Asklemmy

I use Windows 10 LTSC 21H2. It's the most up-to-date LTSC version.

LTSC = Long Term Servicing Channel, which is a special verson of Windows Enterprise that doesn't receive feature updates, doesn't come with all the extra bloat (onedrive, store, xbox game bar, candycrush, office trials, etc).. It's meant for special support enterprise systems like MRI scanners, industrial use, etc..

The reason that I (legally, but for the wrong usecase) use it is that I don't want to switch to Windows 11 or be nagged about it, nor do I want all the extra bloat on top of my OS. But I do want to stay secure, and I get security updates without trouble.

I would rather run a Linux distribution, sadly I do play a few games that are still not working on Linux, even with Proton and lots ot manual trickery. And I play them for about 40 hours a week.

I use Gentoo on my desktop/file server. I like the freedom to set up things EXACTLY how I want them. Compile times are no worry with a Ryzen 5700x and I do major updates overnight.

I use FreeBSD on my laptop. It is super stable, resource efficient and soooo much more neat and organized than Linux. Core software does not change every other year and everything feels right at home. I highly recommended giving it a shot if you haven't already.

NixOS unstable in my workstation and my laptop. Using sway on Wayland on top of all-AMD hardware. I play games with this setup and I write Rust and TypeScript for living. I love the customizability and the reproducibility of NixOS: I just clone my config and I have exactly the desktop I've always had, every little tool and customization included. If my hard drive fails, I just plug a new one and I am productive in about 15 minutes.

My sway desktop has been looking and working similarly for years, and before that I used i3 on Xorg for almost a decade. I like how the UI doesn't really change that much.

Fedora! Have been super not a fan of Windows for years now so I avoid it hardcore when I can.

Linux in general is a lot easier to set up programming environments on, and also just generally it's a lot more flexible when it comes to customization, which is definitely important when you're a big picky bitchbaby like I am.

Fedora specifically I like because there's something I just really like about RHEL-related distros (to the point that i use Rocky Linux on my server also). They feel really polished and dnf is probably my favourite package manager of all the ones I've tried so far. I do have a few issues with it, and I miss having access to the AUR when I used various Arch-baseds over the years, but all in all I'm very happy with it and I don't see myself switching distros for desktop use any time soon.

Pirated version of Windows 10 LTSC (v2021) because FUCK Microsoft.

Artix. Windows free since around 2001-2002

Currently on my main PC I'm running Windows 10, as a few games I play fairly often aren't supported on Linux. Got a Steam Deck running SteamOS, and an old Macbook running Pop!_OS.

Plan on eventually switching my main rig over to the Linux side, most likely Nobara with KDE.

I used to use Linux, but Windows just has better support for most apps and drivers so currently Windows 10. I doubt I'll ever switch to Windows 11. It seems pretty iffy with the lack of customization and ads appearing in the folder menus.

I'm back to Windows 10 (now 11) on my main PC since I bought an Xbox and there's hassle-free Cloud gaming, crossplay etc.

When I exclusively played on PC and built the new Machine, I was too cheap to buy a Windows licence. I tried Pop!OS because I like their gaming-focussed apporach. All games that were relevant to me (via Steam, mostly) worked fine.

I've since bought a Steam Deck, so I'm running SteamOS as well.

I use Windows 10 and Linux, but mainly use Linux for general tasks, and Windows for gaming

Linux mint

I use Arch on my main gaming PC. I did choose to install it a couple years ago based on the chatter and memes around it, but learning to install it taught me a lot about linux and so it just feels like home using it.

You must get a completely different view than "normal people" here. I use Alma Linux 9 (RHEL9 clone) because it's what we use at work, and I've known RedHat since 1999. I use it because it generally is exceptionally stable, and can easily go 6 months without forcing a reboot. It also is much less likely to spy on me, and does most everything I need a computer to do.

Also, using XFCE for my DE means I don't have to relearn something every release version (XFCE has stayed the same all through v4 more or less, which is like at least since 2012. Some new icons here or there.

No forced cloud integration, my account is local, the way I like it. I also am much less concerned about malware (maybe this is unjustified in 2023, I guess IDK).

I got fed up with Microsoft with the rollout of Win10, and switched to Scientific Linux 7 at that time (RHEL7) and just migrated this year to Alma 9 and a new PC. I actually ran the same workstation for 12 years before that. Somehow, even with updates Linux doesn't seem to bloat the way Windows did / would. I.e. I haven't had a Linux install get slower over time for no reason like every Windows install.

MX Linux. It is a debian based, but uses custom scripts and programs from Antix and Mepis that make it super lovely to use.

It strips out systemd and does a lot of work to make popular programs usable that requires it.

Yet, I can still boot into it with systemd turned on, which is useful and more necessary than I like, increasingly so.

I think systemd is fine though. Linux is not unix, variation is healthy and despite what people say I always found it solid.

MX uses XFCE, which I love, and the desktop has some really smart defaults like putting the panel on the side instead of top or bottom, which gives back vertical real estate.

EDIT: I also use macOS iOS. My mom is a dedicated Apple user and I inherit her stuff whenever she upgrades, which is less frequently because I convinced her that what she has is basically overkill for her use cases, ans she does not need the newest thing.

Anyways, I love my iPad Pro. I don't care if Apple is evil, I got it for free and I reading PDFs on it is a goddamn pleasure.

The MacBook Air is the perfect laptop. Large laptops are just heavy and makes me not want to take them anywhere. Glad I learned that lesson.

MacOS

Windows 10 because I play games. Ubuntu on my laptop where I don't, since its old and Ubuntu runs way better than Windows on it.

Ubuntu 20.04. My laptop is from 2013 and windows broke itself with an update in 2018 that rendered the computer useless and at 100% disk usage all the time. I already had some experience with dual booting and running Linux on old PC's so I just wiped it and never went back. I really don't miss it aside from excel.

I generally use Linux (Debian) or MacOS, since I own a couple apple silicon macs. I do try and use HaikuOS as much as possible, since its POSIX implementation is pretty mature and is seeing a good amount of software ported.

I've been running Manjaro for 4 years now, never looked back. I know people have their thoughts on Manjaro, but I haven't had any issues and it comes with some great features out of the box that I'd rather not have to problem solve on another distro. That said, I've been having fun with Endeavor on my extra laptop, it's worked pretty well for me and can see why it has such a thriving community

I have a MacBook Pro which is stock macOS.

Doing software development for nearly a decade, macOS combines that ease of using widely used software tools with the stability of macOS that seems quite rare with Linux (especially in the long term, when upgrading across new OS versions). Also, things like being able to consistently sleep and wake up and my m1’s battery life keeps me on macOS.

With that said, I also have a thinkpad with pop! OS on it. It’s nice, but I have this issue that I can’t alt-tab like I can on windows thanks to gnome. It only alt-tabs the window group, rather than individual windows, and it drives me up the bend.

I really enjoyed the simpleness of PopOS. Got that familiar Ubuntu feel but looks better and runs great on my poor hobby laptop.

Windows on my PC (ugh) and Fedora on my laptop, been thinking of moving the PC to linux mint, but still a bit hesitant.

Laptop: popos Reason: 2 hours battery on windows, 8-12 hours on popos due to sleep issues on windows and Nvidia GPU not turning off on windows.

Desktop: Windows, too many apps without relevant replacements.

Servers: Linux or bsd(depending on vm/reason)

Linux Mint on my main computer, and I've been using my old laptop for distro hopping but I think I might settle on MX Linux.

Ubuntu cinnamon on my shared computer. MABOX Linux on my fuck-around Chromebook.

I'm a programmer and what you'd probably call a computer nerd. I used Windows XP, Vista and 7 until 2016, when I then decided to give Linux (Mint+Cinnamon) a try. Loved it so much, my dual boot days were short and I quickly started using the penguin OS as my sole daily driver. After some very traditional distro hopping, I landed on Manjaro KDE, and have been a happy user for some years.
From an end-user PoV, Manjaro is great because of the frequent rolling-release package updates, nice community support and kernel and driver tools (the mhwd ones), while KDE Plasma is by far my favourite desktop environment, being simple by default but very powerful when needed. GNOME has a more Apple-y look to it, which I know is quite attractive as well, but since I'm more of a power user, KDE stuff is a no-brainer. Other DEs and tilling WMs are also nice, but I'm so happy with KDE I'm not going to switch anytime soon.

Debian and Arch Linux. The Yin and Yang of Linux distros. Debian daily, Arch for occasional gaming

I adore Linux, but at present, I use Windows 11 on all my devices.

My main PC is primarily for gaming, with an NVIDIA GPU (which whilst much better on Linux now, still isn't perfect), so Windows works better there.

For work, also Windows 11, since I'm a software dev, creating Windows software with .NET, ASP.NET, deploying to Windows machines, IIS, using MS SQL server etc. All in Visual Studio.

The Windows ecosystem just... works better for my use-cases, regardless of how much I do like Linux!

Windows 10. Why? Because 80% of my creative software doesn't work on Linux and I dislike Apple products.