I Stopped Using Linux for a Year, Here’s What Brought Me Back

For most of the past year, I took a break from Linux to experiment with using other form factors as my primary work device. First it was a BOOX Tab Ultra. Then it was a Moto Edge+ with Motorola’s desktop mode. Then it was a Galaxy Z Fold 5 with DeX. Here’s what draws me back to Linux time and time again.

Being Forced to Replace Things Sucks

You may have noticed that I have a thing for Android devices. I love the diverse types of Android hardware, and I manage fine using these newer form-factors to replace my PC.

Thing is, these devices tend to reach end-of-life pretty quickly. Google and Samsung may have announced seven years of support for their newest devices, but that doesn’t apply to their older phones. Most of us have Android phones and tablets that stop receiving updates after just a couple of years (if that).

You can use a conventional Windows PC or MacBook for years, but Linux manages to outdo both. In the Linux world, if your hardware is powerful enough to run the latest software, then you can install it. You only need to buy a new device when your machine breaks or is too slow to keep up. That’s the way I like it.

I Don’t Want to Deal With All the Tracking

It may or may not come as a surprise that unless you’re using Linux, factoring in the operating system itself, you don’t own most of the software you run on your computer. Instead, you’ve agreed to use the code under the developer’s terms. You’re not buying, you’re signing a lease. This feeling that a Windows PC isn’t mine is why running Microsoft’s OS is a non-starter for me.

Today’s terms of service tend to come with tracking. Companies want to know how you’re using “their” software. Much of this is benign (metrics are vital to helping developers squash bugs), but a lot of this tracking has become the way companies make money. Far too many log what you do and either use that information to sell ads or simply sell that information directly. This gives me a feeling of unease. At any given moment, it’s hard to know which of my activities are private.

Linux, by contrast, gives me peace of mind. I can open my computer knowing that until I open a web browser or another telemetry-collecting app, no one knows what I’m doing.

Software I Like Keeps Changing

Software can change at any time. I felt most burned by this back when I used Chromebooks. I actually bought a 2013 Chromebook Pixel and loved how minimal Chrome OS was back then. Then Google moved the app icons to the center of the panel, and it irked me to no end. It’s one thing to change the defaults, but there was no option to move things back to where they used to be.

On Linux, it usually only takes a few clicks to return things to how they were. For major overhauls, like when a desktop environment or a well-established app gets a complete redesign, someone usually steps in to continue a previous version as a separate project. Software still gets to evolve, but people who love how things were can stick with what they love.

The point is that I’m empowered to use my computer in the way that I want, and when I sit down to start my workday, I can trust that everything didn’t change out from under me overnight.

I Can Tweak or Fix Virtually Anything on Linux

Sometimes the issue isn’t a sudden, unexpected change. Often a program has simply always has things about it that I wish were slightly different. My preferences differ from that of the developers or other users, and that’s understandable.

To pick on two programs in particular, both Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird have interfaces that look okay but don’t fully vibe with the other apps on my desktop. I can change this by installing community-created themes that modify each app’s code (it’s less scary than it sounds). There’s a GNOME theme for both Firefox and Thunderbird.

I can make changes to the system font by installing GNOME Tweaks. I can typically remove unwanted buttons from the interface by searching for the correct line of text to remove from a file buried somewhere on my PC. On Linux, where there’s a will, there’s a way, and I don’t have to worry about breaking terms of service in the process.

Linux Encourages Me to Own My Data

When you buy a laptop or a phone, you’re not just getting a piece of hardware. The setup process will typically prompt you to create an account and sign up for a bunch of online services. Whether it’s Google, Microsoft, or Apple, the big tech companies want you to give them your data.

Linux doesn’t require any online accounts. Not only that, most of the apps are designed to work with offline files saved to your own machine. For tasks that work best online, the Linux ethos is to encourage you to self-host your own software, such as using Nextcloud (as pictured above), so that you remain in control of your data. There are also many apps that send or sync files directly from one machine to another, with nothing stored online, as is the case with Syncthing and Warp.

Linux Runs Better on PCs As They Age

I’m writing this on a tiny Star Labs StarLite MK IV laptop that is now a few years old. It has received numerous software over the years, and despite its aging tech (that was never high-end to begin with), the machine feels faster now than it ever has.

Linux tends to work best on older hardware. This is hardware that developers have had time to optimize code for and, in some cases, reverse engineer. Bugs get squashed and software gradually matures. A machine that’s buggy at first often gets gradually less so as time goes on.

This is the opposite of most consumer tech, which tends to be at its fastest the moment it comes out of the box. With Linux, instead of watching things go downhill, you get to observe as things slowly improve.

AI Features Are Slipping into Everything

When I got my Galaxy Z Fold 5, I was surprised by the quality of the first-party apps. I think many of Samsung’s apps are superior to Google’s. Yet since 2024 has been the year of AI, I’ve watched AI features appear in several of the apps. Both of Samsung’s major new hardware events focused more on introducing Galaxy AI features than gadgets. This was the case in events by Apple and Google as well.

With this going on, it feels refreshing to open up a Linux PC and see zero mention of AI features. It’s not something on the road map, either. Why? Quite frankly, few everyday people are actually asking for AI. The Linux desktop isn’t beholden to investors. It’s developed primarily by many of the same people who use it, and they can just create a web browser bookmark to access ChatGPI or Gemini if they feel the need.

Linux Honors My Values

The world is increasingly digital, yet most of the decisions online are dictated by corporations. Apple and Google have a duopoly, with the two companies deciding what happens on the overwhelming majority of phones. Anything Microsoft does determines life on most of the world’s PCs. Much of this code is private, obfuscated, and secretive. We generally know it’s doing something we don’t like but put up with it. What choice do we have?

Often I imagine what would be a better way to do computing, and I find that desktop Linux already supplies answers. Freely shared code gives us ownership over the software on our machines and the freedom to do with it what we wish. It also encourages people to collaborate with each other, working to everyone’s benefit.

Linux’s transparency bakes in a certain degree of privacy. I rarely encounter anything on my Linux machine that leaves me with the kind of angst I feel opening up an app only to see a banner ad, finding out there’s a checkbox deep within an app that has been uploading my activity this entire time, or watching an app also secretively install additional bloat I didn’t want. In a world where so much software is designed to exploit us, it feels good to use an operating system that doesn’t.