After three months on Linux, I don’t miss Windows at all

TechCloseTechPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All TechLinuxCloseLinuxPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All LinuxMicrosoftCloseMicrosoftPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All MicrosoftAfter three months on Linux, I don’t miss Windows at all I regret nothing I regret nothingby Nathan EdwardsCloseNathan EdwardsSenior Reviews EditorPosts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All by Nathan EdwardsApr 26, 2026, 1:00 PM UTCLinkShareGiftIf you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.Some relevant reading.Nathan EdwardsCloseNathan EdwardsPosts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All by Nathan Edwards is a senior reviews editor who’s been testing tech since 2007. Previously at Wirecutter and Maximum PC. Current fixations: keyboards, DIY tech, and the smart home.In January I finally made good on my threat/promise to install Linux on my desktop. I wanted to see how far I could get using a Linux PC as my main computer without doing a bunch of research beforehand or troubleshooting afterwards. Since then I have booted into Windows exactly twice: once to scan a multipage document that wasn’t scanning right in Linux, and once to print a photo for my kids’ school on extremely short notice. There’s a reason it’s taken me three months to write the next installment in my Linux diary: nothing has gone horribly wrong.It didn’t take long for my Linux install to stop feeling new and exciting and start feeling like, well, my computer. It’s not exactly like a less annoying version of Windows, though it is less annoying than Windows, but it’s been a much easier transition than I thought it would be. There are a few extra steps sometimes in finding and installing apps — usually it’s easier than in Windows, and occasionally it’s harder. And there are a few apps I still haven’t been able to replicate in Linux. I’ve also had a smattering of fun bugs, and a few genuinely frustrating moments, but the overall experience is a lot calmer and more robust than I expected. Even troubleshooting is (mostly) satisfying in a weird way.RelatedI replaced Windows with Linux and everything’s going greatI saved a doomed Windows laptop by embracing LinuxI went back to Linux and it was a mistakeGetting fiddlyFortunately, everything that’s gone wrong so far has only gone slightly wrong, like a gaming mouse that only works in games, and most of it has been pretty funny, like a gaming mouse that only works in games. Some of it has to do with specific hardware I’m using, or specific choices I made. (Keeping my nemesis, the HP OfficeJet 8720 printer, for one.) Some of it has to do with the fact that I deliberately chose a relatively new rolling distribution based on Arch Linux rather than a more mainstream distribution with a predictable release cycle, like Ubuntu.Here’s my favorite fix so far. CachyOS comes with Snapper, a built-in imaging service that stores snapshots of the OS before you install or update a program, so you can roll back if something goes wrong. It defaults to saving 50 snapshots, which are stored in the boot partition. When I installed CachyOS, I went with the recommended size for that partition, which…

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