Recently saw a video from gamers nexus. His laptop decided to start updating his laptop during an airplane flight, and he didn’t dare close the lid when the message came to turn off electronics during landing. My brother had to baby sit his CNC machine during a 4 hour job because his windoze machine wanted to reboot every half our after some update. I have had a funeral presentation disturbed because the PCB that presentation ran on decided to update it’s printer driver. So when my brother gave me an (almost) new PC which started up with a lot of blue tiles and I could not even figure out how it worked, nor could I find a start menu I had enough, put Linux on it and never looked back. Linux has it’s flaws too, but at least it’s not created by ignorant morons. Linux is written by people who know how to use computers, and for people who want to use computers.
Okay, I get it. You hate Linux and love Windows.
I’ve run Linux exclusively at home for at least 20 years. I’ve used Linux almost exclusively at work, with the exception of 5 years where one client demanded that I HAD to have a Mac; I did all my work in a Linux VM, and that client was switching to Linux desktops when I retired.
There is very little of it… that you are aware of. Which does not make it so.
Once you (or your company) makes the decision to use Linux on the desktop, you’ll find that lots of engineering software runs on it.
Xilinx and Intel FPGA tools run under Linux, as do the toolchains from many other companies.
I initially chose Eagle for PCB work because it ran under Linux (at the time KiCad could not yet save files, and gEDA was and is a mess). Years later I tried KiCad again when I needed something that could handle bigger boards than my Eagle license allowed, and switched permanently when Autodesk changed the licensing.
For documentation and presentations I use LibreOffice, and LibreOffice accepts more file formats than the Microsoft Office suite.
With MS telling me my perfectly good PCs (to me) will need to be replaced soon because they lack TPM2.0+ and my drives need to be UEFI reformatted, I’m considering a move to Linux or at least config for dual boot.
As a Linux ignoramus, the choice of distos is a question. With this poll, it’s seems Ubuntu is likely my best first choice? At least for Kicad and FreeCad?
Certainly Ubuntu is what the devs support.
However, I run KiCad under Fedora Silverblue and it works fine using the Fedora Flatpak.
And, since I am under an atomic distribution, once the KiCad bug I had was identified as an OS bug, I could roll the OS back to an earlier state before the update and fix my KiCad issues (atomic distributions, FTW!).
I didn’t know that. Thanks, it’s another nod Ubuntu is likely my best 1st choice alternative. I don’t really understand the recent ‘controversy’ about Kicad/Wayland/X11 however and if/how it may apply to certain distros?
It’s ironic to me that Microsoft’s (onerous to me) requirements for a legit Win11 as they sunset Win10 motivates me more to go to another OS rather than upgrade with them. I suppose similar to how many of us came to Kicad after getting fed up with whatever other EDA toolset we were using prior.
Mint might be better than Ubuntu nowadays because it’s not pushing Wayland and Snaps.
Yeah I gotta admit I’m relatively new (again) to Linux.
Last time I used Linux was around Solaris 7 times (We used to run critical systems on that at work).
Then I worked on Mac until 2011 and Windows ever since.
Now with the end of Win10 support, I wanted to finally abandon ship and go back to Linux.
However, since my Linux skills were quite rusty, I wanted one of those “convenience” distros and my favorite games and my (damn you Nvidia!) GPU didn’t want to run properly under many.
Nobara is Fedora based and provides native Nvidia drivers out of the box. So the choice was made 
Now the only thing I need to figure out is how I get SolidWorks to run in a VM and I’m good.
Btw: I am reading a lot about wayland issues… I’m running wayland and didn’t notice any issues so far. But on the other hand I didn’t do any big project after the switch, so I may still encounter one?
Afaik you’re not really limited in choice, when it comes to Distros. KiCad comes as a Flatpak thus runs on most distros. Be it Fedora, Arch or Debain-based. I tried quite some distros lately. And getting KiCad to run was the least apparent issue
I know I have many distros choices. Too many? If I’m going to migrate, I prefer to do it once. The idea of taste testing the various flavors doesn’t appeal. At all.
The other thing is that I’m likely to stay on windows at work for bureaucratic/IT reasons. I imagine I’d benefit by being more OS multilingual, but juggling two different size balls is harder than one. I came from >20yrs of OrCad capture/PADS layout to Kicad. The transition period where I needed to use OrCad/PADS by day and wanted to use Kicad by night was . . . awkward. While I occasionally still need to utilize my OrCad/PADS workflow, it’s rarer and rarer. OrCad/PADS now seem clumsy and my awkward 2nd language vs how Kicad did during that transition phase.
I do have the luxury (and burden) of being the sole EE at our small company, and with a degree of respect and autonomy. I got zero pushback in saying I want to switch to FOSS EDA Kicad and abandon commercial Cadence / Mentor for PCBAs. It’s results that matter and Kicad is delivering them as much or more. I suppose I could try a similar tact with Linux. Whatever flavor.
It is impossible to refuse PADs because there is no such simulation on Linux, and from Office in Windows because of the incomplete compatibility of Libra when displaying documents. As a result, Wine appears) This is approximately how it happens now, according to my observations. For an example, you can read the topic on this forum (Gereber editor for Linux) how I tried to find it for this platform) is it even necessary?))
What’s the point of libra from formats if I can’t fully view or edit documents made in the office? I use Linux and I know its shortcomings very well and the main thing is programs. What alternatives does Linux offer for Solid, Inverter, Nx, Altium, AutoCAD? FreeCAD or? Today Linux offers us Wine))) Instead of rewriting programs for another platform, they tell you Wine))
Dear all,
we need to pull the subject of this thread/poll firmly back to KiCad, otherwise once the votes dry up (probably soon) there will be no need to keep it open . . . 
FWIW and IMO, it looks to me like the last two replies was perhaps poor AI? That’s why I gave it a like. Otherwise I think the discussion was about KiCad, EDA, and what OS they’re run under. And why.
i am using kubuntu, ubuntu flavor