I'm super curious. I tend to flip between Linux and windows (though if I'm smart I'll put windows on my Y40-70 and play what I can't play in linux on that) when I need to do something for a rather extensive period of time. However most of the time I am happy to sit in linux and be able to fix my shit when I need to. In arch I can go grab a package off the AUR, build it, and any dependancy I didn't have I have in 30 seconds or less. Its great! Windows can't do that shit. A lot of linux distros can't do that shit.
As for the other side that think using linux as a main OS is stupid, WHY is it stupid? I see people make comments on here from time to time along the lines of "Oh I would never use Linux as a main OS thats a stupid idea." I'm curious as to why that is.
I've been using GNU+Linux almost exclusively for two years. Work, gaming, leisure, all of that with no issues at all. There were a few times where i booted up windows to play Witcher 3, but with the recent Wine developments, DX11 is close so pretty soon i probably will never need Windows for gaming or leisure. Work so far has not required any tricky software but i can never tell what challenges will i find in the future. After a while you get used to the environment you're in and stop thinking "am i missing out on something i had on windows?". At first i was concerned i couldn't play some of my favourite games (so i got another HDD and installed windows) but now i have so many games on my waiting list (thanks to Feral interactive) that i don't really care for AAA mainstream stuff that might be difficult to run on GNU+Linux.
I use Debian as my daily driver on my laptop. It dual boots windows 10 as well, but I barely use it. There's a few games on it and there' s Netflix, which I'm too lazy to hack onto the linux partition. I use windows maybe three or four days out of the month, I'm not a serious gamer and I watch netflix primarily on my tv. If I could play all of my games and watch netflix on linux I'd remove windows completely.
I use Fedora (25) for pretty much everything. I'm in windows rarely for the occasional one or two games i still play from time to time that aren't on Linux.
I'd love to use a Linux laptop at my work, there's no reason i shouldn't be able except that its not given to me on the network.
I probably won't be using Linux around the clock for everything for quite a while because we use fkin Windows at work, but at home, I am setting up a nice little (big) linux workstation. Should be fun.
I've been using Linux since the late nineties, as soon as I had a second computer it got dedicated to a Linux box running pretty much 24/7. RedHat Linux back in the day it was. In my home I have a computer running Linux that I use for everyday things, browsing, email, irc etc etc. I also have a Windows PC that I mostly game on. Old laptop runs almost only Linux since a couple of years, used to be that the old Radeon graphics didn't work too well but that has been fixed. At work my workstation runs Linux with windows virtual machines sometimes, but 90% of the work done on that machine is in Linux. All servers are Linux ofc.
About the stupid thing, if you use some windows apps that are hard to replace, there are quite a few, it would be stupid to run Linux as you will have trouble running things. Pretty much the only reason nowadays that I run Windows is gaming. Linux gaming has gone very far though in recent years, used to be that almost no games ran on Linux. I want my next gaming machine to run Linux and have a WIndows VM for games. Wine is also getting there. DX11 support is absolutely huge. Thanks CodeWeavers et al!
Personally, I only really use Linux in a vm for work, currently. That is the way that the company wants us to do it. No clue as to why, but there you go. I don't make the decisions.
At home, I currently am only using Windows on my main desktop because the whole purpose of that machine is to play games, and Linux gaming just honestly isn't where it needs to be in order to make me not need Windows. I am planning, once I finally have the money to build myself a new rig, to start using Linux (been eyeing Fedora) as my daily driver. And then either boot into Windows, or use a vm when I want to play games. We will see how that goes. I don't really have the money to move to Linux right now (long story, but I am basically stuck with my current rig the way that it is, Windows and all).
Personally, I have been fed up with Microsoft's nonsense and just want to get away from them as much as possible. The only crying shame is gaming. That is why I got into computers and whatnot in the first place (which led to me being a software developer and being very interested in Linux and all that), so I really can't abandon it. But like I said, we will see how things go. I plan to use Linux as much as possible, but I am flexible.
I use Linux for programming, web development, web browsing, file/data storage, web server/git repo, nginx proxy, VM host, light gaming and probably a lot of other stuff I've forgot to mention, At the moment I only use Windows for gaming as a large quantity of the games I want to play are not yet available on Linux and when games releases are slow/I can't be bothered to game I can go months with booting into Windows at all and I don't really feel like I'm missing out on anything. Linux on the Desktop is pretty mature at this point and works for almost anything you want to do apart from small edge cases that require specific software that is only available on Windows.
All seriousness, I've been using Linux 99% of the time for the last few years. I can't really define when it started, because it was a slow, more or less natural transition. Started using it on old machines, then moved to dual-booting my main rig, then there was a point where booting Windows was a pain because I knew I'd get hit with 50 updates. I remember the first distro I installed was an early debian. I remember when Sarge was released... I use windows when:
I'm working at the high school, since there is no ability to use Linux.
I want to play a AAA title.
I think I need to punish myself
Why do I use it? That's a better question. I'm not really a "Free Software zealot" like some people are. I could care less if you want to make money off your software. I like how Linux is available and everything is standardized. I remember a friend lost data because his backup software only backed up his c:/users/ directory and one of his programs had been storing (hundreds of gigabytes) data in c:/program files/program name/user data. It's this sort of criminally insane reasoning that is prevented on Linux. If you want to create files in /var/lib/whatever you need ROOT access. It makes you think about what you're doing, because you don't just have to put in your password, but you have to re-launch the program as a different user. You need to really work at it to do something stupid. And that is one reason I like using Linux. It protects the user from making stupid mistakes. I know it's ironic because people say "oh, it's so easy to break linux" I have to give them the benefit of the doubt on that one. Yes, it is easier to break if you're stupid and run everything as root, but here, on planet earth, I run things as my unprivileged user and only use root when I need to make major changes. It's called privilege separation and it's the beez kneez.
You are lucky. Boss at my work is MS fanboy. Workstations run Win 10. All servers run Windows server 2003 to 2016. And if he sees you using Firefox instead of IE or Edge you are asking for an argument.
Sounds like you need to find a new position. Your boss is not fostering a good working environment by enacting such restrictive standards. Unless he has a good reason for restricting firefox, which I can't imagine he would, I would share with him the reason you prefer it.
I have to agree there, I like how standardised Linux is, especially when it comes to the directory structure. I always kinda disliked C:\ drive D:\ drive, etc but having everything in a hierarchical structure really makes sense because you can have multiple different mount sources whether it be from the network using NFS, or multiple different drives using vastly different filesystems, but to the system it is one cohesive structure that houses everything and it really is a thing of beauty in my eyes.
Yes I do need to find different place, but not because of what software we use. One director is manipulative ass that wants me to do more work for free and the other is pure idiot who doesn't understand technology. Both of them throw a hissy fit if you don't follow instructions to the last letter. Even if you were forced to deviate from them due to technical problems.
EDIT: They have put me through so much stress that I'm getting grey hair and ekzem on my skin.