It was a challenge I wanted to conquer too but also I increasingly felt like I didn’t own my computer. The software was increasingly cutting me out of the ability to modify and use it the way I wanted.

I spent a lot of time in Gentoo early on where patching software was an overlay and recompile away and it was great testing early amd64 bugs and pushing the limits with gaim and reverse engineering chat protocols.

I was doing some dual booting then but as i built a career in web development, it became more and more my solo driver. Running the same platform you’re developing for is incredibly convenient and Linux runs the web.

Now I can’t imagine running windows. Using it and helping people on it is just a miserable experience for me.