Linux is not actually a sensible alternative to Mac OS or Windows in many cases. Yes, many Linux distros are pretty accessible, and you could be fooled into thinking that it's a decent Desktop OS. The problem is, the range of things you can accomplish with it is very limited.
There are two areas in which Linux excells: As a server platform and as a development platform. In the first case you throw the desktop right out the window, which leaves a very stable and customisable system that can be run at a minimum of maintenance and no license costs. Economically, that's a literally unbeatable combination.
As a development environment it's also pretty good, because it's easier to interact with than windows, and there's some pretty decent IDEs that run on it (most of all InteliJ, which is basically non-Microsoft visual studio for Java. No, it's not "like eclipse". It eats eclipse for breakfast). But if we're honest, what is mostly being developed on Linux are Web services intended to run on Linux. Again, the economical component is quite a factor in the equation.
But what else can you use Linux for professionally? You could potentially do digital art. Blender and Gimp are good programs. But as soon as you need to print something, you go running for Photoshop, which isn't available for Linux, and if you actually need to earn your money making 3d-models, you'll spend some money to get something more geared towards production pipelines and integrating into effective workflows.
What else is there? Like, there's literally nothing. There is no Software available for Linux in any major professional field that could compete with the productivity of equivalent software on Windows or Mac.
And when it comes to free time, well... there's hardly a game on Linux you can't get on Windows, but plenty vise versa. You can browse the Web just as well, but people mostly use tablets and phones for that nowadays. Appart from "I'm a geek and I can handle Linux anyways", there's really not much compelling reasons to use it.
And the situation with "your computer belongs to us" isn't actually that bad. Is there anyone here who has actually paid for their windows 10? Because if you're willing to drop some bucks to get the enterprise edition, you can disable automatic updates. Not that I'd recommend it. Because if you're aware of only a fraction of the crime going on over the wire, your first instinct is to plug the thing out completely and not bother with technological progress after all. Microsoft is not just a thug, it's also a service provider, and overall it does do a decent job at it, recent rants about service availability in the random comments thread be damned. Because that's actually another one of those things: Had I bought a visual studio license, I wouldn't have had that problem. But because I get it for free, they want me to log into my account every once in a while. And honestly, for the quality they're generally delivering without charging me a penny, I think that's kind of ok.
There are two areas in which Linux excells: As a server platform and as a development platform. In the first case you throw the desktop right out the window, which leaves a very stable and customisable system that can be run at a minimum of maintenance and no license costs. Economically, that's a literally unbeatable combination.
As a development environment it's also pretty good, because it's easier to interact with than windows, and there's some pretty decent IDEs that run on it (most of all InteliJ, which is basically non-Microsoft visual studio for Java. No, it's not "like eclipse". It eats eclipse for breakfast). But if we're honest, what is mostly being developed on Linux are Web services intended to run on Linux. Again, the economical component is quite a factor in the equation.
But what else can you use Linux for professionally? You could potentially do digital art. Blender and Gimp are good programs. But as soon as you need to print something, you go running for Photoshop, which isn't available for Linux, and if you actually need to earn your money making 3d-models, you'll spend some money to get something more geared towards production pipelines and integrating into effective workflows.
What else is there? Like, there's literally nothing. There is no Software available for Linux in any major professional field that could compete with the productivity of equivalent software on Windows or Mac.
And when it comes to free time, well... there's hardly a game on Linux you can't get on Windows, but plenty vise versa. You can browse the Web just as well, but people mostly use tablets and phones for that nowadays. Appart from "I'm a geek and I can handle Linux anyways", there's really not much compelling reasons to use it.
And the situation with "your computer belongs to us" isn't actually that bad. Is there anyone here who has actually paid for their windows 10? Because if you're willing to drop some bucks to get the enterprise edition, you can disable automatic updates. Not that I'd recommend it. Because if you're aware of only a fraction of the crime going on over the wire, your first instinct is to plug the thing out completely and not bother with technological progress after all. Microsoft is not just a thug, it's also a service provider, and overall it does do a decent job at it, recent rants about service availability in the random comments thread be damned. Because that's actually another one of those things: Had I bought a visual studio license, I wouldn't have had that problem. But because I get it for free, they want me to log into my account every once in a while. And honestly, for the quality they're generally delivering without charging me a penny, I think that's kind of ok.