Every year, millions of people threaten to leave Windows. They mutter it under their breath every time an update restarts their PC mid-sentence, or when yet another prompt asks them to sign into a Microsoft account just to open Notepad. But actually doing it? That's where most people chicken out.
One writer at The Verge didn't. Back in January, they installed Linux on their desktop and committed to using it as their main machine - no safety net, no deep research rabbit holes beforehand, no obsessive troubleshooting. Just vibes and a fresh install.
So how bad was it, really?
Spoiler: not bad at all. In three months of daily Linux use, they booted back into Windows exactly twice. Once to scan a multi-page document that wasn't cooperating, and once to print a photo for their kid's school on short notice. That's it. Two reboots. Two whole times Windows was actually necessary.
That's honestly a more damning indictment of Windows than any Reddit rant could manage. If your operating system is only strictly necessary for two tasks in ninety days, what exactly are you paying for?
Why this actually matters
For most people, "switching to Linux" sounds like a project for people who think configuring a bootloader is a fun Saturday. And look, it used to be. But modern Linux distros have quietly gotten very, very good at being normal computers that normal people can use without a computer science degree.
The fact that someone could jump in cold - without doing a ton of research first - and find themselves not missing Windows three months later is genuinely significant. It suggests the gap between "Linux is theoretically usable" and "Linux is actually usable" has closed considerably.
The two holdouts
To be fair, those two Windows moments do matter. Printing and scanning remain the final boss of Linux compatibility, and anyone who tells you otherwise has never tried to coax a mid-range all-in-one printer into cooperating on a Tuesday morning. Hardware support is still the Achilles heel, and it's worth being honest about that.
But two pain points in three months? Most Windows users hit two pain points before their morning coffee.
The full write-up over at The Verge is worth a read if you've ever half-seriously considered making the jump. It's not a technical deep-dive - it's more of a "here's what daily life actually looks like" account, which is exactly the kind of thing that's hard to find amid the usual Linux evangelism.
Windows isn't going anywhere. But its grip on "the only reasonable choice" is getting looser by the year.
