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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Because I don't sit down at my Linux destop and feel like the product. There's no ads or suggestions or popups or apps installing themselves or shit copying my files around in ways I didn't really want or AI bullshit or anything even remotely suggesting I buy more shit, just... whatever the fuck it is I was intending to do.
The value in not having my computer act like a damn slot machine trying to get me to insert more quarters is, frankly, immense.
I like being in control of my computer.
Windows and Android have this attitude where they decide how you want to use your device and block customisation. And the fact that they feel entitled to be able to change how your device looks and feels without warning or permission is something that's deeply uncomfortable to me. There's also this feeling of not knowing what my device is actually doing, and how much of my data it is actually collecting.
With Windows, there's also a lot of small papercuts that make it annoying to use (and that my Windows friends don't seem to understand):
... Whew I ranted for a while there, didn't I? Yeah, I dual boot Windows for the games that either don't run under protonwine or the devs want to add a rootkit to.
Thats a pretty impressive list
I don't know if I "hate" Windows but more like "I'm done dealing it." I might come and use it time to time, but only when absolutely necessary, and the mental capacity to remove things I don't need and make sure its removed.
.” I might come and use it time to time, but only when absolutely necessary
I get that!
I honest to god find Linux easier to use. Though it's maybe because the most used programs on my laptop are neovim, gcc and rust compiler and Firefox . And I shit you not, Microsoft purposefully slowed down the Firefox browser I installed from their store.
Plus I like using a tiling window manager when coding, now in Linux I have 500 options. On windows I get a middle finger and a dedicated nsa/fbi agent. Whats not to hate?
Aside from all the usual points that everyone else has already made: automation. Scripting stuff on Linux is relatively simple, trying to fuck about with powershell or work around a tool that's GUI-only is infuriating.
So. Fucking. True. oh my god.
I want to turn Bluetooth on in a script!
Linux? Two or three commands.
Powershell? Here, run this monster or download an application to do it for you and call that via the command line.
Last time I used Windows, the only way to suspend the machine was either poking some random ass .dll from System32 or downloading PsSuspend by Sysinternals ffs!
Scripting stuff on Linux is relatively simple, trying to fuck about with powershell
that is the fucking best thing about Linux, I have so many scripts and customizations, I can't even tell you!
I swapped away from Windows about a year and a half ago. The last straw was them sticking ads in the OS. And from everything I've heard, they continue to boil the frog; they continue to add more and more telemetry and unasked for "features" and bloat the system more and more and more with every update. Even my own parents are growing tired of Windows; it's a clunky, poorly optimized operating system that's positively frustrating to use.
I will concede that not everything that runs on Windows will run on Linux. It's true. But I severely disagree that Windows is "easier to use." Of course, when you grow up on Windows, Linux has a learning curve. It's different OS. But once I got past that? Nah, Linux is far easier and more intuitive in most cases.
Installing programs? Open your software manager and click a button.
Playing video games? Open Steam or Lutris and click a button. Occasionally you might need to tweak things, but you have to do the same on Windows sometimes, especially for older games!
I could go on but those are the biggest two examples that come to mind immediately.
As to another point you made, I personally gave up almost nothing. Destiny 2 and League of Legends don't work, but I quit league before fgsh added Vanguard and neither of these games want me. That isn't my fault, and it isn't a short coming in Linux's fault, it's the devs being assholes.
In spite of this, I do acknowledge some people would have to give up more than me, and for some people that's too much, and that's valid! I hope one day they truly get a choice.
Because every time I’m reminded the underlying OS exists it’s always something negative.
On windows: Forced restarts and updates that take over 5x as long as my Linux (or FreeBSD build), ui that constantly undoes what I customized, ads and preinstalled malware essentially like candy crush even on builds from Microsoft directly, worse performance with a much higher number of crashes under load on my current box, and no auto login/name any simple customization without screwing around with registry editor to name just the simple things. More advanced problems include no hypervisor built in to the home version, everything is pay to unlock features my Linux install does for free, no zfs software raid for storage safekeeping, most fixes when I do have errors involve googleing cryptic hex codes and being told to run fsck/chdsk as the only solution for often times hours of searching before finally finding the actual answer - not to mention most other fixes being to download a library/binary of the sketchiest sounding website ever that i can't verify isn't a virus.
On linux or even FreeBSD which took a bit to get installed to my liking i may have put work in up front but its like 3 hours at most of my time for 6+ years of stability and proper functioning to avoid all of the above plus no microsoft telemetry etc. I switched when i first tried Vista and even today every time i have to use Microsoft's horrific excuse for an OS it is heartburn inducing.
I find Windows significantly less convenient than Linux. It took a few years for my mindset to flip but there's just no going back. Whenever something requires me to use Windows, I reach for a Windows virtual machine. Whenever I've been forced to use a Windows or a Mac machine for work, I've reached for a Linux virtual machine.
I think I need like 2 weeks to tell all the reasons I hate it.
It just.. lacks features? I couldn't use ZFS or Btrfs, FDE requires third-party software (veracrypt) and lots of other things that I see as standard system utilities (think ssh, git etc.) are not available on a fresh install. And then you're supposed to download and install .exe files from the internet? Since microsoft controls what goes in the windows store, that could provide the same experience as your distro's repositories. But again, most things you want aren't there, and you can't even trust the things that are there. For some reason, a billion dollar company cannot curate a software repository of the same quality as the ones maintained by unpaid volunteers in the Linux world.
So yeah, I think it's just not there yet. Maybe in a few years windows will be a viable alternative for desktop systems.
FDE requires third-party software (veracrypt)
There's bitlocker, I think it was added in 7 or Vista. What do you mean?
But other than that, I would rather use VC too.
standard system utilities (think ssh, git etc.) are not available on a fresh install
Hmm, depends. It has a built in openssh client and server, but the "feature" (automatically installing package) is off by default. It can be enabled at install time with the use of the standard windows image modification tools (DISM I think?)
And then you're supposed to download and install .exe files from the internet? Since microsoft controls what goes in the windows store
I think it's better that Microsoft does not have that much control over software distribution.
But again, most things you want aren't there, and you can't even trust the things that are there.
Of course you can't, nobody can tell by looking at the store page if it was modified by anyone, including Microsoft.
The amazon app store for android explicitely tells that they are adding tracking code to every uploaded app, and to make this possible they replace the digital signature of apps uploaded. Google with the play store does not tell anything like this afaik, but for a few years now it also basically compromised the digital signatures of developers, by requiring the private keys to be mandatorily handed in for continued app updates.
I don't trust that these companies that already rely on mass surveillance as a revenue stream, they won't add tracking code to apps unauthorized by the devs. If not right now, it will happen in the future.
For some reason, a billion dollar company cannot curate a software repository of the same quality as the ones maintained by unpaid volunteers in the Linux world.
Besides quality, I think open source distro's repository and it's packagers are largely more trustable. They are not motivated financially to modify the packages in unwanted (by the user) ways, and they are transparent.
So yeah, I think it's just not there yet. Maybe in a few years windows will be a viable alternative for desktop systems.
I think they are drifting farther and farther away.
It was an option. But the shitshow of 11.. thanks that's too much. I'm not installing that for anyone. And 10 is soon end of life...
As someone who routinely installs new Laptops for various reasons:
Because windows is inconvenient for me.
Nothing works as I expect it, terminal takes ages to open, everything lags like shit, annoying popups everywhere, every setting is hidden behind ten thousand menus, subpar packaging system, explorer crashes every so often, PATH is hard to access and modify, takes a PHD to install a raw compiler without visual studio, you can forget about shortcut system cus even with autohotkey it's a pain.
(Talking about permissions) Why do I have to write names of users from the ground and then click button "check if it actually exists" in a fucking gui? Couldn't there be a drop down list?
If you ever want to modify the windows iso image or make an automated script without using online services you're just done mate. There's nifty surprises like special software which name I so conveniently forgot (God bless) that can open the file image contained inside the iso image, but if that inner image has wrong format you have to spend time converting it. Then you'll see some fucking insane shit in front of you, where you need to drag objects from a drop down list into different categories that have random ass names and not at all simple to understand even after reading official documentation. Oh you think that's all? You can drop same objects into different categories and they will do different shit. I took TWO WEEKS WORTH OF CLASSES to work with that software and I ALREADY DONT REMEMBER JACK.
Then there's utterly long startup times even on ssds, colemak dh mod basically doesn't exist... And that's all I could remember out the top of my head.
The only redeeming quality I'd say, is having a very simple setup for Japanese and Chinese IME. On arch KDE it took me awhile to set up fcitx with mozc the first time around.
I... Don't? But I've used it since 3.11. It's incredibly usable software, when it works. Switched recently because even I have my limits - that win11 recall even made it as an idea at the table is enough to make me jump ship. The ads in win10 pushed me to the limit, but recall is insane unless they're literally gonna give away free hardware and software. I paid for that damn computer and bought a license - wtf. It's not Microsofts hardware to datamine or put ads on. Paid for things with ads in them that also keylog and screen scrape and datamine can fuck all the way off.
Saw the netbsd video posted on lemmy recently and dude said he was offended at the lack autonomy he had over his own hardware in ms and I kind of get it now.
Lol Windows is slow garbage, doesnt run on half my families devices soon, and is full of adware and spyware.
Please stay to the end because it's important, and it's going to be a horrible bait and switch but it's not INTENDED that way. I can't think of another way to present the difficult combination of interests that seem to be driving MS software lately.
I actually quite like Windows 11, and I love Edge when they're doing their core functions. Windows 11 is reasonably solid and useful for normal use. Edge is faster than Chrome and has the best vertical tabs implementation on the planet. Much of the baseline software that Microsoft is putting out has never been better, and is often really good at doing the basic things software should do. I really do feel like the genuine technology people in Microsoft are trying, and often succeeding, to make good technology products.
But... the bottom-feeder marketing drones and MBAs got their hands on them and started layering creepier and creepier nonsense over the top. Mandatory logins to glorified data collection engines. Monetization strategies masquerading as features. Overt advertisement. Heavy-handed promotion of Microsoft's own products. I finally stopped using Edge (on Linux!) when I discovered that just looking at the settings the wrong way would re-enable every intrusive setting imaginable and ditched Windows entirely when I saw the same things creeping into the OS (as well as a general disgust with privately-owned OSes in general). They are destroying trust.
In the great irony of my life, because normally work PC Windows installs have been hot garbage, I have Win11 on a work laptop and it's actually really great to use since all of the intrusive stuff is turned off by our security team. I would still prefer linux or macos (in that order), but as a "forced to use it" option, it's not bad at all. Go back and read that again: it's a pleasant and easy to use OS if all the intrusive marketing functionality is turned off because it presents a security hazard.
PS. Not sacrificing anything being predominantly linux-based and am in fact far, far more efficient on linux (and I am not a programmer or in any other technology role).
Windows, macos, all the same. I want a free device. I love donating to KDE. How could I love giving money to microsoft?
Microsoft is more difficult for me nowadays because I use it very rarely. I hate that nothing works as expected. I hate that they force everything upon you.
We are free. We are GNU. We are linux.
We are free. We are GNU. We are linux.
Amen!
I don't like the fact that even if you have a Pro or Enterprise license, some amount of telemetry is still being sent to MS for any number of nebulous reasons.
At least with bigger names like Fedora et al, they give you the option up front to opt-in, and you can have a reasonable amount of trust that they won't do it in secret.
I'm the kind of user that cares about function over form, so everything in Windows 11 just annoyed me. Mainly because it was just changes in design that required me to reorient and to learn to use again with no good reason.
I still use Windows at work just because our whole dev stack is on Windows. And every new design change just gets in my way. An OS should enable me do the things that I need and want, it should move out of my way. Sure I've added some hacks to restore the functionality I was used to. But the fact that I need to fight the OS to bring back context menus annoys me to no end.
Also, as a dev, I find many things easier done on Linux that Windows, mainly because it just has a better CLI support. It's not as bad now with Windows terminal, winget and other improvements (dotnet having a proper CLI interface), however I still mostly use git-bash for common stuff like searching the file system. Not to mention that for something like docker I basically just need WSL.
The task bar change annoyed the hell out of me, get why people were so upset with w8 now, I've been a top taskbar person since xp, small gripe but it jarred me, at least the hotkeys didn't change, the hiding of context menus irks me too, if you are going to do things like that, let me toggle it off. Windows has been getting increasingly frustrating to power users, more annoying to me because winget is solid and windows terminal is actually really nice.
Same boat, work is windows, I've found it easier to work on a linux VM or totally in wsl with a chunk of tasks, had grief with docker too which to be fair, I'm pretty sure most of these issues are because of group policies, company i work for bought tech firms but the central IT is setup for business users so things like local admin I had to fight for weeks to get just to install the azure CLI.
Warning, no technical stuff, only creed:
I don't hate Windows in and off itself. For me it represents my first contact with a computer and influences my choice of UI to this day.
I hate what it stands for, which for me is something I call "gated computing"; a restriction of access to computational power and abilities. It turns a machine with near limitless potential, like watching cat videos, sharing how to best build bridges or calculating the bygone cycles of the moon, to a machine that maliciously distracts people while giving a selected few the power of watching over them with ever changing objectives as to why they watch them.
Windows, like few others, eased people into thinking that that was the right way to use a computer all along.
That is why I hate it.
Proprietary software is a security risk, especially for US companies that can be legally served NSLs
I don't hate Windows, I don't care about it. I don't use it.
Same. I'm a little embarrassed that I have little idea what it's like. Last one I used daily was Windows 7. But then I wonder
how convenient it all was and how was missing so many things
What are these things I'm missing?
Because it's a tool by one of the biggest, if not THE biggest, corporation ever made. It's nothing more than a way to lock-in users deeper in an ecosystem of extortion and learned helplessness.
Through Windows, computer users discover that they have a black box at work and then at home. It is NOT their computer. It is a computer that they are allowed to use a certain way. This then is extended in a myriad of ways, through other tools, e.g mobile phone, and services, e.g Office360, reinforcing that behavior. It becomes a second nature to the point that computer users dare not even imagine HOW they want to use a computer. Instead they buy whatever they are allowed to consume.
I do not care for Windows as an OS, I absolutely do HATE it though as a vehicle for cognitive enslavement. I do so keeping in mind the history of the company that made it. It is not a repeated random process, it's a strategy. This is what I find disgusting.
Great answers already, I'll not repeat them. One thing I want to mention though is the interoperability of the Linux applications. Things work together well. With Windows (up to 10 at least, I haven't used windows much in the last years) applications are mostly their own silo. In KDE it's quite fluent. E.g. gwenview, the image viewer offers to open an image in krita, gimp, etc. It also offers an option to add a folder to the "places" list in dolphin (the file manager). Dolphin lets you quickly (F4) open and close a terminal at the current folder within its window. Small things like these make the system feel coherent.
The other big thing for me is the plethora of great apps you have out of the box. And the ease to install new ones without worrying whether you are the product.
The question is wrong: it's not why do you "still" hate Windows. I did like Windows 7. It was the last Windows I liked. After that, it's just a downhill enshittification spiral. The only real question is: at which point will it be too oppressive for the common user that even the most common user will try to avoid it entirely. And I fear that there's still more than enough room for MS to make Windows worse before enough people migrate away from it.
there are too many little details to point out but windows just controls your experience too much. for example on a widescreen i don't want to be forced to have the taskbar on the long edge. and up to including w10 the taskbar placement could be chosen. in windows 11 it's forbidden... i installed a software to hack this but of course then explorer.exe breaks every 10 minutes.
the spirit of computer technology is a universal tool. Microsoft strongarms the user to be a tool. so no thanks
One word: Recall
Many government agencies and businesses are too dependent on Windows and other Microsoft products. The dependence on a few huge American corporations is problematic especially for organizations outside the US.
I don't hate Windows but I see it as a political problem.
I don't hate Windows, but I find Linux a much more natural way to use my PC. I started with Linux in 1996 and have been daily driving different distros since 2010 on all my PCs and servers.
Over the years, I’ve come to appreciate how flexible and customizable Linux is. The open-source community is always ready to help, making the experience even better. For personal projects or managing servers, Linux is efficient and reliable, and I’ve grown to depend on it.
On the other hand, I've had to use Windows at various jobs and never found it enjoyable. The constant updates, 'bloatware', and lack of transparency can be frustrating.
While Windows is user-friendly and compatible with many programs, it often feels less intuitive and more restrictive compared to the freedom I have with Linux.
Each time I switch back to Windows, I’m reminded why I prefer Linux for both personal and professional use.
"An unknown error occurred." And you spend hours trying figure it out for it to be something stupid that should just have a distinct error.
I own my computer. But on Windows, it doesn't feel like that...
After decades of user interfaces and internet access, we’re making things worse rather than better.
Someone at Microsoft realized that hardware will speed up, hiding the fact that the OS is getting bloated and riddled with code that doesn’t directly benefit the user.
The value Windows provides isn’t great enough to deal with this state any longer. In fact, my experience shows it’s slower and just as buggy.
We have technology available to improve experiences, let’s not mix it with profit incentives for once.
I dual boot, but I've been dreading booting back into Windows recently because I upgraded my motherboard/CPU and know they are going to make me buy another license. And I understand Windows is more convenient for a lot of people but I am not one of them.
I can't think of anything that is more convenient for me on Windows other than that I have to use it to run Studio One to record music from time to time. But "software availability" has nothing to do with the operating system itself; market position does. And a company's market position rarely drives my purchasing decisions.
I dislike Windows for all the reasons people here typically state.
Back when I first used a computer we were told if it has ads and pop ups constantly then you have installed a virus. Try using a fresh install of windows....
Hate is a strong word, i don't feel strongly enough about an os to really hate it. I still use a Windows 10 pc for my music production since all of my vsts work there and continue working there even after updates and whatever else.
My daily driver is running pop os. my main reason for switching was just a personal disagreement with the direction windows was going back around 2021ish when they were talking about integrated advertising in the file explorer. Linux was always something I wanted to get to learning so the timing just seemed right to switch over.
Honestly, I don't. I stopped caring about windows ages ago.
For me the straw that broke the camels back was the fucking updates. I got so tired of Windows forcing updates, and I never could get the registry edits to disable it to stick. Besides, you shouldn't have to EDIT THE REGISTRY to just turn off updates! But there's also stuff I'd really miss if I went back (I've been on Nobara for a year now) like the package management on Linux. I love that I can choose to update on MY terms, and that almost everything updates during the process. I have a few random jar apps for Switch hacking stuff, and an appimage for R2Modman, but besides that I don't have to worry about needing to download the latest version of shit all the time. AND, having most of what you need just available on a software store is so nice. Never mind that its so much safer to not have to download random .exe's from all over the internet. These days the only thing I actually struggle with is modding certain games. Like BG3 took me awhile, but then I found out there's a Linux mod manager called lampray and it works perfectly. Then there's also the fact you have to know how to do DLL overrides for things like bepinex or anything that adds some kind of DLL. But otherwise, it just works and infuriates me less than windoze
- The joy of "figuring it out" and customizing everything you want to the minutest details
Customization is my reason. I've got a two-monitor setup in KDE with different panels on each one. Each one is highly customized specifically to me, and the customizations can't be done in Windows.
Windows has basically become malware. It does a fuck ton of tracking, and all of its features are about appeasing shareholders over users.
If we want to get technical: I loathe it because even in the year 2024, it’s the only operating system I’ve witnessed that will absolutely grind to a halt when a third party application stops responding or crashes. There is no valid fucking reason why the parent system should be halted by an application that crashes.
Also, ads in the start panel. Absolutely not, Microsoft. No way in hell am I allowing that to live on a computer I own. Yes, I’m aware third party apps will address that but it shouldn’t be a thing to begin with.
Oh yeah, and it decided to automatically update itself to the latest version on my ASUS ROG laptop while the thing was closed and not in use. So upon booting it up and seeing ads in the UI, I wiped the system clean and installed Nobara. Bye bye. 👋
I started "hating" Windows more recently. I was never a very technical user but I was always someone that could find myself around system configuration and they just keep hiding ways of letting you customize things.
When I started learning programming I was still trying to use only Windows but at some point I got extremely tired of fighting how clunky environmental variables can be. Installing things such as gcc and python was extremely annoying.
Then I did dual boot for a few years, then I started using WSL. WSL is... Awful, lol. It will never ask you if it is okay to stop what you are doing to reboot, I lost count of how many times I was working on something and suddenly my Linux environment was dead.
This year the amount of clutter they are adding to Windows and the existence of Proton just kicked the bucked for me, everywhere you look at Windows is busy and full of stuff I don't want to be there and like I said previously, you either can't remove it or it is difficult because they just want it to be.
I might need to figure out how to run a Windows VM if I need to run something (hasn't happened yet) but that's it, I don't need to deal with all the bs anymore and I can customize things as I like. I love it.
I wouldn't say I hate Windows now, I just kind of despise it after so many years. I wish I heard my professors that kept shitting on Windows so many years ago.
Well I really dislike updating my computer ~~(and on this topic, Windows Update is inconvenient and slow as balls!)~~ and finding some new BS from Microsoft on it.
One day it's Copilot, which I could just use on the browser if I really wanted to, the next day it'll be Recall, which just.... no.
Know what I mean?
Because for me Windows was not easier to use.
I only got my first proper computer in 2020, and comparing Windows 10 with Linux Mint 20, I found the latter much simpler to use not having used either one prior. Just having to bounce between Control Panel and new Settings, plus a lot of tutorials shown magic with registries...
Also, I had a lot of problems with uninstallers failing or not removing programs completely, and getting permissions to remove files directly was also pain in the ass, even as "Administrator". That often resulted in me booting up live Linux DVD to remove crap programs from Windows.
I gave it a try, but I didn't like it. Perhaps I'd like MacOS though. It seems similar enough. But Windows just feels like 2 decades of hotfixes glued together.
I don't hate windows, it just annoys me. I've run linux in a VM under windows for years and about 2 years ago it annoyed me enough (I think it was something about a patch breaking things badly enough that I had to restore the system) that I said 'screw it' and switched the arrangement to linux and the few windows programs I really wanted running in wine. I've been skipping back and forth between them since Yggdrasil was a thing, so it wasn't like it was uncharted territory.
And after hearing some of win11's BS, I'm glad I did.