Just a quick note for anyone thinking about making the jump. I’ve been in the Unix/Linux world for about 30 years now, going back to SPARC. I used macOS for a long time because of its BSD roots, but Linux has been my daily driver for years.

Linux has been rock-solid for nearly two decades (imo). Most of the pain people run into has very little to do with the OS and a lot to do with expectations. If your goal is to keep running Windows software on something that isn’t Windows, you’re going to fight it forever. If instead you step back and ask, “What does a Linux-native workflow look like for what I actually do?” things tend to fall into place.

I leaned on VMware for years as a crutch, mostly to avoid giving up tools I’d already invested time and money in - eventually realizing I was stuck in sunk-cost thinking.

Once I committed and stopped half-living in another OS, everything got simpler. As an integration software developer and architect, I haven’t booted a Windows machine or VM in nearly a decade — and I don’t miss it. Sure - new tools and commands to learn but no one misses regedit and if your skills are as good as you like people to think they are you can learn to love the shell/terminal.

If you’re on the fence, try it — but actually commit to it. Pick a distro that matches your preferences, knowing that once you’re under the hood, most of the look, feel, and behavior is yours to shape anyway.