Why I Migrated to Linux (and Why You Should Too)

Today I’m launching a new section on the blog, and we’re going to talk about my adventures switching from Windows to fully migrating to Linux. I made this decision a few months ago and (spoiler alert) I love it. Well, that’s the end of the post, thanks for reading.

Seriously, Goguma? Put in some effort!

Alright, let’s get into some detail. The first step toward migrating to Linux was taken by Microsoft, not me. My old desktop couldn’t upgrade to Windows 11 because it didn’t have a TPM chip. So, since I wasn’t about to buy a new computer just because Microsoft said so, I thought: worst case, I lose nothing but time.

Where did you start?

In my case, after doing a bit of reading, I started with Linux Mint. Honestly, this wasn’t my first time with Linux — way back in 2007 I used Ubuntu 7.04, so even though it had been years, I still had some basic concepts down. I liked the idea a lot back then, but I ended up going back to Windows because of gaming. I remember it being a nightmare to play on Linux, and I got tired of dual booting. Anyway, it was time to give it a second chance — who would’ve told me 19 years ago that gaming would be the least of my problems this time around. First, I had to decide which distro to use.

Distro? Here we go with the jargon already — what’s that?

Pretty simple, actually. A distro (distribution) is a version of Linux. There are hundreds, for every type of user. There’s something for every skill level, from beginner-friendly ones (like Linux Mint or Ubuntu) to more advanced ones (there’s one called Arch that’s so intimidating I don’t dare touch it).

Perfect, Goguma. How did it go?

Really well, honestly. I liked Linux Mint a lot, and I still do. It has everything you need to get work done without complications. I liked it so much that I removed Windows 10 from my parents’ computer and installed Linux Mint instead. After the usual initial questions, they had zero trouble adapting. It just works.

In my case, pretty much the same thing happened, with fewer issues than I expected. Everything went smoothly, even Steam games ran without problems — almost all of them. I have no idea how it pulls it off, but it feels like black magic. Just one small exception. Well, two: League of Legends and GTA Online. But honestly, I don’t mind that much.

Office documents worked fine too, in general — maybe some minor issue I don’t even remember now. I also removed Windows from the desktop I mentioned earlier.

But then I decided to buy a laptop…

I was so impressed with the performance and possibilities Linux offered that I ended up buying a laptop — a simple Asus with no OS installed. Didn’t matter, I thought, as soon as it arrives I’ll throw Linux Mint on it and get going. Plus, I could use it for testing and trying out other Linux versions, also known as distros.

The installation process went fine except for one thing: no wifi. Turns out the network card in my model doesn’t have available drivers for Linux. My bad — I should’ve checked that beforehand. But it wasn’t anything that was going to stop me at this point, so I went on Coupang (the Korean Amazon) and grabbed the first cheap USB wifi adapter I found, which happened to include Bluetooth too. Cheap and effective. Problem solved.

So that’s it. Goguma stuck with Linux Mint, happy ending.

Anyone who thinks that clearly doesn’t know me. Once these things work, I get the urge to start poking around and see if I can break it. And if I have nothing to lose, even more so. So I remembered that back when I was younger, there used to be tons of different desktop environments to try out. And I decided to try the only one I remembered: KDE. After doing a bit of research, two distros caught my attention: Fedora and openSUSE. I looked into a few comparisons and ended up going with Fedora KDE. It was way better than I expected.

How was Fedora?

Loved it, honestly. First surprise: the fingerprint reader that Linux Mint couldn’t detect now works. Small point for Fedora. Another thing I really liked is how easy it is to customize — there are even templates (themes) to quickly set up a look you like, and it seems the community has created quite a few of them.

I went with a bit of a Mac-style look, and I really like how it turned out. At least it looks better than Windows did. On top of that, in the time I’ve used it, it’s felt very stable, and I managed to set it up to use a Korean keyboard. For me, it’s really solid, though I’ll probably try more distros once I get tired of Fedora. I’ll keep you posted.

For those of you who’ve switched to Linux, what made you do it? I’ll be reading the comments.