wild journey to say the least.