The most possible answer might be more boring though: this number is increasing because more people are installing Linux in old PCs and Laptops, either out of curiosity or because they want the machine to live more years.
Still, this might make people consider install Linux in their main machine too in the future (after they pass the learning curve).
I guess I’m not in the majority, but my reason for finally switching fully to linux after 20 years is that gaming finally Just Works (mostly) thanks to Wine and Valve. I’ve been gaming under Linux since Quake III, but always kept a windows install because lots of games ran poorly or not at all under linux.
Last year I finally switched to an AMD GPU, and all the games I’ve played since then worked either OOTB or required minimal effort to fix (I don’t play multiplayer games except for Overwatch, which also runs fine). I haven’t booted my windows install in like 6 months, soon I’ll wipe it to make some room for more linux games.
@loutr
This ! Wiped my windows install last month, so far so good. Still have some glitches in kde/steam/proton where the window blinks like crazy.
Also agree with previous post: in my early days of IT, my school laptop (thinkpad t42p) was starting to age, and debian gave it a seco d life, out of the box. I was “forced” to use it, but never regretted it, except when at thw time support for xls, doc wasnt so good, not to mention gaming @tricoro
I also switched because gaming just started to work. Gave Linux a try every 6-12 months for like almost a century but both the desktop and gaming performance always were subpar.
Until 3 years ago when I once again tested Linux and both GNOME and KDE were super snappy to use, gaming worked mostly out of the box via Proton and all the applications I need for work, worked on Linux or had an even better alternative.
Stuck with dual booting for one more year because I couldn’t get VR to work properly. Now I’m 100% on Linux since 2 years.
The speed at which things have improved in those 3 years is amazing. Things went from “needs some tinkering” to “just install it”. Performance went from mediocre to blazing fast. Software support went from “need to compile from source” to “download the AppImage/Flatpak”.
I really want to fully switch to linux full-time but trying to find alternative to Photoshop, Illustrator, and Excel that have as extensive features as them has been a journey. There’s just these little shortfalls here and there that made me hold back.
On the bright side, Linux is more than good enough to use with my old laptops.
Yes, the Adobe suite is hard to replace and unfortunately that won’t change very soon without a native version or Wine support getting much better.
As for alternatives, I assume you have already tried GIMP, Krita, Inkscape, LibreOffice and OnlyOffice? I know for many people they are not suitable replacements but I guess it’s the best that’s available right now.
The most possible answer might be more boring though: this number is increasing because more people are installing Linux in old PCs and Laptops, either out of curiosity or because they want the machine to live more years.
Still, this might make people consider install Linux in their main machine too in the future (after they pass the learning curve).
I guess I’m not in the majority, but my reason for finally switching fully to linux after 20 years is that gaming finally Just Works (mostly) thanks to Wine and Valve. I’ve been gaming under Linux since Quake III, but always kept a windows install because lots of games ran poorly or not at all under linux.
Last year I finally switched to an AMD GPU, and all the games I’ve played since then worked either OOTB or required minimal effort to fix (I don’t play multiplayer games except for Overwatch, which also runs fine). I haven’t booted my windows install in like 6 months, soon I’ll wipe it to make some room for more linux games.
@loutr
This ! Wiped my windows install last month, so far so good. Still have some glitches in kde/steam/proton where the window blinks like crazy.
Also agree with previous post: in my early days of IT, my school laptop (thinkpad t42p) was starting to age, and debian gave it a seco d life, out of the box. I was “forced” to use it, but never regretted it, except when at thw time support for xls, doc wasnt so good, not to mention gaming
@tricoro
I also switched because gaming just started to work. Gave Linux a try every 6-12 months for like almost a century but both the desktop and gaming performance always were subpar.
Until 3 years ago when I once again tested Linux and both GNOME and KDE were super snappy to use, gaming worked mostly out of the box via Proton and all the applications I need for work, worked on Linux or had an even better alternative.
Stuck with dual booting for one more year because I couldn’t get VR to work properly. Now I’m 100% on Linux since 2 years.
The speed at which things have improved in those 3 years is amazing. Things went from “needs some tinkering” to “just install it”. Performance went from mediocre to blazing fast. Software support went from “need to compile from source” to “download the AppImage/Flatpak”.
I really want to fully switch to linux full-time but trying to find alternative to Photoshop, Illustrator, and Excel that have as extensive features as them has been a journey. There’s just these little shortfalls here and there that made me hold back.
On the bright side, Linux is more than good enough to use with my old laptops.
Yes, the Adobe suite is hard to replace and unfortunately that won’t change very soon without a native version or Wine support getting much better.
As for alternatives, I assume you have already tried GIMP, Krita, Inkscape, LibreOffice and OnlyOffice? I know for many people they are not suitable replacements but I guess it’s the best that’s available right now.