Windows doesn't "just work"
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Lol "the main computer market is iffy"
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You don’t have to get rid of all the stuff, it doesn’t break the system like missing sounds or whatnot. Some of its even helpful like weather and news. Plus it isn’t that hard to make a Microsoft account, don’t you need one anyway for Minecraft? And since when do you need drivers for an SSD, don’t those usually work out of the box?
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Nah just stuff I built myself or random laptops.
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Some old Lenovo laptop with an Intel iGPU and an AMD GPU I can't remember, worked out of the box but was a bit finicky for some things. I don't remember what it was, it broke years ago.
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ASUS TUF FX504GM (1060 maxq), zero issues on X11
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Lenovo Legion 5 (3070 + AMD iGPU), zero issues, daily driver
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Custom Desktop (1070 + Intel iGPU though I didn't really use it), some issues but i was testing Wayland years ago. Good on X11.
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Custom Desktop (7900xtx + 3080), zero issues, daily driver. It used to just have a 3080, it's fairly solid on Wayland as well but not perfect.
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A few other random laptops and desktop some friends owned over the years, fairly smooth on pretty much all of them.
I've found in general that anything that doesn't have an Nvidia card as the display output works fine. Wayland is getting quite usable on Nvidia as well, but there are still growing pains. Still, no black screens anywhere.
Sure I've tinkered a bit during the years, but I almost never had a black screen on install. I did brick my display drivers a few times (just Nvidia being a pain, mostly) but it was mostly my fault.
It may be you've just been really unlucky. There are definitely hardware combinations out there that cause problems, but I haven't really found any particularly problematic ones up until now.
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Or, you DO find it, but it’s glitchy/outdated (I think there was an issue with Steam). Or you search for the program, find the website, download a .tar.gz, wonder what the hell is this double extension abomination, double click it, doesn’t work, look it up, apparently it’s a type of container like a zip and not a basic program like an exe and instead of using the GUI like a normal person you have to type “tar -xcv” or something that might as well be black magic (I can’t even remember the correct letters), then to actually install you have to find the magic “make” “sudo make install” command, and it still fails.
Much easier to double click the .exe, accept the license agreement, and hit continue a few times.
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I've tried many many laptops. Don't remember which ones, but they there the most sock common, you can probably imagine. For example, the last one is a budget acer with a Radeon discreet card or something. No NVIDIA. Installed Lubuntu on it. Absolutely standard installation.
Worked for some while. Then it stopped working. Whenever I booted up the laptop, the screen went black after a second on login screen. Researching for hours and hours did not help to find a solution.Funnily enough, I only installed Lubuntu in the first place, because I tried Debian Stable before that and that one didn't boot at all. It did not work even once. So, I had switched to Lubuntu...
This is one representative example for how those great Linux installations always go in my cases.
Again, this did not happen once or twice. This happens almost every single time I try to install Linux on any normal stock hardware, whatsoever.The only time I had no trouble installing Linux is on my current laptop (tablet, but like a laptop) device. But do you know why? Because I reserched for hours for a device, which fits my needs and is very compatible with Linux. That's why. I had to research tons of hours to find a device, which is actually Linux compatible.
That said, not even this device works fine. Actually, the opposite. It is dangerous to your health. Yeah, I'm not joking, I literally mean it.
One time, I started Firefox on it and the screen started flickering really hard. Couldn't control or fix it.
If my friend would've been there, he would've gotten a seizure 100%, since he has photosensitive epilepsy. Linux is literally dangerous to your health.Windows might be annoying and all... But it doesn't give anyone literal seizures.
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I pity you. I can think of perhaps 2 people I've ever known that I hate. You hate someone who irritates you on social media. You must live a sad, lonely little life.
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Yeah, I am very familiar with Debian on servers. It works great on servers. Have experienced with all kinds of stability stages regarding Debian.
However, Desktop Debian usually does not work. Then I switch to the one, which should work the easiest, so Ubuntu or some derivative. And this usually still needs tons of troubleshooting over hours to make it work to a minimum standard...
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Historically, yeah. Nowadays (as in the last 2-3 years) I don't really see many issues. It's fairly solid in my experience.
And let's be honest, Windows is a nightmare as well on many laptops. If you wipe them and start from scratch, there is a non zero chance that you'll have to source like half the drivers manually.
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Everything Debian based is an absolute clusterfuck in my experience. I mainly use Fedora or Arch, never had a problem with them.
Every single time I've tried using anything Debian based it's been a shitshow. Maybe that's the source of your issues. -
Have you tried anything not Debian based?
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Well, a very long time ago, I tried plenty of distributions on old hardware and that worked enough, so I could at least boot. But yeah, older hardware was always easier for Linux.
At some point I switched to the ones, which are most likely to succeed. Ubuntu is the biggest one out there and should work the best, with the most support and acceptance across the globe.
If not even Ubuntu works on those devices, then what will work, out of the box?
Besides, Ubuntu has already diverted enough from Debian, that I wouldn't really put them in the same basket, at all, anymore...
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I don't know, maybe. But I don't wanna set up something as rare as Fedora or manual as Arch for some older people, who just wanna do basic stuff. I don't wanna support advanced setups like that. Helping them with some Ubuntu stuff is already enough.
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Thank you for your pity, I shall bask in your magnanimity henceforth, oh superior one. Thou hast no equal on this space rock.
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Yep exactly, since when do we need a driver for the nvme controller
at least on Linux it works out of the box.
Apps on windows do break the system to some extent by using resources. As a developer I think that KISS is a paramount principle and waste is bad. Account = waste, unneeded 3d viewer = waste, notepad with subscription ad = uber waste. -
Oh, don't get me started on Windows issues. Lol. But the only reason we use Windows at work is for Office, otherwise Tue CAD software has a Linux version yet runs better.
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To get to a working state you're very likely to be fine. They're all using Intel wifi and some elan touchpad, so the basics work well enough to bootstrap up to your vendors website.
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The Windows 24H2 update broke my Bluetooth audio, the sound is completely messed up and makes the system lag a bit. Uninstalled the update, Bluetooth works. The update automatically installed itself again after a few weeks and broke it again but I can no longer uninstall it for some reason.
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The kind of people who would install Linux on their PC are the same people who'll reinstall Windows to remove all the bloat manufacturers put on their laptops by default.
Whether or not the basics work well enough to go scavenge for drivers is irrelevant. The fact that I have to do it means it's no better than modern Linux in that regard. It'll boot and in 90% of cases it'll just work, when it doesn't you'll need to install some drivers.
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I've found it to be just the opposite. I've had so many more issues on Ubuntu and Debian derivatives than any other distro out there. Both in terms of hardware support and stability, ironically.
Bigger doesn't necessarily mean better, otherwise Windows would be good.
aptis atrocious and will nuke your system every once in a while if you're not careful when installing even the most trivial packages.- Snaps are objectively worse than any other packaging format.
- The software is never up to date and you have to go scavenge for drivers and updated kernels otherwise stuff is just broken.
There are much greener pastures out there, even if a little more niche.
Arch if for tinkerers, no doubt, but Fedora is just as simple to use as Ubuntu. The support is great since it's backed by Red Hat and has a sizeable following. I never had issues finding what I was looking for. The only caveat is that it's for newer hardware; not cutting edge mind you, but it may not be the best choice for a 2009 laptop. Anything that's at most 10 years old though I'd expect to just work honestly, maybe with minimal tinkering.