I am currently dual booting and trying to get feature parity in my Linux install as a reletave newbie.
So far the largest hurdle I've been able to solve was getting my RAID array recognized. That sent me down a rabbit hole.
To get it working in Linux I needed to:
- switch from LMDE to Mint proper
- add a PPA repository
- install the RAID driver
- manually edit my grub config file to ignore AHCI
- run a command to apply the change
- reboot
- format the volume
To get it working in Windows I needed to:
- format the volume(Windows gave me a popup with a single button to do this on login)
I mean, you don't HAVE to do any of that stuff in Windows, it's just helps a bit.
I'm sure there are plenty of windows horror stories. But almost every Windows computer I've had in the last decade, both custom and OEM, has worked pretty well out of the box. And almost every Ubuntu computer I've had over the last decade has had problems that weren't trivial to fix.
I like Linux, but when people compare these problems like they're the same just are missing the point.
The reality is, for 98% plus of windows users, NONE of that matters. MS could give a shit about tech. nerds that want to de-bloat, reduce resources, install crazy niche thingyawidget....
Pretty much everyone in this community is not their target.
Car analogy! You are car guys running custom block modified street racers shitting on electric cars...
Reminder that Group Policy settings are disabled in home versions, and even some of the registry entries for updates are missing. To get a full package of windows with all the options you have to pay like $400 to $600 for their LTSC or maybe some of their Enterprise versions. Honestly, if anybody pirates Windows, then definitely pirate the LTSC.
"Windows Reserved Bandwidth" is just a QoS Packet Scheduler. The Linux Kernel has this too. Equally difficult to disable on any system, because its assumed you will want to be able to download a file and surf the web at the same time. You can turn it off I guess, if quality of service isn't your vibe.
Windows and Linux are both easy to use... Provided that everything works out of the box.
Once you have to actually start solving problems, Windows really starts to fall down because you have to spend ages looking through settings and perhaps installing tools like bcd editors. Like seriously, the number of places you can manage your microphone settings are insane.
At this point, I think the only people that say Windows is easier are those that have never had to reinstall it or who have been using it since the XP days and haven't realised that it is all learned knowledge.
I certainly think Linux tooling could be improved (a graphical fstab editor would be nice), but I struggle to see how troubleshooting in Windows is any easier than Linux.
Meme's not wrong and I daily Linux, but how we got here is all that crap on the bottom has a pretty low chance of leaving you bricked and getting back from bricking windows is usually marginally trivial. The same people get lost in Linux, don't read warnings, do stupid shit without thinking then spend forever trying to muddle through how to fix it. Mr. LTT did it himself.
Me: Can you please just not change the UI?
Microsoft: now you need to expand the right click menu to access your most used actions.
Me: what?
Microsoft: and we replaced all the cpl and msc files, so now you can't use the old settings interfaces.
Me: wait!
Microsoft: and ALL the new settings uses edge webviewer, so if you manage to remove edge you've fucked your install up
Me: sounds terrible, surely I can just reinstall edge
Microsoft: you can try but all links to edge on our website are just links that launches edge, because you can't remove it - so why provide an installer?
Me: do you expect me to die?
Microsoft: no Mr User, we expect you to cry! MuwhahahahaOP never watched the LTT Linux video
Edit: for people that also haven't watched it: Linus tried to use Pop-OS for gaming. When he tried to install Steam it uninstalled his desktop-environment leaving him with only a terminal.
I recently discovered, after a while of wondering why the audio quality in windows was worse than fedora that the automatic windows audio enhancements actually made the audio significantly worse 😅 meanwhile I still haven't figured out how to stop windows from randomly switching the audio source from my headphones to my nonexistent display monitor audio.
A big hurdle in any technological change is the "power users". People that have learned a lot about the old tech and have to face that knowledge becoming obsolete. And then having to learn a bunch of new things.
The same goes for Windows power users as people who know a lot about fossil fuel powered cars.
Linux: You can mostly stick to the GUI to install software, touch the terminal for obscure/command line applications and install GPU drivers and you have a functioning system
Windows: Forced to go into regedit and services.msc to fix high resource usage on a fresh install, debloat scripts to remove bloat on Windows and need to update system, scower the internet for drivers and all the software you need
I can see why I got fed up very fast trying to use Windows 11 in QEMU tbh...never trying that shitshow again...
Edit the only packages I had to install through Bash are: Neofetch, Htop, OpenSeeFace, Brave Browser, Wine, Nvidia drivers and ProtonVPN. Linux is very user friendly imo
It's not exactly a fair comparison, the tweaks in the bottom panel aren't necessary for most users to do, yet a new user to Linux will need to get over a learning curve to do fairly basic tasks.
My litmus test for when Linux will be "ready" is can you do everything you need to do without using the terminal. So far I've yet to see a distribution that has achieved this.
The closest thing I've seen is SteamOS.
The problem with RTFM is that TFM often does not cover the problem, and broader knowledge of the OS is required. You can't expect every app to come with a manual that covers how the entire OS works, but that knowledge is often required to get work done in Linux.
People familiar with the guts of Linux or Windows will encounter these kinds of outside-the-instructions problems and know from experience what arcane setting to change or what 3rd party software needs to be installed before the procedures written in the manual will work as expected.
IMO, the Windows GUI lowers the bar to begin trial-and-error learning and makes the learning process faster.
Somethings are more complicated, others less and some others more entertaining if you like tinkering.
That's Linus of LTT in the top
"WhY iS pAcKaGe MaNaGeMeNt So HaRd" my brother in Christ you got one broken Deb that was packaged and provided for free by someone other than the vendor, the vendor provides their own installer you could have used that wouldn't have had the issue. You could have also used a flatpak. You were literally offered three ways to install the software on any operating system you could choose, and you gave up after the marginally simplest one failed and you were too lazy to troubleshoot it.
The donkey doesn't even know the first thing about package management or any part of the build process, and has no right whatsoever to talk about it as if the maintainers of the stack are to blame.
/rant fuck that self-absorbed short stack sponge
The great thing about Linux is if something has weird behavior and you're already exhausted all possible options to solve it, it is still possible to figure it out on your own because the source code is available.
I still don't know how windows people figure out how to fix such and such problems on windows with some registry entries. Did they ask a Microsoft employee, or did they mess around with the registry blindly until it's magically fixed?
I think both Windows and Linux are scary when you want to exactly fits you need.
In using linux I started to know what is a DE, kernel, kernel argument, GRUB, systemd, selinux, etc. and I am the person that want to learn NOTHING about my OS, they just unfortunately pops up during troubleshooting.
So is Windows, device manager, ipconfig, registry table, chocolatey, cmd vs powershell, WSL, and many more. But I would say, if you don't care about bloat and ads, and are willing to make stupid compromises, like copy a email to a notepad, so you can see it while drafting a new email. Windows might breaks slightly less often than linux depending on your hardware. But that doesn't mean Windows don't break, in fact Windows broke just in the first linux challenge video.
For Linus's experiment, I don't really think it is a fair comparison between Linux and Windows. No one is going to learn a OS in a month, and expect to have the ability to not harm themselves, not on Windows not on Linux not on macOS.
But it does serve as a good simulation of a busy Windows enthusiast moving to linux. Personally, I don't think this should be the only criteria to judge the linux eco system, but it is a important criteria, and linux has many things they can improve in this regard (and they are indeed improving).
However, popOS installer for steam breaking DE is a legitimately rare event, and it happens to the most popular tech youtuber is even more rare...
Hostile != user-unfriendly
I believe that, in life, among the worst qualities is the obtuseness of those who do not make an effort to understand the reasons for things and settle on a reality of simplifications and superficiality. Linux has the educational merit of forcing us to dig beyond that superficial layer.
(Sorry for my poor english)
This is rage bait
Also with LLMs getting good the less informed user can make changes they want and learn as they do with less effort so lower barrier to entry. The Arch wiki isn't even that hard if you have a level headed 24/7 assistant that knows enough and can reason well enough to teach you something. Only if you make sure that you never expect perfection. I don't trust people's work blindly so why would I blindly trust an LLM? That's the lessen we gotta learn. Use the brain lol
I just spent the last 6 hours trying to get my home assistant VM to run on boot up because I’ve spent the last 6 months unable to get Linux to stop automatically rebooting for unattended upgrades.
I’m far from a power user but it shouldn’t be so fucking hard. It’s like 3 clicks to disable automatic upgrades/reboots in Windows.
Error, you app has unexpectedly closed!
Application has failed successfully.
Winaero Tweaker makes it as simple as a checkbox.
The only real issue I've had with Linux is trying to get my old Drobo 5C to work. (it's a self-managed dynamically adjustable/resizable raid array that just presents itself as a single 70tb usb hard disk. The company that made them dissolved a few years ago)
It's formatted in ntfs and loaded with 25tb+ of data from when I ran windows primarily.
It'll mount and work temporarily, but quickly stops responding, with anything that tries to access it frozen. Particularly docker containers.
Then it'll drop into some internal data recovery routine (it's a 'black box' with very little user control, definitely wouldn't be my choice again, but here we are), refusing to interact with the attached system for half an hour or so. When it finally comes back, linux refuses to mount it. 'dirty filesystem', but ntfsfix won't touch it either. Off to windows and chkdsk, then rinse and repeat.
I gave up when one of those attempts resulted in corrupt data (a bunch of mkvs that wouldn't play from the beginning, but would play if you skipped past the first second or two). I can't backup this data, (no alternative storage or funds to acquire it) so that was enough tempting fate.
I ended up attaching it to an old windows laptop that's now dedicated to serving it via samba :(
Really looking forward to setting up a proper raid array eventually, but till then I'm stuck with 11mbps. I'd love to rent storage temporarily so I can move the data and try a different fs on the drobo...
Meanwhile if you wanna play a game on linux you have to research on forums with neckbeards that act all high horsey and get mad at you for asking questions they deem simple. If they do answer its cryptic like: "oh you just use simplinuxuser-bash-sh bro". Then by the time you get the game to run you better hope its not on a laptop with integrated graphics and a nvidia card because by god making the game only see the nvidia card over the integrated graphics if the game doesnt have the option to swap which card youre using good luck to any new user.
Windows users just go to steams website, install steam, install game, play. Windows 10+ will install basic nvidia drivers without you doing anything at first bootup with internet connection. Look, I use linux, windows, macos in my house..windows is still my primary driver even with my steam deck being a close second these days. Im all for linux getting more use but its not easy stop acting like it is..its a hobby, its fun, thats it.
whenever someone comes to me asking for help on windows, I first tell them straightway that windows is shit, and I know nothing about it. then I spend half an hour searching for answers to resolve the problem, only to curse it again and give up, before telling then again to use a better operating system(i.e., GNU/Linux).
Not true , Show me on Linux except may be one or two flavours how to add program in start-up, a windows 98 and windows 11 has same place and is all known. Show me how to mount drive so that it will be available for ALL the apps I install, without touching terminal in Linux , unlike plug and use in windows
Just stop saying Ng Linux is better , it's not for regular use . I know you dudebros will get hurt and downvote me . Linux is not easy, does not have MANY MANY Utilities which are present for windows and it's just not usable for users .
100% agreed. Once you disable all the unnecessary stuff Windows comes with you'll be left with a stable system that is compatible with everything from professional to hobbyist software. Meanwhile under Linux you'll spend all your days on getting a basic system to run properly (for some distros) or trying Wine, virtualization and other subpar hacks to get any kind productivity and ability to cooperate with others. :)
