What made Linux stick
Gaming kept sending me back to Windows. After almost twenty years of trying Linux, Bazzite finally removed the reason to leave.
What made Linux stick
I first tried Ubuntu in 2008 with Hardy Heron. I still remember the background.
I did not have a problem with Windows. I was interested in computers, and trying another operating system looked fun.
Almost twenty years later, after a lot of tinkering, dual boots, distro hopping, and returns to Windows, I now use Bazzite as my daily operating system.
Gaming was the thing that kept pushing me back to Windows. Curiosity kept bringing me back to Linux.
I kept coming back without knowing why
My first Ubuntu installation was only something to play with. Dual booting was a must because I still played a lot of games and Windows was my real operating system.
Even so, there was something about Linux that held my attention. I spent hours on the Ubuntu forums reading about problems and trying to solve the most mundane things. I remember the different colours, sounds, and the strange satisfaction of logging in and browsing the web through Firefox from a completely different operating system.
I did not have a good reason for putting in that effort. I just enjoyed it.
There was also a philosophy around Linux that interested me. I have always found it natural to cheer for the community-driven underdog, in the same way I chose Mozilla over Internet Explorer when I could.
The idea of having more control over my own computer appealed to me too, although I was not doing anything particularly meaningful with that control. I just liked knowing it was there.
Beyond that, there was simply an affinity I could not explain. I was curious, so I kept coming back.
Linux became useful
A few years later, when I started getting into web development, I repurposed an older laptop with Linux Mint. By then Linux already felt much easier to use.
I set up an Apache web server on my LAN and felt like the ultimate hacker. Windows was still my daily operating system at home and at work, but Linux had become more than an experiment. It was now useful for the things I wanted to learn.
Around 2011, that balance finally reversed. Instead of a Windows computer with a hobby Linux partition, I had a Linux Mint machine that I worked on every day. I think I kept a second Windows laptop that was just powerful enough to play StarCraft II. That was enough to get me by.
My daily work involved Django, Python, and the usual surrounding development tools. Following programming documentation was often simpler because I could use the Bash commands directly instead of translating them into a Windows setup.
At the same time, many of the web developers around me were buying Macs. Using Linux felt like a statement in its own small way. I was not following everyone else onto Apple.
Gaming always won in the end
My business venture ended around 2013, and I was no longer as devoted to the Django stack. I had more free time and felt the gaming itch again.
I bought a powerful new PC and returned to Windows to take full advantage of it. Linux had come a long way, but there was still a hard line: use Linux, or play all the games I wanted to play.
For me, gaming won.
I stayed fully on Windows for years. Then, around 2019, I got crushed in Warzone one night and decided that installing Arch Linux sounded like a good response.
There was no practical reason for this. It was the same old tech itch.
I followed the Arch installation guide, completed the setup, and found the result a little underwhelming. I immediately wiped it and installed Manjaro instead. Pacman and rolling releases were the new ideas I wanted to try.
Manjaro was nice, but I still did almost everything in Windows. Apart from tasting another distribution, I had not given Linux a real job to do.
Debian gave Linux a real job
That changed in 2020 when I built a machine for Ethereum staking.
This time the choice of operating system carried some weight. Until then, I had usually tried whatever distribution was new or receiving attention. Choosing one based on the requirements of the job was different.
I wanted something stable, familiar enough to operate, and popular enough that I could find help when needed.
That was the beginning of my relationship with Debian.
I ran the dedicated staking machine for roughly two years. I did not want to tinker with it. I wanted to apply security updates and have it keep working. It did exactly that, without ever giving me a problem.
This was a different kind of Linux experience. Until then I had chosen distributions because I was curious about them. Debian was chosen for a job, and it did that job without giving me problems. That made me trust it.
Linux was no longer interesting only because I could change everything. It was impressive because I could leave it alone.
By 2022, I was also using Debian through Windows Subsystem for Linux on my work machine. My Node.js development moved into WSL, while Windows and Docker handled the rest. Documentation became easier to follow because paths and commands behaved as expected.
There may also have been a slight feeling that using Linux made me better than everyone else. I mean that as at least half a joke.
The emotional switch to Pop!_OS
At home, gaming remained the blocker until a phishing incident in 2022 pushed me into making a more emotional decision.
I opened a malicious Excel document that ran macros or something similar. My credentials were stolen, two-factor authentication alerts kept appearing, and a MetaMask hot wallet was drained of its Ethereum and NFTs. Thankfully, the valuable assets had already been moved to a cold wallet, but the experience still sucked.
It was enough to make me move my home PC fully onto Linux because I felt safer there. Linux would not have protected me from every part of what happened, but after the incident I wanted a cleaner break from the machine and system I had been using.
I chose Pop!_OS because of its out-of-the-box Nvidia support and reputation for making gaming easier.
By then, many of my old desktop blockers had already disappeared. I replaced Photoshop with Krita, which was enough for what I needed, even if it would not be enough for everyone. There were also plenty of alternatives to Microsoft Office. Pop!_OS showed me that I could handle most of my normal computer use without Windows.
I used it for about a year and was mostly happy. Eventually the interface started to look dated compared with the desktops I was seeing elsewhere. Updates also felt slow while System76 worked on its new COSMIC desktop.
I was interested in COSMIC, but I was not in the mood to alpha or beta test it on my main computer. I had been curious about Linux for decades, but by then it mattered more that my PC simply worked.
The installation itself had also become bloated. I had copied commands from guide after guide, including a memorable attempt to get Nvidia CUDA working through Docker. Packages and repositories accumulated until formatting the machine felt like the only real way to make it clean again.
I returned to Windows temporarily to try the WSL setup at home. That worked well. I was even self-hosting Immich, Gitea, and Jellyfin from the PC.
Still, I knew the return to Windows was temporary.
Bazzite removed the compromise
At the end of 2025 or beginning of 2026, I watched a JayzTwoCents video about Bazzite. They were playing games straight out of the box, so I had to try it.
Bazzite was different from the Linux systems I already knew. I had not used an image-based desktop operating system before, and I knew very little about Homebrew or Distrobox. But if games really worked, I was willing to learn the rest.
They did work.
Steam was already there, and the games I tried simply launched. Much of the credit belongs to Valve's work on Proton, but Bazzite packaged the whole experience in a way that felt polished.
I could play Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade. I could play Street Fighter 6. I could play almost every game in my Steam library.
I should point out that I no longer play competitive online games, so I do not run into the anti-cheat problems that still block other Linux gamers. I cannot say every Windows game works for everyone. The games I wanted to play worked for me.
Some games even worked better when I ran their Windows versions through Proton instead of using the native Linux builds. I had better performance in Borderlands 2, while the native build of Silksong gave me strange controller-layout problems.
Pop!_OS had already shown me that I could replace most of the everyday desktop software I once needed Windows for. Bazzite took away my last reason to go back: the games.
This was what I had been waiting for. Linux, polished and ready for games.
The image-based design, often described as immutable, turned out to be another reason to stay. I had not realised how much that mattered to me until I used Bazzite. On Pop!_OS, I had accumulated repositories and packages by following guides, Reddit comments, and whatever else solved the problem in front of me. Eventually it became impossible to remember what belonged to the original system and what I had added later.
Bazzite encourages a cleaner separation. Distrobox lets me create containerised development environments without filling the host with their packages and dependencies. I can experiment with another distribution when I need to while keeping the base system relatively clean.
Learning that approach was heavily smoothed out by ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. I have spent countless hours asking them why a game that worked yesterday no longer starts, or how to arrange my development setup without modifying the host. Proton Experimental, I am looking at you.
What finally made it stick
There was no single conversion moment. Linux became useful for more parts of my life and, eventually, I ran out of reasons to go back to Windows.
It had already worked for web development, a staking machine, and my professional workflow through WSL. Gaming was always the part I could not replace. Steam, Proton, and Bazzite changed that.
Bazzite is now the full-time operating system on my home PC. I still have a company-issued Windows laptop with WSL, mainly because I need it for work involving legacy .NET codebases. Outside that work, I do not use Windows at all.
I also do not miss paying for a Windows licence. I do not want operating-system telemetry that feels more like spyware, and I do not want AI features shoved into my computer when I did not choose to put them there. I use AI heavily, but I want that to be my choice.
I like the cleaner design and feeling more in control of my own computer. More than anything, though, I simply enjoy using Linux. That was true even when I had no practical reason to install it.
Years ago, I was on the Ubuntu forums with an avatar that displayed a few coffee beans. Now I have long conversations with AI assistants about Distrobox and Proton. The way I find help has changed, but the interest has not.
I do not know which distribution I will use next, or whether Bazzite will remain the answer forever. I am just happy with where I have landed after all this time.
The year of the Linux desktop may finally be here. At least it is in my house.
