I’ve been using Linux exclusively for about 8 years. Recently I got frustrated with a bunch of issues that popped one after another. I had a spare SSD so I decided to check out Windows again. I’ve installed Windows 11 LTSC. It was a nightmare. After all the years on Linux, I forgot how terrible Windows actually is.
On the day I installed the system and a bunch of basic software, I had two bluescreens. I wasn’t even doing anything at that time, just going through basic settings and software installation. Okay, it happens. So I installed Steam and tried to play a game I’ve been currently playing on Linux just to see the performance difference. And it was… worse, for some reason. The “autodetect” in game changed my settings from Ultra to High. On Linux, the game was running at the 75 fps cap all the time. Windows kept dropping them to around 67-ish a lot of times. But the weirdest part was actual power consumption and the way GPU worked. Both systems kept the GPU temperature at around 50C. But the fans were running at 100% speed at that temperature on Windows, while Linux kept them pretty quiet. I had to change the fan controls by myself on Windows just because it was so annoying. The power consumption difference was even harder to explain, as I was getting 190-210W under Linux and under Windows I got 220-250W. And mind you, under Linux I had not only higher graphical settings set up, but was also getting better performance.
I tried connecting my bluetooth earbuds to my PC. Alright, the setup itself was fine. But then the problems started. My earbuds support opus codec for audio. Do you think I can change the bluetooth codec easily, just like on Linux? Nope. There is no way to do it without some third party programs. And don’t even get me started on Windows randomly changing my default audio output and trying to play sound through my controller.
Today I decided to make this rant-post after yet another game crashed on me twice under Windows. I bought Watch Dogs since it’s currently really cheap on Steam. I click play. I get the loading screen. The game crashed. I try again. I play through the basic “tutorial”. After going out of the building, game crashed again. I’m going to play again, this time under Linux.
I’ve had my share of frustrations under Linux, but that experience made me realise that Windows is not a perfect solution either. Spending a lot of time with Linux and it’s bugs made me forget all the bad experience in the past with Windows, and I was craving to go back to the “just works” solution. But it’s not “just works”. Two days was all it took for me to realize that I’ll actually stick with Linux, probably forever. The spare SSD went back to my drawer, maybe so I can try something new in the future. It’s so good to be back after a short trip to the other side!
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.
It’s definitely an abusive relationship.
Yes. I prefer my os to be more passively adversarial. Like Gentoo. It hates everything equally.
Eh, Gentoo is pretty quiet most of the time once you’ve got it installed. After that, you just have to keep an eye on it and make sure it doesn’t go off its meds (although once every few years, it will come up with a weird and wonderful way of doing so that you can’t block.)
Now I’m imagining an angry Gentoo penguin snapping at fingers any time someone wants to use their PC 😅
All operating systems suck, some just suck harder than others.
Yeah that’s hard to see when i have to boot windows for work every weekday.
The issues are the little things, like 300ms lag here or there where things are instant on Linux. Or the flashing taskbar icon when an app wants your attention. Or the obfuscated settings. Or the ‘everything is an edge applet’. Or the cpu fans racing to send data back and forth with MS services. (Seriously try simplewall sometime. It’s scary to see the connections, and blocking them makes your computer silent)
Booting into Linux at the end of the day is such a relief every single time.
Back in the 2000s, I was able to say that while a fundamental install took only about a half hour to set up, usability tweaks and a full fleshing out of functionality took another 4-8 hours depending on what the user was going to use the machine for.
I just did a Win11 24h2 install. It took nearly 24 working hours before I considered it even minimally functional for my needs. Cycling through Win10Privacy two or three times was particularly frustrating. Registry work alone took me a good 8-10 hours of trying stuff a step at a time and then rebooting to see how it worked.
At this point, the only reason why I am still running with a Windows rig is for those half-dozen programs that don’t have appropriate non-Windows variants. It’s why I’m also running a Mac Mini and an OpenSUSE tower through the same 4-port, 6-head KVM.
Put it in a VM?
That still doesn’t solve 99.9% of my issues, it just tries to solve a problem for which I already have a solution actively in-place: a KVM.
Indeed it is difficult to hammer it in to shape. In addition, Microsoft will often quietly reset setting back in their favour. It’s that constant fight that tipped the scales for me.
My work just changed from gsuite to m365 and it is atrocious. Obviously fuck google but god damn if microsoft arent just the worst at designing UI and considering actual consumer concerns when dsigning programs. Quit your job if they change to office.