In the land o' Linux for the desktop, starting from 1995, I've used: Slackware, Red Hat, SUSE, Mandrake, Fedora, Ubuntu, BackTrack, Kali, openSUSE, and Mint.

Once or twice, I've tried Gnome, but I've always gone back to KDE. I love lots of things about Linux. I never pretend that Linux - any distro as yet released - is a full Windows replacement for most users. Never has been - ain't now - might never be. I have a piece of tax software that will likely never be available for Linux. If I REALLY need to communicate a Windows Office document (Excel, Word, etc.), I don't pretend LibreOffice will do...still not-ready-for-prime-time.

At my (younger, more naive) urging, my bride gave Ubuntu a try about ten years ago. She made a valiant effort for a little over a year. As a reward for her diligent perseverance (and suffering), I bought her a brand new laptop with a fresh install of Win7, once it became inarguably clear that she HATED Linux. She worked, works, and will work in worlds where Windows is THE OS. So, I have to keep at least one real Windows box around for my sweetie, no matter what.

I don't game. Sorry 'bout your monkey. No issue for me.

I just generally keep extra boxes around for safety. I have my current notebook and last laptop (fewer hardware capabilities - same software) for my stuff. I maintain the same for my bride, but Win10 (current) vs. Win7 (last) for her; if her Win10 box dies, she can use her old Win7 laptop until I repair or replace her Win10 notebook. I also keep VMs of Win7 for me on my Mint boxes (for testing).

Overall, I heartily agree with your notions. Where we differ is that I keep more computers on hand and layer my backup and emergency options a little differently. I do it that way, because I can get trailing edge but powerful boxes on EBay for cheap.

I think you've established a solid model that keeps you in shape to meet your own needs (including letting your game monkey ride your back) while fulfilling your obligations to your clients. Hard to beat that combo.

P.S. You mentioned that, "There are hardly any viruses on Linux." I like to say that Linux viruses operate on the honor system: 1) they ask you to download them; 2) you have to run them intentionally; 3) before running them, you have to grant them root privileges.

I love Linux, but even now in 2019, it's so painful to get stuff up and running in it. Dependency hell, even with all those systems (apt-get, yum, etc.) designed specifically to avoid that. I spent hours and hours just recently trying to get some pen-testing suite (don't remember which one) installed that I just gave up. Not worth my time. I don't have that kind of time available every time I want to install something. Yes, I see this on Windows on a rare occasion, but so much more often on Linux. Then there's VPN... ok, don't get me started. But I still love Linux. Go figure.

Thanks for sharing that, I didn't know about the defragment thing that makes my life much easier. Interestly I was wondering that about the other day as my laptops been lagging, think its more due to the chip than the version. which version of linux were you using at the time?

I would reconsider the statement about viruses, you still should have an antivirus software like Clam-Av running. At least so you don't become a carrier. :)

1) it's not Windows!

2) it's not Windows!

3) it's not Windows!

4) it's not Windows!

5) it's not Windows!

Bonus reason: Linux is awesome 😏

All the points are still valid! Thanks for writing this Milica Maksimović :)