Windows doesn't "just work"
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I came to the same conclusion recently. Had a bunch of issues after i decided to try running windows 11 instead of 10 in a vm. One of them being that my usb dac refused to work, turns out after googling and finding a weird random chatgpt article that it was caused by a specific update. Had to roll the update back to solve it. Now i have to hope that they solve it before they decide to force the update on me anyways.
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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.
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That's more of an OpenSUSE issue, as much as I hate to say it's not Nvidia. Fedora may work better for with the options available for non-free DKMS builds on kernel upgrades, but you'll always be battling the Nvidia side with newer kernels pack releases. The open builds don't work for display yet, so that's not an option anywhere.
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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)_/¯
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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.
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What windows are you having randomly pop up? That might be width investigating because that shouldn't be happening.
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They're things like drive mapping scripts, stuff like that. They're definitely normal for our setup. Just not sure why they have to interrupt me!
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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.
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While that's true, there are objectively different levels of 'just working' though.
I've never spent so little time googling how to fix things as I do with Ubuntu or Mint. It's much more frequently needed and time consuming on other Linux OSs, iOS, Windows, Android. Haven't personally used Mac.
Also, I've always found a fix on Ubuntu. The same can't be said for other OSs.
That's just personal examples, but the general idea still stands: different systems have a different amount of bugs, (or worse, 'features') and the difficulty of fixing them isn't the same for everything either.
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In windows' defense, the "complication" comes from the fact that there is no constant visual display of the filesystem structure in a terminal window like there is in the Windows registry.
That said, taking an hour to become comfortable with the terminal is not a difficult task. Understanding
~, and constantly usingdf -handls -al(for me anyway) will help a lot of people figure it out. -
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."
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For the record, Sea Of Thieves is also available as a standalone purchase through Steam, bypassing the Microsoft Store and their half abandoned UWP format entirely. Never had any issues with the Steam version on Windows.
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The fact that Windows devs seem to not know how to run tasks hidden and in the background always bothers me. I’m sure it’s the fault of Windows itself, but Linux doesn’t open jack until I tell it to. With all the extra helper programs needs in the tray to run all the proprietary hardware, I about lose it with all the shit popping up to yell at me.
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I dunno, I dont think it's normal to get two blue screens on a fresh windows install.
Windows audio really is trash though, I'm totally with you there.
