Linux

I'd summarize the current OS situation as

Windows Just Works until it doesn't, at which point there's basically nothing you can do about it and you just have to kick it until something clicks into place and it starts working properly again.

Whereas linux Just Works to a slightly smaller degree, but when it stops Just Working it does so in granular steps most of the time, and every part of the ecosystem tries to help you fix things when they break.

Windows is a resin-potted black box that takes input and does stuff, if it breaks you're supposed to just chuck it and buy a new one.
Linux is a slightly bulkier thing that you can just unscrew and replace a capacitor when it breaks.

Well, Windows was never perfect. People just got used to its shenanigans. They tend to meddle with bullshit registry yet somehow basic commands on Linux is too complicated.

I have an ongoing irritation with windows (use it for work, Linux at home): It steals focus from the window you're using if another window opens.

Drives me nuts. I'll be typing my password and pop! Oh look I just typed my password into something else that popped up because IT requires this program to run on login today.

KDE is much better about not stealing window focus like that.

My main issue with Windows isn’t its technology, but its attitude. The user is no longer the most important consideration. In that way it’s become adversarial.

I forgot how terrible Windows actually is

Windows, while always shitty, has seriously gone downhill in the past 5 years. I'm looking to switch back to Linux myself, but I have an NVidia GPU that needs constant driver babying on OpenSUSE (my preferred distro). My current plan is to find someone who is willing to swap a RTX 4070 for a equivalent or slightly worse AMD card, and then switch back to OpenSUSE.

Yep. The difference is simply put just ppl are used to the quirks on Windows but not on Linux.

Windows sure is bad, though I haven't seen an actual blue-screen in years. That's some foul luck.

Yeah when I see people say that gaming on Linux "isn't there yet" I have to wonder how long it's been since they've tried. And people who install Windows on their Steam Deck? Don't get it.

As somebody who works in IT at a Windows-only environment, I know exactly what you mean.

I have to fight with Windows on a weekly basis. Driver issues, firmware issues, software crashes/lockups, performance issues, etc etc.

Just this week, I have two users experiencing issues with their monitors. Identical enterprise grade laptops, identical drivers, identical docking stations, all totally up to date on Windows 11. Their old Windows 10 computers worked fine. Still trying to figure out what's wrong.

I can’t relate to this at all.

We use windows machines as software developers at work and really have no issues at all. Never had a bluescreen in these two years.

I use windows at home to play Factorio, Minecraft, and RDR2. Again, never had an issue. No blue screens. I turn it on open steam and play my games then turn it off when done.

I tried Linux again cause I got sucked in by this echo chamber and that did not go well at all. I explicitly said I don’t want to have to be a nerd in my free time to manage Linux which I was assured isn’t the case. Then one day I turn it on and have no sound and no idea why it just died. I swiftly removed Linux and went back to windows.

I do use Linux for servers for Jellyfin and stuff and I like it for those things, but me personally have had a better experience using windows and I can’t understand all these people against it.

I disagree, as much as I wish it weren't so. Compared to Linux from the perspective of this gamer, it does just work. I wish I could main Linux but I can't handle any more critical boot issues or significant reductions in framerate. Not to mention that I cant easily auto-wol my lg tv "monitor" like I could from windows.

It's interesting seeing the variety of experiences in this thread. I definitely had to fight Linux to get it setup and stable on my machine, but ever since then it's been rock solid in a way I've never experienced with a Windows install.

Windows has a mind of its own...and being at the mercy of their update cadence or w/e other nonsense Microsoft is pushing sucks.

Meanwhile on Linux, I've had two CPUs that have C-State/P-State issues (5900x, 1700x), some weirdness with my audio interface, and a GPP0 bug that interferes with sleep. All of them are fixed or managed on Bazzite now, and it took plenty of digging for docs/reddit threads but now it's rock solid.

On Windows, any time I've needed to deal with the Microsoft Store I run into issues that require registry fixes, uninstall/reinstalling various things, etc. Sea of Thieves and Forza Horizon 5 had issues launching as a result on Windows but not on Linux.

Ultimately, not being under the Microsoft gun is such a relief that the initial battle is completely put out of my mind. I've had some instances where I'll boot into Windows for games, or HDR/Atmos support more reliably for my living room setup, but they have gotten rarer and rarer over the past couple of months.

There is no perfect OS that just works for everyone. They are all software so they all have bugs. People how say an OS just works have never hit those bugs or have gotten used to fixing/working around or flat out ignoring them.

This is true of all OSs, including Windows, Linux and MacOS. They are all differently buggy messes.

Linux is the buggy mess that works best for me though.

i setup my old job with linux internally. never had issues. day i quit boss told me to install windows so he can find a replacement employee. sure.

3 years later. boss wants me back. they've had nothing but problems. but i'm not allowed to install linux again.

he says, "if windows didn't have so many problems you would be out of a job."

In my experience as well, fedora just works more than windows. Games work and run better without crashing. No bsods. No needing to manually start drivers for my tablet and restart my DAC.

Only thing windows has is coherent one release and exclusives in terms of a few softwares. Like adobe which is a scam now.

And the second advantage will vanish with more people on linux.

Level1tech was reviewing the Ryzen 9950X/9900X and he noted how performance on Windows was wildly inconsistent depending on peculiar settings such as sidestepping security features and marking apps to run as administrator (aka also sidestepping windows security features) yet on Linux you can get better performance via Proton OOTB.

Linux has its quirks too but people kid themselves when they convince themselves that the dozens of weird tasks and apps and tweaks they make to Windows are "plug and play" compared to Linux, which in my experience has been way less tweaking.

The main tweaks I've done on linux usually include installing ROG-control-center (optional laptop faff) or cryotweaks on Steamdeck (which just sets some sensible options already enabled on most distros)

The problem with Windows is that it is not build to be parametrised. Anyone a bit tech-savy will be frustrated by the inability to tune it effectively for their need.
The problem with Linux is that it is not tech-normie friendly. Sure it has distribution easy to use and pre-parametrised so anyone with basic computer skill can use it. But people with basic computer skill don't have computers with Linux. Anyone who just want to use a computer has to first learn how to install an OS.

Yep, I have used Linux since 2017 after W10 just made everything slower for home use and work. I have been using W11 for work lately, and it sucks. The office16/root/vfs/ProgramFilesCommonX64(86)/office16/ai.exe and aimgr.exe keep hogging resources in task manager and bogging down the system when ever I try to get work done. Deleteing those files helps but they come back after updates, so for now I created two empty text files and changed the filename and extensions to match the deleted files, so far that has kept updates from reinstalling those ai files

I think Windows is successful because it creates a nice Enterprise environment, where companies can easily get into investing into new apps to use in their offices. I think that's why it's successful.

Windows 11 LTSC

I'm using Window 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC; the biggest issue I've had was that I couldn't get my video card installed. I had to wait until there was an updated driver, a few weeks after I assembled my computer. Every time I tried to install the driver that was supposed to be the correct one, I got a BSOD.

Honestly, I like 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC better than I liked the 10 Pro version that I had. And--compared to the only Linux distro I've used, Tails--it's fairly straightforward. And yes, I know the Tails is kind of a pain in the ass, and it's not fair to judge all of Linux against that. But i'm old, and cranky, and just want Win 3.11 back.

Good call. I’ve had to use Windows on work computers for the last 15 years, and I think it’s insane when people talk about it being simple or just working. I feel like I’m being gaslighted by people who maybe don’t know Linux very well so they decided Windows is good actually.

It appears to be all held together with string and ready to crumble randomly.

We keep one Windows laptop in our house so my partner can use some proprietary software she needs for work. When something goes wrong we just reimage it with the HP support tool because otherwise trying to fix it is like pulling your own teeth out.

Windows bloat sucks. I wish Microsoft gave you the option to just install the components/features you're likely to use. That way you could have an agile, minimal custom installation like you do in Arch.

This was sorta my fault, but I'm counting it. I have been flashing meshtastic devices recently and flashed two just fine from fedora (just had to DL ungoogled chromium because fuck chrome but librewolf can't access serial ports so..), tried to flash a third from my friend's windows PC and it just would not recognize it in the serial monitor, tried for like an hour being dumb, then I remembered drivers exist, downloaded one set of drivers, couldn't install lord knows why, downloaded a second set that finally worked on a reboot and got it flashed.

I understand that sometimes you still have to install drivers on Linux too, but can we stop pretending you don't have to on windows? What's more while I was in there and edge wasn't using my serial port my friend said to install a chrome based anyway to try, and I had to find the damn download pages instead of using a package manager, philistines.

i almost forget how much it sucks whenever i'm not forced to use it for a while.

Third party licensed apps are everything on Windows.

See, I've had a similar experience getting games to run on Debian. Steam games crash and require research and testing to see if I can even get them to run, having some in-game videos just not play, black screens, and games just kinda freezing are all super common for me. That's just when trying to run games via Proton.

I get some of it can be tied to a skill issue on my part, but at the end of the day I'm tired and don't want to spend what little free time I have tinkering to get a game working, at least most days.

Still, my dislike for Windows 11 outweighs my interest in gaming so Debian stays.

Yea, I have to use windows at work presently and I hate every second of fighting with it.

Windows doesn't even have a fully functional implementation of focusing windows on hover, a common feature of any Linux system WM I have ever used. There is a setting to do this in Windows accessibility settings, and it's true, it DOES change focus on hover; but it DOESN'T change the functionality of foreground windows getting pushed behind those windows, making it pretty much pointless, and actually more annoying to use.

Also just the performance is such shit, probably because it's now designed to be doing hundreds of unnecessary telemetry tasks at all time on the back end. Also what the fuck is with every piece of Windows software configuring itself to run on boot or as a service? So incredibly annoying.

I was in a somewhat similar place when I first got a laptop with Windows 11 preinstalled. Decided to dual boot, set Windows up with strictly local accounts, and actually poke around in there out of curiosity.

Tbf, the last time I was regularly doing anything in Windows was during the Vista --> Win 7 era. This did not make 11 any more approachable or easier to get even very basic things accomplished. I didn't like the UI (still don't), and kept getting frustrated at those "little" things like the Bluetooth codec issue you mention. Haven't even tried to do much gaming on that side, to compare, other than a couple I couldn't get working properly through WINE/Proton. (A couple of other software packages too.) So I ended up rarely playing those, and only booting into there at all once in a blue moon.

I did recognize that a lot of that frustration was on me and my expectations, though. Doesn't mean that I still don't want to have more control over basically everything about my system. I probably could make even modern Windows work better for me, but why bother when I'm already happy enough elsewhere. ¯\(ツ)/¯

I just installed Linux Mint yesterday. Can’t wait to get home to continue playing around with it. I like it so far!