It's not nice to make fun of Megan for a simple spelling error. >:(

I do pretty much all my gaming on Windows at the moment, but I might see myself moving at least partly to Linux gaming, depending what MS does with Windows (e.g. do they eventually try to lock all Windows users to Windows Store; they already tried that before with e.g. Windows RT, then later Windows 10 S...).

1. At this point I have been mainly using Linux to revive some of my old PCs, to make them useful for online use. You know, old PCs with e.g. Windows XP. I definitely didn't feel like buying new Windows 7 or 8 licenses for them (just so that I dare to go online with them and run modern software on them), so keeping Windows XP on them for some old games, and installing Linux on the side for "serious use" has been working great.

I'll possibly do that also with this gaming laptop at some point, ie. leave Windows 7 on it to run "Win7 era games" (without going online), and install Linux on another partition.

2. I haven't seriously used WINE yet, but it interests me and I'll be looking more and more into it as one way to run older Windows games on newer PCs. To me it would even seem that Linux becomes the place for old PC game enthusiasts to play their older games, if Microsoft keeps eliminating support for "legacy features" bit by bit.

3. I like how Linux distros come with everything you'd want, no matter if you mean to use it only as a desktop PC, or for running a server of any kind, or for serious software development... With Windows, I've always accustomed to the idea that us mere home users get some kind of restricted Windows version which is lacking lots of features from "pro"-versions of Windows, or have artificial restrictions like regarding number of incoming connections when trying to run it as a server etc. This way Microsoft has always tried to get people to pay up more for the "pro" versions.

For a recent example in my earlier job, my boss gave me a Windows 10 PC for work and asked me to encrypt the hard drive since I will be possibly keeping some sensitive data on it. I checked for BitLocker, only to find out that I can't use it because I had Windows 10 Home on that machine, and MS offers BitLocker only for the Pro version.

In the Linux world, every Linux version is the Pro version by default. Free of charge. You can have all the available features on it that you want, you won't be locked out of them just because you are a home user (or charged an extra $100 to upgrade to the Pro version).

4. In graphical desktop use, I am more familiar with Windows, but for some reason when it comes to command prompt, I much prefer doing it on Linux (bash). The thing with Windows is that its default "command prompt" is far too restricted for all my needs, while PowerShell... I am simply not as used to it as I've already become with bash. I know how to do something in bash, and then wonder how to do the same in PowerShell.

PowerShell also feels a bit odd, e.g. when I start it on this Windows 7 PC, for some reason it sometimes takes like 7 seconds or so before I get a command prompt in the PowerShell window. What the heck is it waiting for? Checking something? Why is it so slow? When I open a bash prompt on Linux, it opens up instantly. Same as the legacy command prompt on Windows.

I have been doing research on different Linux Distros but never been to sure which one to try first. Did find some information that Microsoft has been purchasing or putting money in certain projects and databases though which is troubling.

That's the beauty of Linux. You make it what you want, how you want, and when you want.

I personally prefer Fedora because it is such a Goldilocks zone and I don't need to be babied by say Cinnamon or Gnome.

Yes. in IT/telecommunications, not so much in SW development though.

At home I always used some sort of Windows, but e.g. at work a long time ago I got in touch with HP-UX (HP variant of Unix) on our development and testing machines, which kinda introduced me to the unix-like world. Later it didn't feel that different to use also Red Hat Linux at work.

But I'd say I'm not really an expert using Linux, ie. not a true Linux administrator. I learn more about it whenever I use it, both at work and sometimes at home. Not that far from how I know Windows, ie. I know how to use Windows for my daily needs, but I couldn't administer some Windows servers or Azure clouds.

EDIT: This reminds me that my god-father at least used to be even a bigger Linux enthusiast than me, running Linux on a couple of his PCs. He has no background on IT, he is a psychologist by profession. I am not even sure what exactly got him interested into Linux, maybe he just wanted to try to learn it and understand it. Hmm, he uses to be a big OS/2 Warp supporter, maybe he has never forgiven Microsoft for destroying Warp with Windows 95, so he switched to Linux later...

What's Fedora like now? I switched away from it when it was still "Fedora Core" and not revisited since.

I may be too far in the deep end though, as I'm currently looking at migrating from Arch Linux to Gentoo.. :)

This is a personal bias, but I'd suggest Fedora first, as it has the backing of Red Hat, IE one of the first major companies to throw the metaphorical hat into the arena.

Good thing we have Windows Subsystem for Linux, then, as well as a few different distributions (plus different releases of some) to choose from in the Windows store to install upon the former (at the moment I can find: openSUSE Leap 42, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12, Debian GNU/LinuxKali Linux, Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 16.04, one simply called "Ubuntu").

But yeah, I'm also confused as to why a terminal needs several seconds to launch. I mean, I know there are differences, such as it being object-based rather than text-based in many operations, but still.

New users generally try a number of distributions. So don't worry, just try a few on live media. Also, your hardware could make the choice for you! :-)

I wouldn't be sure how to describe it, I started researching Fedora in 25. It's nicely streamlined, for sure, as the Anaconda installer has become quite nice to use, the upgrade processes are sane, and I've still been able to ignore flatpak.

Since you're already in Arch, I feel that Fedora would be a technical step back from "Face in the server cables" to "sitting at a workstation.".
Fedora's subsystem is due Soon™, but don't hold your breath. (Suse already uses RPM, so eh close enough.)

Yeah, I've heard that Fedora is coming as well, but meh. I don't really care all that much about the distro beyond preferring Arch, I can work with most anything.

Not exactly, just a general fascination with computers in general since my youth. I've nary coded a hello world. But Linux just feels better, to put it in a vague and nebulous way. If something provides a bad driver in Windows? You're just screwed. With Linux, not only can you fall back to a previous kernel, but you can also blacklist the driver in question and there's likely a replacement as well.

And in Linux, everything is within my control. I choose when the system updates are downloaded and installed, I choose what login screen to use, and so much more.

I installed Lunux Mint a few days ago. Regrettably, the Surface laptop I installed it on refused to grant it wifi, so I had to go back to stupid Windows.

I guess I am unaware of those as I am mainly still on Windows 7 at home. At work I do have Windows 10.

So what is the point of those "Windows Subsystem for Linux"? So that I could run bash on Windows? So... where does that leave PowerShell then? I thought it was supposed to be THE replacement for the old Windows Command Prompt that doesn't cut it anymore.

I use Linux because I can, and I want to.

It's open source.
It's free (both meanings).
It's secure.
It's very flexible, in terms of customization and supported hardware.
I have a significant investment in Linux. I've spent ~19 years using Linux, 12 years with it as my default OS.