I have never really liked WinDOHs all that much, TBH. I dragged my feet pretty hard, leaving good old DOS for it. Then when OS/2 Warp came out, I was all over that like white on rice. OS/2 is what really sold the GUI concept to me. When OS/2 lost its support, I sort of drifted back to Windows, though I did try several niche operating systems along the way. I even tried Red Hat when it came out. At the time, it was still just a little too geeky for me and oddly, a little too delicate and sensitive to hard reboots. Back to Windows. Meh. I didn't like the idea of closed source operating systems in the first place. How does the consumer know what is even IN there? One thing is in there... a great big giant back door that Microsoft has the key too, and one would hope nobody else. MS can do basically whatever they want, whenever they want, to your system, and they do not even have to notify you about it. Read the EULA. Paranoia, right? Call it what you want. An open source OS is just a better idea for so many reasons.
Okay so I did stick it out with Windows. 98 was pretty good. W7 was pretty good. All the in betweens were varying levels of sucky-ness. Then W8 came out and enough. I decided once and for all that I was moving lock stock and barrel to Linux or BSD or some other 'nix OS. W8 was a total abortion. MS promised improvement with W10 but you only have to jerk me around once or a thousand times, to make an unbeliever out of me. I tried installing Ubuntu in a dual boot configuration but it was giving me trouble so I saved my files, reformatted the entire drive on my main laptop, and said to hell with Windows. I installed Ubuntu all by itself. I never looked back.
I like the fact that Ubuntu is a community thing, and that the source code is freely available. I hate the way MS bludgeons PC makers into including Windows, and I am not impressed by MS's marketing juggernaut. The customer pays for the advertising that brainwashes him into thinking he has to use Windows. What a business model!
As for security, I think for the casual user, the difficulty of an intruder or malware of accessing root is a big security advantage. The file ownership attribute system is better developed. Linux is built to function properly as a multiuser system. Peer support is better. The user experience is better. The terminal is very powerful and useful, much more so than a DOS window IMHO. And I first started computing in actual DOS. The Bash shell is to me more intuitive than Windows scripting, more powerful, and again there is crazy peer support for when you are trying to solve a problem you just can't quite get a handle on.
So I have been using Ubuntu for what... about 7 years now? 8? There were some stumbling blocks, yeah, but now I would never dream of going back to that other operating system. About the only thing I can't do with one of my Linux boxes is run VBA stuff. Who cares? Oh, and configure some very specialized firmware/hardware that I very nearly stopped using until the mfr released a configuration app for Android, of all things. I don't use Wine. I don't use VM. I don't want anything to do with Windows. We have, counting the dozen or so Raspberry Pi's, probably 20 computers and only GF's work computer runs Windows, because Shell Oil Company is funny about that LOL.
Yes, good antivirus/antimalware helps keep WinDOHs secure. Except that virus definitions have to be up to date, up to the minute, or sooner or later........ And Windows is a fatter target, and an easier one, especially if there is no firewall or it is not up to the task. But a well equipped system is pretty bulletproof, assuming everything is more recent than the most recently crafted malware. I am with you on that. And the operator is usually his own worst enemy, downloading this, running that, installing this, clicking on that... it is really hard to teach people to use safe computing habits. Windows doesn't help much. The default for instance, is to hide filename extensions, and Windows decides what to do with a file based largely on the filename extension. So you click on "hotchicksmudwrestling.mpg" but the actual full filename is "hotchicksmudwrestling.mpg.exe" or something like that LOL! A more sophisticated and knowledgeable person wouldn't fall for a trick that a reasonably smart 9 year old might dream up, but this is just one example of how weak Microsoft's security blanket truly is for the average user.
Me, I don't have any AV. Actually, I don't think I even have firewall activated on this computer, though I do on the one I use for banking and stuff, just because, well, you never know.
But as for DIY projects, there are a lot of reasons to use open source. More flexibility. Freedom from involuntary updates and stuff. Smaller footprint. Simpler coding. CHEAPER. Raspbian is free. A Pi is $35. So is it practical to figure out how to get Windows to run on something similar, and pay for the license? Nah.
Let's face it. Anybody who is serious about using computers to actually DO stuff, needs to have some familiarity with Linux or Unix or similar. Even Microsoft knows that. Linux outrocks WinDOHs. Period.
