Why do you choose Ubuntu over Windows

[ursatempest]

Well...

It was a bit of funny story, see. So I just entered a college, and after looking at their syllabus, there is of course Linux class.

So I figured, 'hey, I already use a huge number of open source programs anyway, why not trying my hand on Linux?' So I downloaded Ubuntu, and installed it on separate partition of my laptop. So far, so good.

But I'm not used with Ubuntu UI. So I was like 'Well, let's find Windows-alike distro. Shouldn't be too hard.' And I settled on Zorin OS.

I make bootable USB, basically just click yes on all prompt, and proceeded to sleep. The next day, the installation failed - so I reconnected to internet, and this time actually view everything. And then...

'Wait, since when I have 990GB free space?'

Yeah. I accidentally wiped my HDD.

Well, it is inconvenient of course, but there's a reason why I backed-up almost everything. Anyway, I play around with Zorin OS, but turns out for some unfathomable reason it refused to get redirected when I'm on captive wifi network. And it's kinda deal-breaker to me, since almost all good wifi network near me use captive wifi.

So I contemplated just reinstalling Windows 10. But I was like, I can use Linux, right? It isn't that bad. I mean, it is inconvenient, but to be frank it isn't any worse than my usual activity of wrangling computer into usable state.

I decided to install Kubuntu instead. So far, it performed... well, not quite smoothly. But adequate, at least. I still haven't figured out why MTP sometimes works and sometimes doesn't, I'm still scratching my head why the FPC can't find wincrt, and how do I set file date on Dolphin so it uses proper YYYY-MM-DD format?

But on the whole, it's not enough to make me reinstalling Windows 10.

[jeffmhamilton]

I purchased a cheap laptop for my in-laws for browsing and email only. They don't do games or anything difficult for a cheap pc to do. Within two months they were hit by ransom=ware. I installed Linux and they have not had issues since. For their meager needs, Linux is the best choice. It is stable and secure.Just installed it on my older pc and love it.

[TheFu]

No hassles with licenses. No CALs. Try tracking that in a small company. It is impossible.

Power, privacy, control, customization, package managers, security controls, clean interfaces or all the cheese I can stand. F/LOSS!
Support for older HW that Windows doesn't support.

Did I mention privacy?

I like that Linux doesn't think I'm stupid and lets me use tools in a way the authors didn't intend. The Unix philosophy backs this up.

Plus, I know that if I only use the GUI, I'm only getting 10% of the power from a computing OS. The other 90% comes from automation that all Unix systems provide.

Windows on the other hand has these things:
Power - a newer computer seems to be needed every few years to have the same level of system responsiveness
Privacy - Win10 and all backported updates to Win7 fail my privacy desires. There is some hope. https://wb.jdpfu.com/view/982 will help disable telemetry in Windows.
Control - With Windows, MSFT hard-coded networking so that standard OS methods to block privacy-sucking-things wouldn't work.
Customization - On Windows, there are 3 choices for a desktop. My desktop looks different from every other desktop I've seen. It is completely custom and minimal. I don't want menus or panels. Trivial to disable them. There are 50+ different desktops to start from. Check out fvwm-crystal. Very nice. At the shell, my configuration is different from everyone else too. Completely custom.
Package managers - Windows has "setup.exe" - meh. Dependencies have to be manually handled. You need DotNET 4.3.2.1.5.3.12 or it won't work. I can reload my desktop and all the programs I want in 30 minutes. Do that with Windows - I dare you to try. Package managers are amazing! People who weren't around in the mid-90s have no idea how much better package management has become over the years. Windows doesn't have anything like our repos. 80K packages available, 99.999999% free, FLOSS.
Security controls - No need for some commercial add-on product for $300/seat. On Linux, using a few small, tools, we can build a completely different security layer than what the creators intended. If it can be done with a firewall, then the Linux firewall can do it. No need to wait for some programmer to design a GUI for a checkbox. Do it yourself. Need to redirect all traffic - easy. Need to redirect all traffic for 1 userid? Easy. Want to make 1 user stuck in a single directory? Easy. Want to lock down a system against changes? Trivial. The Unix security model completely rocks. There aren't internal exceptions like there are in Windows.
Clean interfaces - I won't want a menu. Can I have windows without a menu?
F/LOSS - if you come from MSFT, you expect to pay for software. Everything. When you come to Linux, you re-learn that most of the best software is Free/Libre Open Source. That means we have the freedom to modify the code and re-release it. It also means that companies can modify the code for their specific requirements. Try to do that with Windows or anything from MSFT, Oracle, Apple, EMC, Adobe, .... You can't because they don't release their source code.
Useful remote access/management I can securely, manage, my systems from 2 ft or 12K miles away, for free. Doesn't matter. Do that Windows. You can't.
Old HW Support - my printer, and fax and scanner don't have 64-bit drivers, thus no support from Vista onward, but the devices work fine. Why should I have to replace 3 devices just because the OS is different? On Linux, those things just work - 32-bit and 64-bit OSes.
Easy to move installations - A HDD can be in 1 machine, unplugged, moved to another, plugged in, and booted. It will almost always work as expected. Can't do that with Windows. I've done this a few times - Pentium4 --> Core i7 - it worked!

My house is full of computing devices - most of these run some sort of Linux/Unix. That means my Linux knowledge transfers to all those devices. Android - is Linux. Kodi is Linux. Plex is Linux. My DVD/media player is running Linux. WD TV Live runs Linux. TiVo runs Linux. My VoIP adapter runs Linux too.

Guess I answered why I like Linux, not really why I prefer the Ubuntu versions of Linux. Why Ubuntu?
* Community
* Popular enough - lots of help available
* Corporations know it - they've never heard of other, lesser-know, distros.
* LTS - I need 5 yrs of support. Anything less isn't worth my time.