March 20, 2026
Year of Linux or déjà vu?
Time to Dump Windows?
Dev ditches Windows; Linux crowd cheers, skeptics smirk
TLDR: A longtime Windows user says he no longer needs it, doing work on Macs and Linux instead. Comments split between “finally the year of Linux” cheers, as games run on Linux, skeptics, a quip about a business closing, and a reminder that GitHub’s Sponsor feature still anchors many to Microsoft.
One longtime Windows faithful just confessed: after years of juggling Macs for hardware and a Windows box for graphics card work (via WSL2, a Linux layer inside Windows), he realized nothing ties him to Windows anymore. Cue the comments: Linux believers marched in with banners. “Everything works now, even my games,” cheered hootz and connicpu, pointing to Valve’s Proton magic that lets many Windows games run on Linux.
The snark squad arrived too. “Apple user doesn’t like Windows, shocked!” quipped jmclnx, before urging everyone to dump both giants and try Linux or BSD. Others poked the sacred cow: GitHub. The author called it “fungible,” but matheusmoreira countered that GitHub Sponsors is a sticky perk that keeps creators put.
Then the mood turned spicy-sad. Bigbuppo deadpanned, “I’ll believe it when I lose my last customers… we’re closing in June,” suggesting the ‘year of the Linux desktop’ still depends on where the money flows. Meanwhile, ex-Windows diehards reminisced about old Microsoft certs, Xboxes collecting dust, and Hotmail turned spam trap, echoing the author’s “change happens gradually, then suddenly.” Verdict from the crowd: Microsoft isn’t canceled, but the vibe has shifted—and this time, the meme might actually stick. For real, maybe, just maybe.
Key Points
- •The author primarily uses macOS hardware but conducts GPU/CUDA work via Windows-hosted WSL2 sessions.
- •All production deployments are to Linux servers; Linux is preferred for tools like FlashAttention and Triton.
- •FlashAttention has partial support on Windows but is described as cumbersome, reinforcing a Linux-first workflow.
- •Past dependencies on Windows-specific apps have diminished, leaving Windows largely as a host layer for Linux.
- •The author has shifted away from Microsoft services, using OCI, GCE, and AWS over Azure, and considers GitHub replaceable.