I have windows 11 on an old ssd for the moment just to play half-life: alyx wired on my quest. But after I will be selling my quest to get a steam frame and nuking windows.

I just gave up and ended up with Linux, Win11 and MacOS. Each one has its benefits and I am not missing anything if needed. Need to be open minded when using tech tools which computers are.

I play games and I develop applications on my spare time in c++ and rust.

I have not dual booted since at least 5 years, and even before that i used windows very sporadicly

I play on Linux - none of the games I have require windows. I have a virtual machine with GPU passthrough for testing my applications on windows, and I also boot it very seldomly

I dualbooted only for my first day using Linux, then I noticed I'd never want to use Windows 10 ever again so I just deleted Windows

Windows 10. Just use it for filling and signing forms in Adobe Acrobat. Not upgrading to Windows 11 ever.

Haven’t touched it since XP.

The trick is to stop thinking about computers as being Windows, rather than just a computer. So you need a spreadsheet? Don’t think of it as being Excel’s functionality. Need a database? Don’t think of it as being Access’ functionality. Once you free yourself from that, and really start customizing things, you’ll never be able to use Windows again. (I don’t even know how to navigate the post Windows 7 versions.)

I dual-boot Windows 11. I use Windows for gaming, Linux for productivity, and whichever one I booted into last for web browsing and general use.

I have an Nvidia GPU, hence gaming on Windows. I'm not taking a 20+% framerate hit to DX12 games. I also don't have to mess with launch parameters or anything to get games working.

I'm also into overclocking and hardware tuning, and the tooling is better under Windows, especially hardware monitoring. HWiNFO64 has no peer on Linux.

Windows 11 for gaming. Unfortunately, no matter how good Linux gets for gaming, drm and anticheat are going to be facts of life for gamers.

Now that I think about it, I've been using Linux since 2005 and I'M LIKE... WHAT?! 20 years already! DAMN!

I'm dual-booting, but the other way around. I keep a Fedora Linux install updated on a separate drive just in case and use Windows 11.

And why do you still use Windows?

Because for my simple usecases, desktop Linux offers zero tangible advantages over just using Windows, even on extremely modest hardware (old gen i3Us with 6 gigs of ram), but there are quite a few tangible annoyances such as:

• Win 11 gives me significantly better battery life on my laptop OOTB and I really don't want to spend my time tinkering with an entire suite of "battery optimizer" scripts/services (which ended up having only very marginal impact the last time I tried anyway)
• Lacking autoscroll
• X11 being unusable jank
• Wayland still not remembering window positions, which is annoying because I am very particular about where certain windows should be positioned on my monitors.
• GPU stuff:
  • AMD Windows Driver is display setup + visual filters + recording + OC
  • Every one of those components is separate on Linux.
  • Hardware acceleration in the browsers is just not up to snuff with Windows.
• I use Playnite to organize my games library/launch overlays/integrate with Ludusavi to automatically back up saves to my server/make nice shortcuts and track achievements for my emulated games. Lutris is no substitute.
• DXVK sometimes causes noticeable slowdowns/stutters on your first run through areas, even with DXVK_ASYNC. I don't play one game constantly, and I don't keep my shader caches, so if native DX11/12 perform better, I'd rather use that.
  • On the flipside, DXVK does often performs better, particularly for a certain slice of AAA DX11 titles released roughly between 2012 and 2020. So I just use DXVK on Windows to reap all the performance benefits of DXVK.
• Software distribution:
  • On Windows: literally everything I use (all free software) is on winget. Winget is, no joke, ook-ook caveman software, and I love that. It just runs official installers with a preset configuration or sometimes unpacks zips for portable apps. That is all it does. It also automatically shows me the URLs it downloads stuff from, peace of mind for when the voices in my head are too strong.
  • On Linux: Not even my browsers are in the official repos :3 I have to manually add repos for my browsers, which I have to do because Flatpak sandboxed apps still don't play nicely with other apps (i.e. KeePassXC). I still (rarely) have to hunt and peck on github and compile some software from source, although admittedly developers are getting much better about providing binaries for distros that aren't Ubuntu.
    • Sometimes the voices come and whisper: the official repos are still middlemen. Yes, they are reliable middlemen and I trust Fedora maintainers and packagers, but that is still one (or several) more person compared to just downloading software directly from the developer. I understand why the situation is the way it is, I'm just not particularly convinced by arguments that this is an actually good and secure thing, as opposed to something that was borne out of necessity.
    • Runs update on Fedora: BZZZT BRRT, YOU CAN'T UPDATE BECAUSE CISCO OPENH264 PACKAGE GAVE 403 FORBIDDEN. I mean okay, I guess i will just manually add this garbage package to ignored, like, why are you stopping me from updating my system because of one codec library? Why does one essentially third-party package refusing to download kneecap the ability to update the rest of my system? What if this happened to someone who has ever worse (somehow) troubleshooting abilities than I do? What if they updated through their GUI Software store and said store just threw up something completely useless and non-descriptive ("OpenH264 failed to update!!!!") that you needed to connect to a specific system package yourself? Wouldn't that just mean that they are cooked? The "everything is a package managed by one package manager" approach works for software development (assuming you don't need multiple versions of one package) and feels great for managing my home server, but it just feels misplaced on the desktop, and the alternative to this paradigm (flatpak) comes with the added "security" baggage, which, to be clear, is fantastic for the average user but is a massive pain in the ass for me personally.
• To be blunt, it's just one less thing to worry about. In most cases, including various FOSS apps, Windows is the one truly supported platform. There are certainly exceptions to this generalized statement, such as software dev packages and utils, but as a whole it's just far, far easier to stick with what's actually supported.

So, in short, there is nothing keeping me on/tying me to Windows and I am ready to switch at a moment's notice if need be. But, given the opportunity, I still prefer Windows (on the desktop).

i do, solely for playing Fallout TTW and StarCraft. That's it

Technically I still have Windows 10 dual boot set up but haven't booted Windows side up in probably years and have changed CPU and GPU since so not sure it even boots up anymore.

My daily driver has not had a windows partition for a few years. 4-5 maybe? Idk. My desktop has a windows partition but even there i dont recall the last time i used it. But it was definitely years ago

I am not dual booting, but I have two different machines, a gaming PC with Windows and a Linux Laptop for everyday work.

Use a cheap second system to test my game engine on windows not much more than that, but also boot haiku and freebsd for this.

they just made it too secure

LMAO

I play fortnite with my kid occasionally and I need Windows for that so I keep it on an old disk.

I need to boot to Windows on my work laptop for upgrades, to keep IT happy. 

I boot it in qemu occasionally...just to see if it still works. When I buy a laptop, I wipe it and install Debian, then use the Win key to create a VM, just in case I ever need it professionally. I haven't in a long time, but it's nice to have. When I was a consultant, I'd join AD domains this way, so it was entirely isolated from the host OS.

Nope. No dual boot.

not anymore. If I need the Win app, just use Winboat.

Linux only. This year I deleted my windows virtual machine. The only thing I used it for was to download acsm drm files but there is a plugin for Calibre so I have no need anymore for windows

I have a separate drive with Win11 but it’s been a while since I’ve booted in. It’s only for playing BF6 at this point

I currently only have Arch installed, but I still have to find a solution for the BIOS update.

When I initiate it from inside the BIOS itself, it errors out on the thunderbolt part. If I start from Windows, it works fine.

I dual boot win 10 for work coz I need software that doesnt work through wine/proton

I duel boot specifically to play Escape from Tarkov. I haven't got any other reason to keep Windows other than to play that with friends.

I only go to Windows when I need to use Premiere Pro or to play a match or two of valorant

I do have a Windows virtual machine. I use it for games which dont play nice with Linux and for downloading bing wallpapers of the day. So basically less and less these days. If i ever do an upgrade of the system, i will design it for Linux only.

I have it installed but haven’t booted it, thinking of clearing out that space

Deleted windows weeks ago from dualboot

I only have a windows laptop i never use in a drawer at work. Thats all. None of my other work or personal devices has had any contact with windows the last 4-5 years.

I am dual booting between Lubuntu LTS 24.04 and Windows 11. The only reason why I still use Windows is because my laptop has an nVidia GPU chip and I play games. Because developing better Linux drivers is not a priority for nVidia, I might get half the framerate playing certain games (e.g. Killing Floor 2) in Linux compared to Windows, even when Proton is enabled and specific parameters for Proton are set.

I've windows 11 on one drive in one laptop and haven't booted into that for maybe 2 years. The other drive runs Ubuntu. That's the last Windows bare metal install I have left in my stack, every other system runs a version of Linux. Lol, it's taken me 15 years to get to this point.

In my VM sometimes but it's super uncommon

I'd only boot 7 for a few weeks when it came out, to test it.

I work in audiovisual production. I use Linux in all my productions. But sometimes we partner with other production companies that use the Adobe suite. To maintain compatibility, we have dual boot. Our computers have one NVMe drive with Linux, an internal SSD for files, and another SSD just to run Windows in those specific cases.

I need a Windows installation on my laptop for university because they need to spy on us doing the exams, and their spyware does not work on Linux.

I need a Windows installation on my PC to play league of legends.

Hopefully I can quit windows for good once I'm done with university and either quit league or they make their shitty vanguard work on linux

Nope, left Windows permanently back in April. Running CachyOS. I'm a bit pissed MS Flight Simulator 2020 doesn't work through Steam (Can't get past login screen) But other than that, i'm good.

Had a Windows disk just in case “ before. Not booted into Windows for 3+ years now so that disk was erased a month ago or so. Feel no need at all to have Windows installed nor do I want to anymore.

I have never really used Windows. The last time I dual booted with Linux, my main OS was IBM OS/2 Warp. I have run XP in a VM when I still used my Sony USB Minidisc recorder, as there was no alternative.

Some old cdrom software only works for Windows, so I'm happily still booting Win10. I really don't care which OS I'm using, when I need it.

Not sure if this counts but I do have a *seperate* machine specifically for gaming and that one runs Windows.

I know, I know, Proton is a thing now and gaming on Linux has never been better... etc etc... but when I want to sit down and play games I don't want to be bothered getting them running on Linux.

Plus it gave me good practice setting up Sunshine & Moonlight for streaming as the gaming rig is in the server rack and my office has my Linux laptop.

Ironically I rarely use that machine as I don't actually game that much these days - mostly as I'm super busy unfortunately.

i do it for a single reason. geforce now (cloud gaming app) does not support AV1 decoding on linux

I've been windows only for a few months now since I got my quest 2. Since I'm exclusively playing nms in vr I found myself spending all my time in my windows vm. Then at one point the windows vm borked itself prompting me to reinstall it. Then something happened somewhere and now windows boot manager takes over the booting process not allowing me to boot into arch which is still on the drive mind you.

Running Windows 10 on an old desktop. Always involved tedious chores running Ccleaner, Malwarebytes and sluggish updates. By comparison Linux mint on my laptop is swift and painless.

I’m still dual booting Win 11 and Mint, however haven’t used Win in 6 mths since I switched. I really should just format that SSD with Win 11 at this point.

Only when my daughter play roblox

Yeah I just have it because I am replaying star wars x wing alliance on it.

I dual booted for years for gaming purposes. Now that gaming is not only good but sometimes slightly better in Linux i deleted my Windows partition over a year ago now and haven't looked back. I know some people need Windows for work or programs that just don't work in Linux but luckily I am not one of them.

Benchmarks on modern games are much higher in Windows and HDR looks more correct so I keep dual boot.

I basically only use Windows to run Valorant and review clips, and maybe use Cubase

I have a W10 virtual machine to play some old game from the early 2000s, which doesn't work on Linux. I bought a 2nd hand Rx580 and passthrough to it so it's like having a dedicated Windows machine but without dualboot.

I have a windows 11 install on a separate ssd, that is still connected, but its been months since I booted it, aparent from when my bios reset after an upgrade a few weeks ago and picked that as default.

Actually I do use the disk, it contains the local backup of my Linux install.

I do have a plan to boot it at some point though. I am currently clearing my gaming backlog and any games I cannot get running, I will try on Windows.

Once ive finished them, I may never boot to windows again.

I was dual booting, but then linux stopped booting so I'm just using win10 on my steam deck now.

I still need Photoshop, Premiere, and RomStation

I dual boot my desktop. The Office facsimiles available for Linux all suck donkey balls, so if I need to do any serious work with one of the apps I boot into Windows. There are also a few games that, while they "work" under Linux, they don't work well (Halo: Master Chief Collection, Halo: Infinite, Kerbal Space Program).

The only reason I still dual boot Windows is for online games with kernal anti-cheat. Call of duty, skate, battlefield. I only boot into it specifically to play those games. Anything I've tried single player works great on Linux.

I have windows on a second drive just because I can. every once in awhile it's nice to have.

I run Windows 3.1, 98 and XP in a virtual machine but, that is solely for old programs. Dual booting seems like a bit of a headache, if I had to run Adobe for work or something, I would just buy a Mac Mini, I don't think I would touch my Linux desktop.

I have a windows 11/PopOS dual boot. So I can play some EA and Epic games with the bros. Plus sometimes it's just easier to work in Word for my research.

If I need to do any serious Dev work it's usually in Linux or on my Mac. If it's a quick script or something than WSL.

I have Win10 (with the LTS patch) as a "dual" boot (actually quadruple with 3 different flavours of linux as well) on my work/primary machine. It gets booted every couple of months to get its updates and used about once every year or two. It's there in case I need to do something that requires more grunt/gpu than the W10 VM with software that is absolutely windows only (yes I know about passthrough but I can't be arsed). The need for it has slowly waned over the years but better safe than sorry when it comes to work.

the only thing keeping me dualbooting is sometimes if my pc shuts of unexpectedly or hard crashes and i have to force power it off it can corrupt ntfs external drives. theoretically i can let windows go completely when the ntfsplus driver is merged into the kernel as it will allow fixing ntfs drives without booting into back into windows.

Games with kernel level anti-cheat and Minecraft bedrock to play together on consoles.

I have Linux on my laptop (CachyOS currently, previously Ubuntu, Arch & Fedora) and Windows on my desktop. I tried running Linux on my desktop (Fedora & Bazzite) as well but there seem to be some hardware issues. It would often not wake from sleep properly, requiring a hard reboot. The games a play started up and initially ran fine. But some of them, after an hour or two, would start chugging and eventually completely freeze the system. Again requiring a hard reboot. If it wasnt for that I would get rid of windows completely.

My next desktop computer will be fully Linux-compatible hardware :)

Is there a Linux acrobat editor like Sumatra?

Unfortunately, some AAA games still are stuck on Windows :(

I use Debian 13 (just switched from 12) for work.

Only thing I am using is a local VM for connecting to our Terminal Server. And this - for now - only works on Windows or Mac.

nope. linux only. never dualbooted, although i did use linux in a vm and with wsl for some time

MS Office

Need windows for apps for work. Adobe apps and fusion for example. Also gaming.

Dual booting linux on a separate ssd to learn it because it has come far, and I predict soon I can move over to it by its rate of updates and supports.

Used Mint and bazzite only. Had issues with both but taking my time to learn. Any suggestions for distros? I think mint may be best for me but really how would I know lol.

I did dual-booted Windows 11 and Fedora for a few years, and I only kept Windows since I had a Game Pass subscription. I mostly played MSFS 2024 and Forza Horizon 5 at the end, and I didn't think MSFS 2024 especially would run on Linux, so I didn't have a choice but to keep Windows. Then, three-ish months ago, MSFS 2020 went on sale on Steam and I bought and installed it on Fedora just to see if it would even launch. It did, and it ran even better than on Windows! 

This was such an eye opener to me that I nuked the Windows-SSD and cancelled my Game Pass-subscription the day after, and went full-time with Fedora. Next, I installed RDR2 and it ran -  of course, great. I wanted MSFS 2024, but I checked lt on Proton.db and it should run, but not great, so I waited it out for a bit. I bit the bullet last week and bought it after I'd just picked up a 9070 XT, and it's running great, of course lol. 

I don't play competitive games, so I'm not affected by anti-cheat. I haven't touched Windows in many months now, and I don't miss it for a second. The only Microsoft product I still use is Excel, but I use the Office.com version, which works fine for me, and it can be used on all platforms. I'm a Proton (Mail) user and they just released Proton Sheets last week, and I'm going to start using that instead once the Proton Drive-app gets Sheets integrated into the app, which should be soon. 

Using Linux since 1999. I dual boot for only two (gaming) reasons:

1) I mostly play Flight Simulator and have a ton of addons and plugins that either don’t run at all on Linux or it would be a pain to configure. I’d rather spend that time “flying” than tinkering to make it work. 

2) When I play other (single player) games, I use WeMod to give myself infinite ammo & money/items. I tried Wemod on Linux and it was so time consuming and unreliable to set up that I didn’t find it worth the effort to do that vs 30 seconds to reboot into Win whenever I want to play. 

Some software I use require a license dongle plugged in and it only works on Windows. I tried a VM as well since I have a windows pro license did a USB passthrough too. But the software links to hid.dll in windows which simply doesn't work inside a VM. Therefore I need windows, to run that software and they are kinda monopoly in that space and I need it for our business. Otherwise I am on Linux.

Linux user since 2024. I've always used linux on laptops. I've always kept the windows as dual boot mainly just in case I had to debug any hardware issue or in case I need windows for some tricky things (in Italy they used to give some medical results on a cd which was readable only from windows for example). On one of my laptops that I'm using as HTPC and as home assistant machine, I've removed the windows partition.

While you would expect me to give you gaming as a reason for keeping windows around that's not really the case in my situation. I'm getting older and tired, so all the new hotness competitive games are not enjoyable for me, and most of what I play is single player too. Due to those game not being the most popular they aren't touched by kernel level anti-cheat and work actually very well on linux, including game I don't really play anymore like world of tanks that installed flawlessly too as a non-steam game.

On the other hand, I have a secondary machine that I use as a racing sim (WRC, Assetto Corsa, ETS2, Forza Horizon), and I kept windows 10 on that one, for my logitech wheel drivers mostly.

But what made me keep windows 10 on my main machine was, just like you, the adobe suite for media creation. I used to do photography, video and a bit of graphic design and I learned on an old version of the adobe CC suite. I'm still using that older version to work on projects, and while I would eventually love to switch to linix compatible, maybe even open source alternatives, I got used to the Adobe software and I don't spend enough time these days doing that to justifiy learning a whole other suite of programs anyway.

However, as I said I don't do those things often, I'm booting windows 10 fewer than once a month, the rest of my computer use being done on Fedora KDE, which made the transition feel seemless.

Two years ago I've learned the pains of installing Windows 10 the way I liked, so no more Windows.

My wife and my gaming PCs both have Windows 11. The other 7 computers and 4 tablets in our house all run Linux.

Minecraft Bedrock for my son. And for myself Cyberpunk 2077 with raytracing for lighting and reflections (nvidia 3080ti) runs about 5% to 10% faster on Windows.

I don't use Dual Boot for a long time, not practical for me...

Nowadays I'm fine with W11 + WSL2, it solves most of my problems...

W11 for work related apps, Linux for everything else!

For solo audio production work, I use a Linux-native DAW and plugins, but one of my collaborative projects pretty much requires Cubase, so I'm still tied to Windows for that.

Honestly, I don't see any reason to keep windows except for gaming. Is true that some softwares runs only on windows, but there are open source alternatives out there. Anyway, even gaming has become easier on linux, despite of some multiplayer games using invasive anti cheats. Over time, I got tired of some of these games, then windows became totally useless for me. I'm all into linux now

I dualboot to Win11, it used to be my primary OS and Linux was my secondary, but over time that has been shifting, now I've been using Windows anywhere between every two weeks and every two months for a few days at a time, solely for gaming on a few things that I don't trust a compatibility layer for (online games that may ban me for using such things).

I used to use VR gaming as an excuse too, but I haven't touched my Index in over a year, anyone here have experience with an Index on Linux with an AMD GPU?

I tried Mint and Ubuntu before. Randomly decided to fully switch to fedora 2 weeks ago after I saw some of my classmates running fedora natively. Honestly, I thought I would have to boot every now and then to Windows for certain tasks. But haven't used windows those 2 weeks. Quite a surprise to be honest

Windows for VR and some games only. Which is maybe 4h a week. Beside that using Linux since it has a usable multi monitor support that is also usable with two different sized monitors, which was long, much to long, not the case.

I left a Windows partition on my new Thinkpad X9 15 until I feel comfortable that a distro is supporting everything on it. It's been less than a month. I've tried Fedora and Solus so far, and I'm going to try a customized Void iso this weekend. My intention is to get back to Void, then wipe out Windows. However, experience tells me it might take longer to find fixes for the last two things that don't work (sound card and webcam) because Void doesn't use systemd. I could live on Solus, though. Very smooth distro.

I know this is radical here but...I like word and onedrive integration for school work. So now Windows is my get-work-done OS and Linux is for everything else. I wish I could have gnome with that though because the multitaksing really is another level, but windows is fine for it for now

5 months in, andI have booted Win11 once and that was to use Affinity. I work in Marketing and t's an easy to use tool.

Have used gimp a few times, but it's a pain. I don't know how the UI hasn't been overhauled yet

I recently finally deleted the windows partition after not booting into it for like 2 years.

Now I got a big empty space on my hard drive because the boot partition is in between the Linux one and where windows once was, and I’m too scared of moving the boot partition because I think it would mess stuff up

I have win10 running in a VM to be able to run iTunes to copy music from computer to iPhone, sole use I have for windows.

I installed mint around the time windows 10 left support as a dual boot and I have started windows once since, to recover my discord Username. 

In my personal computer I only have Debian 13. I use windows in my work computer.

I boot Windows 10 on top of Linux (VM). For work, mainly because of some software that don't work well/at all on linux.

But this has hugely improved in the last years.

Windows for music production. Linux for everything else

I have windows 11 dual boot but literally avoid it like the plague. Keep it for family when they need a Windows machine so I have to make it boot priority. Sometimes, I miss pressing f12 and then I pretend like my PC is a bomb and need to reset it to stop the bomb

I’ve got a win10 partition which rarely gets booted.

I keep 2 dual boot PCs around. I have an old Windows schematic editing software that needs to share the same files between my workshop PC in the basement and my desktop upstairs. I haven't figured out how to make all this work in Linux, so I keep a XP PC (internet-blocked) and a W10 PC dual booted.

I have one window 11 computer. The other 7 all have Linux from Raspberry Pi to Ubuntu to Mint and one with free BSD.

I don't dual boot, I'm lucky enough to have a gaming computer that is Windows, and a normal / coding laptop that is linux. Nothing I dev needs the grunt of a desktop luckily, so the laptop is fine.

I have win 10 on a spare ssd. I keep it around for the odd game that needs it. New games don't even get bought unless they have at least gold rating on ProtonDB. I don't remember the last time I booted into Windows.

Thinking about it, I might have a crack at SolidWorks again, that needs Windows.

I'm a bench tech that dual boots 10 and Ubuntu. I have Ubuntu (the latest lts) because Windows gets all fussy about permissions to access files where Linux does not. so for data recovery it's often faster to use Linux than to futz around with windows file properties security tab.

We never updated past Windows 7 and switched to Linux cold turkey when MS started actively killing 7 rather than simply not supporting it. It was easier to switch from 7 to Linux than from 7 to 10.

We have one Windows 7 machine, our old media server, sitting in the corner still functional but with the media drives installed in the new server. However, it's only been turned on once since the switch and that was to retrieve some files I forgot to copy.

We were willing to give up Battlefield 1942 and the games on Steam to get rid of Microsoft, but thankfully neither was necessary. No game is worth putting up with Microsoft's BS.

I'm considering dual booting my machine. I keep having more and more problems with Windows. I largely game on my home machine, with the support getting better for that, it is a consideration. However, I also have some things that I do / peripherals, that seem to only support windows so I would keep windows for those things.

I haven't compiled the list of things that are windows only for me to try and to find alternatives for them, yet. I think that will be an ongoing process.

Wiped it years ago. Had it, every once in three months booted in to do updates, but it always took way too long, so at one point i just got pissed off about it and wiped it.

Haven't used windows  I'm going to need my personal devices in quite some time .  Probably been a few years now, just don't have any reason to use it 

No need to boot into Win for me.

I just have a Win 11 install in a virtual machine and I power it on with VirtualBox as needed. I needed it only once in the last 30 days though.

too many

I tried windows 11 for 1 year and it's not that stable... In many times it have some unexpected glitches and errors ... That just restarting the system fixes them ?! ... I also tried Zorin Linux and Linux Mint ... The 2 are good .. but for design .. of course Zorin wins ... They are same base (Looks like Ubuntu)

For stability, Who wins ?:

Windows -> Windows 10 Linux -> Linux Mint

So if I have to use the two systems.. I must dual boot ... Because one cannot do other thing... Like for example ... Linux can't open all games ... And if they opened .. it will be much worse performance than windows ... But Windows cannot do fully android development... (Because android is a custom distro of Linux (MOSTLY)) .. Likely I will dual boot Linux Mint or Zorin with Windows if I have to

Right now ... I am using Windows 10 ... Because it's more than enough for me ... I don't do android development.. I do gaming more .. so it's better in that case

dual booted for a year, forgot windows password because i didn't use it ; moved my oem license to a VM that i use once a year to update line6 hardware...

I boot both Windows and Linux everyday and probably have used both continuously for at least two decades. I'm old enough to have multiple machines in the house from upgrades over the years. The beefiest computer always runs Windows for games. The oldest computers and all my servers run FreeBSD and the rest newer ones run Linux.

I don't really see the point of "switching" when I have multiple machines I've collected over the years. And each OS has their strengths and weaknesses. I use the right tool for the task at hand.

I already write and compile code all day in my day job so the last thing I want to do when I go home, is trouble shooting and trying to drive a screwdriver with a hammer.

Linux, Windows, FreeBSD, I see them all as tools, not as religions and don't see that changing for the foreseeable future.

Dual boot. I use Linux 90% of the time. Windows only for specific games and software

I am still dual booting but only for the Gothic series. Gothic 1 & 2 do not play nice with Linux for me, especially with mods, so I have an SSD with Windows and different installations and mods of Gothic only. Otherwise, Solus all the way.

have them on different disks, it works fine

windows has a better gaming experience for me. consistent mouse sensitivity, consistent game support (obviously), rootkit anticheat.

windows is used exclusively for gaming and isn't signed into anything sensitive.

1. I need to use the Cisco Anyconnect VPN for work, and it just stopped working on Linux for some reason. As in, I installed it and used it a few times, and one time, the application just didn't start; I've tried reinstalling it, but nope. I'm sure I can figure it out, but I haven't spent the time to fix it, and I need it to just work sometimes.

2. Sometimes, I play games w friends, and Linux doesn't let me share my audio via Discord or any web app. I'm sure I can figure it out, but I haven't spent the time to fix it, and I need it to just work.

3. I sometimes use Steam Shareplay to play Cuphead w a friend. Now, this feature actually does work on Linux, which surprised me, but I can't actually see the game, I see a black screen, but I can hear it and I'm sure it's working under the hood. I believe this to be a Wayland issue, and I don't think I can fix this one. If someone has any ideas, I'd appreciate it tbh, but I don't wanna have X11 installed because I'm too happy with Hyprland, and I don't like having multiple DEs installed. I probably will just continue to use Windows for this rare and specific use case.

4. I like playing play money poker on PokerStars, just a fun thing I do sometimes (real money is banned here in Colombia) and other poker software stinks. Now, this software can actually be installed through Wine, but my hotkeys don't work, and I used them too much. Maybe a Wayland issue, too? I'm not sure.

5. Linux is just not good enough in the desktop space. All these issues and things not working make it unreliable. I've seen countless stories of people having their OS break entirely when they most need it, and although it hasn't happened to me, I can't spend 6 hours figuring out how to fix an issue or installing and debloating Windows if it breaks on me when I need it. I mainly use Linux, and I love it, and I wish it was great, but sadly, I still need my fallback when I need certain things to just work.

The only use I had in the last 6 months for windows 11 is the Logitech option pairing of multiple 2.4hhz dongle

I know when you say "running windows 11 with Linux" you're talking about dual booting...but I have a Linux server (proxmox) that has a Windows 11 VM that I boot for the sole purpose of running my xtool laser software. Once I can get it running on Linux (possibly using WINBOAT) I'll likely never boot that VM again.

My laptop that runs Linux does so off of an external HDD, the internal still has Windows 10 installed. I plan to eventually clone the drive and use it on more capable PC as a VM. I have no use for Windows on bare metal anymore.

I haven't dual booted since 2008. I used VMs up until I went full Linux in 2017.

Yes, but with a caveat.

On my normal work pc I only have linux. But on my gaming rig I have a dual boot though it 99.99% of the time boots in linux. I do occasionally boot into windows and that is only - yes, only! - for when i want to print something. Printing on my system in linux for whatever reason just keeps breaking so i just gave up. I can probably get it working again but i'm not about to spend more hours debugging an issue that keeps breaking itself over and over again.

I have a dedicated win 11 ssd in my system for just-in-case moments but rarely boot into it. I can’t even remember the last time I did

I am not. Windows free for a few years now. Pop!OS for a year, then Garuda for the rest.

I dual-boot rather regularly.

Why? Gaming.

I play games that have anti-cheat that require ut.

Fortnite. I can play Fortnite on my phone but my phone's gyro sucks and my ps4 controller died, so of I want to play with friends Lt has to be PC or I'm dead weights

i dual boot windows 8.1 pro and arch linux on a macbookair6,2 because i need itunes to restore some apple devices. haswell cpu produces quite a bit of heat if you have anything more than a browser open, but that's just the shitty thermal design

I dual boot W11 and Fedora. I keep Windows around for hassle-free Xbox bluetooth controllers in gaming, hassle-free use of my projector over HDMI, and for Ableton Live 12 Lite with my midi keyboard.

I reboot into Fedora for anything else. Since it’s annoying to reboot and the above use cases account for at least 50% of my PC usage, it spends a lot of time in Windows, unfortunately.

I was 100% in Linux on my work laptop until we were acquired and the new company required spyware that wouldn’t run in Linux. So for work I switched to a MacBook.

Dual boot for oem car diagnostics and some games

I always have an inexpensive up-to-date Windows laptop solely to run tax software each spring. Including my own, I prepare 5 federal and state returns for family members. I could dual boot but I don't pirate my copy of Windows. And seeing as buying a new laptop every 6 to 8 years gets me a new version at minimal cost, I figure why fight the Microsoft monster. Personally, I'm just waiting for the day H&R Block offers a Flatpak of their annual tax software. Then I can kiss Windows goodbye forever. BTW, been running Linux since 2002. Caldera, Mandrake, Libranet, Mepis, Debian, Ubuntu, and currently MX-Linux.

I have win10 set up for dual booting as some of my friends wanted me to get rainbow six siege, which only runs on windows pc of kernel level anti cheat

I have a w11 on a thinkpad in dual boot

Only boot on windows to play lol

I have an SSD with a debloated installation of Win 11 alongside Mint.

Once I upgraded and got a better SSD, I put Fedora KDE on it and made my Win+Mint drive my second SSD.

I would have stayed on Windows 10 even after the October 2025 EOS...but the fear of potentially unresolved vulnerabilities made me switch. After installing Win 11, I updated it just enough to avoid getting on the internet and avoid getting the Task Manager duplication bug.

Gaming on debloated Windows 11 is better overall...but I'm mostly on Linux these days. 

Completely wiped my main drive for Linux but left windows on another drive in order to use Adobe line for work  (comics, graphics, zines, illustration, etc.). It sucks Gimp's not quite time efficient but that's a me problem. If I wasn't mid-jobs, I'd be neck deep in a script to get scrubby zoom working in gimp!

I have win 11 VM running in kvm. Haven't had to use it in a long time.

Nah, what I do instead is remote onto a headless Win10 ltsc machine with Moonlight. Best part with this set up is I can start playing a game on my TV, and then move to my office PC without closing the game.

I bought my pc recently and had to wait for a newer kernel version to get my hardware supported. So I installed win 11 with an unattended.xml to get rid of all the AI, bloatware, microsoft accounts etc. Without any garbage, its quite okay for non dev stuff. Feels pretty light as an OS. Now back to my dual boot.

I hold windows 10 on my drive - mainly for archival reasons. I have no problems switching to it quickly if I need a thing or two but I do it rarely anymore

Yeah i still dualboot but there isnt alot of reasons left i used to use solidworks switched to freecad iused ansys switched to openfoam windows 11 is a really slow mess that blackscreens all the time i didnt use it for 8 months i  really should delete it

I only dual boot Windows 11 just to game on. Anything else is done on Mint. Anytime I switch to windows, it just seems to get more and more annoying to do anything at all compared to Mint

I try to keep a version of Windows in a VM, just in case I ever need to use it. But it can be a few months between boot ups, so whenever I use it it's mainly just to keep Windows updated (in case I actually need to use it for something).

I'm dual-booting Windows 11 for some games that I had bought in Xbox store, and Linux for everything else.

Yes, sometimes. Not for everyday tasks, though.

There still is my old in-dash TomTom navigation system that needs updating through Windows. There is German Tax declaration software, which is acting up in Wine most of the time.
Now I'm looking into Affinity to see whether it's worth to learn it additionally to GIMP and Inkscape (it runs terribly under Wine).
Whenever a game acts up or there only is Windows software for configuration of phones or mice and keyboards, I fire up a real Windows.

Most of it could be done using a VM, but I don't mind having Windows installed.

Hehehe, nice. I used Windows to edit photos as well, but since recently I finally understood Darktable and digiKam, so there’s no more use for Windows in my case. I still have it on my machine but I am going to drop it soon when I have time, and give this  2tb nvme fully for my /home

I’ve been dual booting Linux (both Debian and NixOS at different times) for a while. My goal is to transition, but I need windows of some variety for work. The plan is to have a NixOS configuration with a Win11 VM for this but I have just been so busy that I haven’t made the switch. Just been using windows for now until I have some more time to set up my Linux the way I want.

I retrieved my PC from my ex-toxic job and, 1st of all, install dual boot.

Since I got a new job, I never booted windows 🤣

Kept my windows instal for the couple FPS games with the anti-cheat issues and then my battle.net games just because there’s like one less step setting up the battle.net launcher in windows vs Linux. Running cachyos on all my computers now as my main OS.

I installed manjero 2 months ago and left windows, but i wasnt happy with it. So i switched to arch ( fullly escaped windows )

I have to have windows ready for my university exams because of a thing called "safe exam browser". Last I checked there was no linux version for that. Also I find it nice to have 2 isolated systems for different use cases although I boot into linux 90% of the time. I also have to add that I have tweaked and debloated my windows quite a bit, so it's not as horrible as the default experience.

The last Windows that I dual-booted was W98

I have to use PowerBI and Excel, so I cant unistall Windows yet.

I have Windows 10 on a SSD partition that I haven't booted for many months. I just really don't have a need for it.

I boot into Windows 10 on my desktop about once every 6 months.

My old Win10 machine, which I'm still letting sit around gathering even more dust, has been backed up and that backup has been loaded onto a a VM. I use that to run things I can't run on Linux. I also have a Win98SE VM running from Retroarch using the Dosbox Pure core.

My NVME has win11 on it for all unsupported games or drivers and/or microsoft office, my SSD has arch cuz its what i main and way faster

Dualbooting with SRV2025. The same requirements as Win10.

Im dual booting windows 11 and Ubuntu, I spend half my time in Linux and an other half in windows, I honestly wanna change entirely to Linux but I don’t really do it because I have a lot of my files in windows and I some times need it for my school and stuff

Xbox app. We have ultimate. For Steam and everything else, Garuda linux.

Windows 10 VM, transitioning to a Windows 11 (ick) deployment to support our security consulting practice. A few tools only run on Windows so we need that capability.

I keep a debloated barebones version of windows on an ssd for when I want to play certain online games that don't allow Linux users to play. (gta online, fortnite, battlefield)

Since WSL2 was created I never ever dual booted anymore.

I have the best of both worlds all the time.

When I switched to Linux in 2018, I dropped Windows like a hot potato.

I've been using Linux in some capacity since 2001, but I've also had Windows installed; until 2014, I needed it for semi-pro photography work, and between 2014 and 2018 I needed it to run the games I wanted to run.

However, I quit the semi-pro photography world and in 2018, Proton appeared; so I decided to put Debian (my distribution of choice for everything Linux since 2005; before that, I used the boxed version of SUSE 7.1 from 2001) next to Windows to see if Proton could run my games. The computer was my i6700K with 32GB RAM, GTX 1070, and 2TB storage.

It could. It so happens that I never booted Windows again, because for everything I do, I was already on open-source apps since 2005 (except for Capture One and games).

My current computer, built in 2023 (7950X, 64GB RAM, RX 9070 XT (coming from an RX 6750 XT), 4TB storage) never had Windows installed, and at this point, it never will. I bought a second-hand Intel Gen8 laptop running Windows 11 in case I suddenly must have Windows for whatever; but I don't do anything with it except update it every few months.

I'd be happy to fully migrate to Linux, but unfortunately, I am a music producer, so I can't.

Windows 11 for gaming/browsing, Proxmox for my homelab, MacOS for Xcode.

Why Windows 11 for gaming and normal use:

1. Everything just works.
2. Playing anti-cheat games.
3. It's fast, claims about being bloated are invalidated by my 13900k.
4. No ADS as everyone is claiming, just disabled everything I didn't want, didn't even need third party apps for this.
5. Don't care about the AI paranoia, nobody is forced to use AI features.
6. Yes, there are issues, there are bugs, but I don't notice them most of the time, since I spend that time either in games or browsing.

Last time I dual booted was with Slackware and Windows 98 lol

I'm dual booting because I've been using Windows since 3.1, I so some occasional experimental stuff with audio and video stuff and a lot of that stuff is only on windows. I still primarily use Linux now.

I use Windows on my gaming PC in the living room, connected to the OLED TV. It's the most powerful machine, so I want to enjoy everything it has to offer (HDR, 120 Hz, VRR, surround sound, large screen, ray tracing, DLSS, etc.).

I have a second, weaker PC that I use for internet browsing, studying, and I run Linux on it. I play games on it occasionally, games that require a mouse and keyboard. They work very well. On this one, I have more patience to configure things if necessary.

I've found the issue with dual boot is your always in the wrong OS for what you want at that moment and waste time rebooting.

I gave up dual booting once steam launched a stable version of Proton for gaming, that's all I needed Windows for anyway, and once that wasn't needed, it went away. Been using Linux on every PC (4+ not counting servers) at the house since ~2016

I've been out of the Windows prison for 16 years now.

I do sometimes, if SMplayer is acting up with lines in watching video...I use SMplayer in W11 also and dont have it then...

I've been daily driving Linux for over a decade at this point, and using it for over 20 years, and I still keep a Windows install around so I can use it for stuff like firmware updates. That's basically the only reason I boot it, though.

i keep it around on the offchance i ever need to use Solidworks or any proprietary software like that that's not available for Linux

A few programs are only Windows and Mac, so that's why I still have a Windows 11 computer. There are though good web versions of them. But as Windows 11 got so much slower and feels so bloated, I am considering installing Ubuntu on that machine.

I dual boot. Though I use windows more than Linux. I like Linux but I’m also not like omg windows sucks so bad blah blah shut up.

I use it for gaming and development mainly. A lot of stuff I create thins for you need windows for. Plus it’s not worth the hassle or headache for me to configure every application in the world and run through errors just for it to work.

I use arch btw.

still need windows for work, remote desktop and all that. Wish I didn't. Would have no use for it otherwise

Might be better to start a poll or somrthing. Knowing how many people dual boot is useless without also knowing how many do not.

I have it in a vm to update some hardware. That's all.

Bro I haven’t used Windows since 2011. I have absolutely no idea what blue screen of death I’m missing but Windows was so bad 15-20 years ago when I left, I can’t believe people still put up with it

i had to install windows in order to use fusion360, it just doesn't work that well through wine yet :/

I have Windows 11 only for the remaining games that still won’t run on Linux, mainly Fortnite, but I’m heavily debating buying a PS4 or a PS5 to run those games and ditch Windows altogether.

I never use it these days, but I have Win 11 on an old SATA SSD just in case. I expected to have to use it for games, but actually I've had no issues running anything except BF6 (because of the anti-cheat) on Linux via Steam/Proton. I didn't realise how good the support was nowadays. Mostly I use Linux for work (CS research) and homelab stuff too, so it's a much better fit for that and it's where I live most of the time.

I do and don't. Right now I have no windows install. Generally I want to be all Linux if possible.

Used to for league of legends but not at the moment, just all Linux. 

Currently I am having issues with obs in Linux not streaming to YouTube, so sometimes I have to use windows for that. I'm hoping to get obs fixed but I have no idea what the issue is. 

Also HDR just doesn't work consistently in Linux. The main game I play hunt showdown 1896 does not work with HDR in Linux, but will in windows. I just go without HDR unfortunately. 

Discord is absolutely horrible on Linux as well, constant crashing whenever I receive a dm, mic audio stops being picked up if a noise gate/suppression is on, krisp doesn't work. 

But I love using krohnkite in KDE for the desktop experience (I'd use hyprland if it was a little better at window selection). But I am also running tumbleweed right now. My krohnkite is set up with hyprland like keybinds, so it feels very similar, hyprland is just a bit smoother overall when dealing with windows, except when it comes to games/fullscreen. 

I boot it up to use vr (mostly for driving games and mini golf) since i have just the old rift and the insane psychotic hacks you have to go through to get it to work on linux are not worth imo

Some firmware tools are Windows only.

There's a high pitched scream in my head when using them.

I still have a desktop with windows 11 just in case, but stopped dual booting on my laptop. Now I run Linux and have a virtual machine just in case I need to run the desktop version of powerpoint (for work and development purposes), I also have Adobe products I use in the VM, and I use a software called touch designer that needs to run on windows as well (haven't tested in a VM but heard it works).

Once I replace those softwares, I think windows is deletable for me

Two separate SSDs. I like sim racing, so I keep Windows.

I dual boot with Win10 and Zorin. I have a 7th gen Intel processor, so I can't upgrade to Win 11.

I like programming in Linux more because I'm more used to bash than powershell. But I keep Windows because convenience is important (I have ADHD and any minor obstacle will hinder me), especially when it comes to using OneNote. I've also had trouble connecting my FPGA to Linux, but Windows instantly detects it.

There are some things I can't have with Linux, unfortunately.

switched ~2.5 months ago, i have a 1tb + 4tb ssd. started dual booting by partitioning off part of the 4tb. quickly found myself not having any ties to windows. so i dedicated the full 4tb drive to linux. windows boot partition is still on the 1tb in case i need it for anything. haved booted into it except to remove the windows partition from the 4tb drive and to back up important files lol

I've never booted either 10 or 11. I went from XP to Mac and then to Linux.

Windows.....My neighbor calls me yesterday because Staples left an old file on her old PC when they sold her a Win 11 machine. So I grab it, it's <username>.wab, one of the old Windows Address Book files. Should be pretty easy. Double click it and I get "your contacts have been imported".

Excellent. Where to? No idea. I do some googling. The People app. Oh, wait, that's now been deprecated. The Contacts app. Nope, that's gone. Contacts folder? Empty. The Mail app. No, that's gone too. Outlook. Which wants me to register her non-MS account with MS. And it STILL won't work.

So glad I left that POS called Windows behind.

I have a couple friends that enjoy Fortnite and a couple other Linux unfriendly games. I run it without a VPN, just to enjoy the full speed of my fiber internet. It's not like I'm going to be doing anything interesting on there.