This will not be one of your standard ‘Linux is better’ ramblings, eschewing form for functionality. Instead, my migration to Linux from a windows-only lifestyle occurred over a matter of years, slowly chipping away at the foundation of the ecosystem Microsoft had established within my life.
My entire life I have used Windows as my primary OS. I have been no stranger to Linux, given a myriad of offshoot projects requiring it’s usage or explorations into that ecosystem, however I have always gone back to windows for it’s familiarity, stability and ease of use. As an IT professional, the last thing you want to do after work is spend your evenings troubleshooting problems – you just want it to work without hassle. Mobile OS (IOS/Android) provide this luxury but will always be limited beyond your basic need for web browsing. Mac can be considered as offering a similar simplicity, but with a price tag to match and a bar of entry for those unfamiliar with the UI. Windows has always been, well, Windows. Familiar, uncomplicated and straightforward to use without many ‘gotchas’ for your basic use cases.
Enter my first Mac.
In 2021 I was looking for a new laptop and noticed an odd trend. Every review, blog post, article seemed to come back to one thing: the M1 Macbook Air was the undisputed king of the laptop market currently, as well as price-to-performance. This surprised me, given the hefty price tag associated, but who am i to argue with the market.
5 years later, that Macbook Air still receives daily use with no planned replacement until the end of software support. You could say MacOS was my gateway drug into daily driving a Unix-based OS. Having a solid UI on top of the already familiar Unix ecosystem was a great combination for light daily-driving needs and the intermittent project requiring a dive into the terminal, however MacOS had and continues to feel limited in regards of software support, particularly in terms of gaming. This doesn’t detract from the undeniable fact however that is is an excellent machine for light day to day tasks. While using this air and slowly gaining muscle-memory for reaching towards the terminal, I noticed an announcement one day: Windows 10 was going EOL.
Windows 10 was my Alamo for remaining on Windows. Far from perfect, it still maintained the core of what draws users to windows and allowed for stripping out of unneeded services & telemetry/data tracking, still allowing for a reasonably clean experience. Windows 10 had also become the ‘XP’ of it’s era, reaching wide adoptance after 8.1 and becoming ubiquitous with the brand image.
Windows 11 changed all that. With drastic redesigns, clunky UI, performance regressions and soft hardware requirements resulting in millions of serviceable devices reaching obsolescence it released to less than stellar reviews. For me, the dealbreaker was telemetry and data collection so aggressive at the time full removal was impossible (it appears this is no longer the case). This meant for me, after the end of mainline Windows 10 support in October of 2025, Windows would no longer be a viable option moving forward. However, where do I go from there? I had a year and a half to decide.
MacOS being the walled garden that it is, Linux became the natural choice. This would naturally only be the beginning of the decision, as there are hundreds of distros to choose from. It had been several years since utilizing a desktop environment for Linux and during that time KDE Plasma had reached a solid level of maturity alongside Wayland, allowing for a smooth well-designed UI that was still slightly reminiscent of Windows. This can be installed on any distro, however Wayland and KDE Plasma being baked into the distro factored significantly into the choice as the goal was ease of use as opposed to tinkering for a daily driver.
I initially began with an installation of Linux Mint, given it being a fan favorite for its stability and ease of use. That was the goal of this search after all. However, after using Mint for about a month it became apparent what made it so desirable also held it back significantly. Outdated packages resulted in an experience that was sub-par for gaming. Combined with weak and buggy support for Wayland several years after it had become commonplace meant Mint was not going to be the end solution as a daily driver.
Arch was a fork of Linux I had maintained distance from, given my predilection towards Debian and Arch’s notorious reputation for requiring tweaking & plenty of work if you were to daily drive it. One distro in particular did catch my eye – CachyOs was quickly gaining popularity and maintained it’s own package sources, meaning a lower chance of an OS-breaking update and was geared specifically towards performance optimizations and being on the breaking-edge of any new enhancements. Given my Nvidia GPU and all of the mainline patches coming for improved Nvidia driver support I was intrigued and decided to give it a try.
CachyOs is the one that stuck. I have been using CachyOs for a little over 6 months now with almost no issues. Initial migration took some work, as an NTFS drive had to be reformatted and a VM image of my windows 10 install created in case pieces of that environment were still needed (indeed it was). 6 months post-conversion and that VM has not been touched in some time and my workflows have settled in nicely. Being based on Arch CachyOs provides all the flexibility one would expect, with KDE Plasma and Wayland provide an excellent UI experience OOTB. With nearly no tinkering required this has become my daily driver.
With memories of Windows 10 quickly fading, I’ve found in 2026 a Linux-only environment is far more usable than one may be led to believe. Gaming is turnkey thanks to Steams Proton compatibility layer and daily needs are accomplished without hassle. Long gone are the days requiring driver tweaks, config changes and proprietary binary installations for hardware acceleration to provide a usable experience. While I would not recommend Linux to a family member quite yet (although the immutable distros are nearly there), I find myself quite happy without Windows and have yet to find a workflow I cannot accomplish readily within Linux.
Is this the long-awaited ‘Year of Linux’? That remains to be seen and my professional environment continues to be almost entirely Windows as there are still many benefits on the enterprise level over the alternatives (and many services with no equivalent). However, with Linux install topping 10% of the English player-base on steam it seems that adoption of Windows alternatives is gaining ground rapidly. I wonder what Copilot would have to say?