For over twenty years, Windows was the undisputed operating system of record for many, including this developer whose journey began on Windows 98. Familiarity bred efficiency; users learned the workarounds, maximizing performance from the established ecosystem. This comfort persisted even into professional development workflows, often running alongside macOS.
However, the narrative shifted dramatically. The tipping point wasn't a single feature, but an accumulation of perceived disrespect for user agency: full-screen advertisements pushing proprietary services, and, most critically, non-consensual, disruptive major updates. The author recounts the breaking point arriving with the Windows 24H2 update, which installed automatically, unleashing bizarre visual bugs—like Chrome suffering 'seizures' when positioned under other windows—that led to system lockups.
Attempts to resolve these critical issues were met with institutional inertia. Rolling back failed. Reinstalling Windows did not fix the core problem. The only temporary solution required migrating to an unstable Insider build, only to trade one set of NVIDIA-Microsoft driver incompatibilities for another. The experience crystallized a harsh reality: maintaining a functional Windows environment was becoming an active fight against the OS itself, often with vendors passing blame rather than offering solutions.
This realization forced a re-evaluation of the common critique that Linux is 'too much work.' While acknowledging the steep learning curve—diving into documentation and rewiring expectations—the author concluded that Windows had become equally demanding, but with the added penalty of having all hard-won configurations potentially erased by the next forced update. The effort expended on Linux, conversely, yielded an OS that respected user consent.
The transition to CachyOS, an Arch-based distribution, was not seamless. Initial hurdles included broken sleep modes and the lack of native support for professional software like Ableton Live. Yet, where Windows offered bureaucratic deadlock, Linux offered actionable solutions. Critical NVIDIA driver issues were resolved with a single configuration change and a command line execution, fixing problems that Microsoft and NVIDIA themselves could not.
Furthermore, the ecosystem is rapidly closing the gap. The author found a native alternative in Bitwig Studio, achieving audio latency comparable to, or better than, macOS, thanks to advancements like Pipewire. For development, the reliance on WSL or Docker on Windows is simply replaced by native Docker and superior terminal support, aligning the desktop environment with production server realities.
This shift underscores a significant trend: Microsoft’s recent actions have inadvertently become the most effective marketing campaign for open-source alternatives. The author notes the irony that the company is now doing more to promote Linux adoption than dedicated enthusiasts. For professionals weighing the trade-offs, the question is no longer if Linux is capable, but whether the perceived stability of proprietary systems is worth the hidden cost of lost control and unpredictable maintenance.
(Source: Adapted from Bogdan's Blog on himthe.dev)