I fully switched to linux about 2.5 years ago. I loved reading through everyone else's reasons for trying and using linux. Many of the reasons were mine was well.

As we all obediently clicked through the versions of Windows, I saw that it was taking more control from me, the user, and giving it to Microsoft. They decided how things must be set up, whether my music was legal or not (I legally record spoken information, but since it's seen by the computer as "music" MS deems it questionable), it had to phone home every day to decide whether my software was up to its standards, it kept getting more and more complicated, and I was just done with that.

I had been looking for a way out of Windows since W2K, but didn't know how to get started with linux until 6 years ago, I found my local user group, and they pointed me in the right direction. I loaded Ubuntu on an old machine, and fiddled with it until I knew what software I needed and how to get around. I took a long time to do this because I used my computer for so many things, and I needed to make sure it would suit all my needs. Three or so years in, I reformatted my main computer to linux and I've never looked back. I contentedly use OpenOffice, Audacity, Pidgin, irssi, FireFox, Blue Fish, Gimp and others.

It's true that the fact that it's free and that you can take one disk and load it on every computer far and wide, is a big draw. The free part is good (I don't have much $$ to throw around), but I especially like the lack of restrictions, and that my operating system is mine.

Once you get the system up and running, it's stable as a rock, and while I have had a few problems on one or two computers along the way, I know I've also had issues with my Windows computers, so it was no deterrent. In fact, I have found linux much easier to grasp and if there is a problem, you can get at it to fix it, and be on your merry way.

My name is Priswell, and I'm a linux user.