For most of my life, I stood by Linux. Through every kernel regression, broken update, half-baked feature, or hardware that “mostly” worked, I never joined the chorus of those who publicly walked away. I watched countless “Why I’m leaving Linux” posts come and go without ever commenting. I stayed quiet and loyal. Until now.
Note: I used to run three Dell PCs alongside a Zephyrus laptop. Today, thanks to GhostBSD, I’m down to one and have no plans to ever invest in Dell again. While Dell was once a reliable choice for Linux users, my recent experience has been a disappointment.
A Subtle Breaking Point
About a year ago, the cracks began to show. Small things at first: regressions, unpolished experiences, simple tools that made life harder than necessary. I quietly bought a Mac Studio, planning to leave Linux without drama. A clean break. No rants. No forum posts.
But then, a few days ago, I installed Ubuntu 25.10 on my Zephyrus laptop, and while it’s arguably the best Ubuntu yet, the experience didn’t sit right. Every application, Terminal, Files, even Settings, took 2 seconds to launch. That delay felt like an eternity compared to the instant response I get from both macOS and GhostBSD, where apps open instantly.
Still, I brushed it off. I figured I’d switch to Manjaro which used to run great on my Zephyrus laptop and revisit Ubuntu when 26.04 drops.
Manjaro: The Final Straw
As always, I downloaded the ISO, verified the checksum, and flashed it using GNOME Disks, something I’ve done hundreds of times. Booted the live image, installed Manjaro with full-disk LUKS encryption, rebooted.
Five minutes. That’s how long it took to get to the login screen. I rebooted to see if it was a one-off. It wasn’t. The system just hung.
So I reinstalled. This time, no encryption. Same issue: the boot process was broken, the system confused. Despite wiping the drive, the MBR still prompted for a password, for a nonexistent LUKS volume. Two years ago, Manjaro run fine for several months on this laptop.
And that’s when it hit me: I’m done.
The Irony of Windows 11
Out of options, I used an old flash drive with a Windows 11 Pro ISO. I installed it, updated everything, grabbed the NVIDIA drivers, cleaned out the bloat using Chris Titus Tech’s utility and some additional manual cleanup.
Within 30 minutes, I had a system that:
- Booted fast (~10 seconds)
- Paired Bluetooth and peripherals without fuss
- Scaled 1440p perfectly between my laptop (125%) and my LG ultrawide (100%)
- Needed zero configuration tweaks to be productive
- Can run completely air-gapped 99.9% of the time
And the user experience? Years ahead of Linux. Period!
Conclusion: Don’t Believe the Hype
Linux still has a role on servers, and maybe in niche tech setups, but for the average desktop user, even a technically proficient one, it’s no longer the best tool for the job. Arguably, it never was.