What’s easier in Windows compared to Linux? Except the fact that you have to install it, since it doesn’t come preinstalled on as many PCs. But many people who think Windows is easy would probably still consider installing it difficult.
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Ulrich@feddit.org 2 days agoUntil Macs become cheaper or Linux becomes easier, Windows will remain the largest OS.
nao@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
original_reader@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
Sadly, quite a few things. Here’s a few:
- Software installation and compatibility
- Application support; some popular software is built with Windows in mind.
- One-clickinstallers; Software usually comes with user-friendly installation wizards. No command lines or dependency juggling.
- Driver availability; Linux is getting better, but Windows is superior
- Better peripheral support like for printers, webcams, game controllers.
- Gaming performance; although Linux is gaining ground, Windows is just better in this regard
- Media codecs and formats; again, Linux is getting better, but this isn’t always an out-of-the-box everyone
- Business integration; Windows plays nicely with enterprise tools like Active Directory, Microsoft 365, and legacy business apps.
Don’t get me wrong. I use Linux as my daily driver. That also means I get frustrated on occasion when again I must consult man pages instead of just running a troubleshooter or fiddling with Nvidia drivers instead of just running the game.
Dreaming_Novaling@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
Media codecs and formats
Got burned by this recently, was trying to use MPV for playing a YT vid, and it had no audio but had video. Turns out Fedora comes with an open-source or smth version of H264 encoders, so I had to uninstall those packages for the official Cisco ones. But I was on atomic and it wasn’t fun so I ran to forums for help.
Driver availability
Not sure if it’s the driver or the kernel (maybe dual-booting? But it worked on both partitions originally…) but my Bluetooth is nuked on my Linux partition. I tried to do rfkill, btusb, systemctl, etc. and the only solution I got was to rollback to an older release of Fedora atomic because it’s most likely a kernel issue. That just sucks man, having to be stuck on an older version to get my earbuds to work lol. I didn’t like atomic and now I’m on reg KDE Fedora, so I’m truly fucked as that’s not a rollback distro.
I still love using Fedora (every time I boot into Windows I cry) and it just makes me love my laptop like it’s brand-new. Tinkering is fun to me, I’ll literally sit at my desk and starve myself while trying to get something to work. But some days, I want my stuff to work with minimal tinkering, and not have to worry if it’ll break when I really need it down the line.
wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world 2 days ago
(venting frustration)
I’d argue with the installer point - if it’s in the repo, and it almost always is for anything a newbie would be using, it’s actually easier. Search, click, done. BUT…
Drivers though, specifically companies not supporting Linux drivers, is shit. I’m helping a friend transition to Linux and am dual-booting myself so I can help with the actual os available for troubleshooting. And fuck me, sound drivers fucking suck ass on Linux. It’s because Creative is a bitch and won’t make Linux drivers, but also apparently literally nobody is both running a creative card and anything above 2.0 speaker setup. I have two creative cards, a decade apart, neither works with my 5.1 speaker setup. FL and FR work, the rest are some sort of fucked and come from an incorrect speaker(s). One of these cards is like 15 years old now, and nobody has noticed or rectified it. And if I reboot straight from windows to Linux, the sound is mangled. I need to shut the system down and boot it cold. Then FL and FR work. Hours of troubleshooting last week got me absolutely no progress.
Then I need software for my Logitech g903 (there is 3rd party software available) that does profiles and switches on the fly based on the application in the foreground (crickets).
Then there is an issue where if my monitor goes to sleep, when I wake it up I get patches of graphical artifacts. On the 2D desktop. Every few seconds, for about a quarter of a second. Random location each time. Random size. I’m on a Radeon 7900 XTX, which isn’t terribly new now. But the friend I’m helping, no issues at all with drivers or hardware. An older 6700 XT. But come the fuck on.
Both of us are on bazzite (I suggested it so they wouldn’t nuke the system as they learn) so it’s just Fedora silverblue with a few tweaks, not some out-there distro.
And, shit. If you need cellular connectivity on Linux, as far as I can tell you’re fucked if you don’t go the Ubuntu route. Debian doesn’t work, Fedora doesn’t work, Mint doesn’t work, I went down a rabbit-hole and tried a dozen distros. I ended up with kubuntu, since I wanted kde, but I tried anything just to see what would work. This is on a modern ThinkPad, still under (extended) warranty. I thought ThinkPads and Linux were supposed to be like this holy-grail of free-as-in-freedom computing? Ugh.
So yeah if you have a basic system, aged a bit, nothing special, it works well. Take one step outside of that perfect-scenario bubble, and paaaaaain.
rakeshmondal@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
- Driver availability; Linux is getting better, but Windows is superior
Doesn’t Linux have pretty much every driver built into the kernel with the only notable exception being the NVIDIA closed source drivers. Even those drivers are a single command away from installation, it even configures itself correctly out of the box for Wayland support.
Ulrich@feddit.org 2 days ago
Gaming performance; although Linux is gaining ground, Windows is just better in this regard
I mostly agree with you but this contradicts everything I’ve seen. Presumably you have evidence of this?
Ulrich@feddit.org 2 days ago
Doing anything requires the memorization of thousands of commands that must be formatted perfectly and are specific to your distribution, into a black box that rarely provides any feedback at all, and when it does it’s extremely generic.
I’m sure my inbox will be blown up by delusional people claiming you don’t need it but it’s just not true.
The simple act of installing software is crazy complicated and different on every distro.
Hardware compatibility is a huge problem, fingerprint readers, WiFi, facial recognition, Bluetooth, etc. etc. Very few companies make computers with Linux compatibility being considered at all. Everything will have drivers day 1 on Windows and then they’ll trickle down to Linux a year or two later.
I dislike Linux the least but there’s no way I could recommend it to anyone who isn’t a giant nerd who likes fixing computers.
tane69@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I don’t use Linux except on my steamdeck and even I know there are a bunch of distros that look and act (minus lots of the bad stuff) just like windows
Ulrich@feddit.org 2 days ago
They act (minus lots of the good stuff) too.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 2 days ago
i wouldnt know where to begin if i had to switch, since im not in the tech industry, only 2 of my bros would switch since they are programmers.
Passerby6497@lemmy.world 2 days ago
What’s easier in Windows compared to Linux?
Graphics deivers. I can’t say I ever had a graphics driver update in Windows that rendered my system borderline unusable, but I 100% blame Nvidia for me running windows until recently. I tried a dozen times over a decade and ended up back on windows when the Nvidia update trashed my system and I got sick of dealing with it.
On team green and running Bazzite with no issues
Ulrich@feddit.org 2 days ago
That’s more of an Nvidia problem than a Linux problem.
aeternum@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 day ago
it’s easier because they’ve been using it all their life. If they’d been using linux all their life, they’d say that windows was too hard to use, nod oubt.
MehBlah@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I would rather be set on fire and have it put out with shovel than use a mac.
Ulrich@feddit.org 2 days ago
MacOS isn’t terrible, only the hardware is.
hisao@ani.social 2 days ago
Hmm, I have kinda opposite opinion, hardware is pretty good, build quality is great, but the OS itself is meh. File manager is bad and clunky, desktop customization is very limited, network manager is buggy, especially with VPNs, no built-in functionality to import VPN config files like in Linux. Also, I used it for years and still couldn’t get used to all the shortcuts and "Mac-way"s of doing things. Just not for me perhaps. Not bad, but in terms of UX worse than both Windows and Linux for me.
NotSteve_@piefed.ca 2 days ago
I'm the opposite of both of you. The build quality is good and the OS is good. I love having a familiat UNIX system while also having a polished desktop environment that supports 4k scaling very well (though the polish has been lacking a lot lately)
The issue for me is the insane price of their computers and the fact that you can't (officially) install MacOS on your own hardware. I have a Linux desktop and a MBP but I'd run MacOS on both if it was officially supported
Cornelius_Wangenheim@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Apple’s entire software design philosophy is god-awful. There’s only one way to do things and if you don’t like “The Apple Way”, fuck you. “It just works” only works for very basic normie stuff. If you try to do anything advanced, it most likely won’t work and it’ll give zero feedback as to why.
Ulrich@feddit.org 2 days ago
I mean I don’t particularly like it either but not having tons of choice is not always a complete negative, it simplifies a lot of things. And having an OS that mostly functions like an OS instead of a fucking billboard is nice. Just keeping things in context here.
Opisek@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I despise their business model, their design decisions, and their walled garden. I will agree that the OS is fine. I was forced to use a MacBook at a software development job in the past. It being UNIX was a big point why I didn’t immediately hate it. I will still agree with the other users and say that their hardware is pretty nice and well thought-out (not praising the anti-consument measures like soldered RAM). Still, I would personally never buy their devices due to the aforementioned business practices.
muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
Modern Mac hardware is excellent. The software is good too, but’s more a matter of taste. Not everybody likes how macOS works but Asahi Linux has made incredible progress so it’s a daily driver option for some already.
Ulrich@feddit.org 2 days ago
Mac hardware is a fucking atrocity. $2k for a “pro” laptop with 8GB RAM and 256GB storage, that’s completely and intentionally irreparable and unupgradeable? That’s what you call “excellent”? It’s fucking gaslighting. You’ll never convince me it’s anything other than a cult.
MehBlah@lemmy.world 2 days ago
True.