I started using Linux somewhere around 2016 (Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, I believe). I had discovered the existence of non-Windows operating systems, as most do who are interested in computers at more than a surface level, and never looked back. It's just so much easier to do things when your computer treats you as the owner.
I've swapped through a few distros and window managers. Currently, I use Arch with herbstluftwm on the desktop, dotfiles for which are stored in a bare git repository. My server(s) usually run Alpine, or whatever works. I tend to pick software for pragmatic rather than ideological reasons (and yes, FOSS is pragmatic).
I don't take a strong stand in the distro war, nor even really in the OS war. I would happily use a BSD, or most of the wonderful Linux distros out there.