My computing life has often been difficult and complicated. I've gone against the mainstream for most of it. In the very early 1990s I chose to use Linux, when it was very new and have stuck with it. I could've chosen MS-DOS and then Windows, or a Mac, and had the benefit of more things working more of the time. It would have been easier to collaborate with people. It would have been easier to do many things I either couldn't realistically do, had to wait for someone to build software for, or had to build it myself. I might have done more ambitious, technically interesting things.

If I and others like me had chose differently, Linux and other free operating systems would probably have withered, never gaining much traction. Everyone would be much more strongly controlled by Microsoft and Apple.

Thanks to thousands of people, and to a small degree I, spending a lot of time and effort and being stubborn and contrarian, software freedom is still here, despite the best efforts of monopolists to kill it.

I am happy I made this choice.