Here's my writeup on setting up Windows 10 as a long, long time Linux user https://github.com/chx/chx.github.io/wiki/How-I-set-up-my-Wi...
Every application looks different (yes they used to blame Linux/X11 on that one). It has two control panels (or three maybe), two web browsers shipped with it.
Takes more than a minute to boot on a new and pretty formidable laptop. This is the fresh factory install.
Can freeze the desktop while apparently doing something under the hood (installing updates? scanning malware? summoning the devil?), without any indication as to why, and not come back in five minutes.
Seriously considering overwriting it with Ubuntu even when it's aimed for a non-technical user.
I am always surprised to hear these statements. Hundreds of millions of people use W10, so it must be usable to some extent. I think it's also quite rare that the system stops for 5 minutes -- actually I've never seen that happening.
We're there with Windows 10. We were better off with Windows XP and arguably we're much better with Android.
No kidding. I use it every day nearly all day and I can count the number of times I've had the OS itself get in my way on 1 hand.
I could overflow both hands just counting two Explorer things: (1) trying to figure out where MS put a setting/option if it's not on Ribbon & (2) trying to use any advanced search operators.
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff714569.aspx
Let's say I didn't know ForEach-Object existed (trivial example, but generalizes), how do I find out there is a cmdlet that does what I'm looking for?
I don't use Macs so I can't say if the grass is greener there. I do have a feeling that if I were using Linux on the laptop it would be much worse than Windows, but that's just a hunch based on my historical experience with Linux and device drivers.
I use Linux servers extensively and all my code runs on Linux in production fwiw. Linux on the server is almost at Solaris-level reliability today. The comments above relate to desktop/laptop machines.
Boot speed is pretty good and doesnt freeze like that.
Check your hardware if that is a fresh factory install. You are doing something wrong.
They are not common problems. They are yours.
Maybe they're not common problems, but it's certainly not just him that find it gives a poor experience.
/s
If it doesn't work on a mechanical drive, it's fucking broken.
Additionally, you don't get to compare two products if one of them has massively higher hardware requirements.
Completely agree that having a major version bump as an automatic is insane.
That's why they should just skip the version numbering and just make it a subscription. Then they can sunset hardware 5-6 years old continuously like iOS, but let people choose to stay on the of version indefinitely.
Why then do Windows 10 laptops get sold with HDDs? You come to store and that's what you get out of it.
Also, Linux doesn't mind running from HDD. Not ten years ago, not now.
Lesson to MS: Get your act together or get out of this business. Come back from make-believe world. MS is running on make-believe for the last 10 years. Windows 8, the whole Avalon story, Windows Phone and now this Windows 10 "which only works well on SSD but never discourages anybody from getting an HDD laptop". Supposedly we should learn about this by telepathy or something.
Excellent question. These machines should do better with Win7 but Microsoft doesn't want to sell it.
Microsoft sells windows 10 and Microsoft sells laptops with Windows 10 on an SSD. I doubt (but do correct me if I'm wrong) Microsoft sells any computers with Windows 10 on a mechanical drive.
Various manufacturers sell underpowered computers with Win10 on it, but thats hardly microsofts fault. They do that because otherwise they can't hit the lowest price segments.
What IS Microsoft's fault:
1)Microsofts "hardware requirements" only say what's necessary to use it, not what's needed for a decent experience.
2) not selling Win7 or making newer versions of windows work with older hardware.
That's a lie right here because the laptop in question not low end, definitely middle one.
> Various manufacturers sell underpowered computers with Win10
That was always part of Microsoft deal. You get your computer from a manufacturer other than MS and they still have to deliver experience, and they've failed that one.
You'll note that with respect to my sons laptop, Linux ran just fine on his much older, slower laptop.
Says it all, really.
Well, "Linux" is much broader than a specific version of windows (Windows 10). But yes, for most kinds of linux setup (distro, window managers etc) I'd say the bare OS definitely needs less resources on Linux than on Windows.
I do find that apart from the storage issues, Win10 actually runs about as lean (on cpu and mem) as Win7. The problem with consumer hardware such as cheap or midrange laptops is usually that it's infested with crapware from the start, something I also blame microsoft for, not manufacturers.
The OEM agreeements microsoft do with laptop manufacturers should explicitly ban them from installing any crapware such as antivirus trial versions, poorly written hardware apps and similar. I realize the $400 price of a cheap laptop sometimes includes a big rebate due to the software bundles - but ms ought to put a stop to it. Has to be damaging to their brand.
That's factually incorrect. OSX, Windows, Linux, it makes no difference. You cannot hide the 8ms of response time that comes with a crappy laptop spinning drive. If you spend all your time in a web browser with ample amounts of memory... sure. If you're doing ANYTHING that requires disk I/O - whether it be launching a game, or opening a large directory, you will experience significant lag time with a spinning drive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bgmph_bL8V4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-Rsr4E6b68
But I would once again question why you care how long it takes to cold boot a laptop. I think my laptop gets cold booted MAYBE once a month.
On my SSD, my Win10 cold boots faster than my Dell U2410 screen displays anything if powered at the same time (couple of secs)
Sure you can, you can load stuff in memory so you don't have to hit the hard drive every time you do something like open the start menu. Once in a while the taskbar likes to "refresh" itself and the icons disappear while the drive spins up. It's not a problem I ever had on windows 7 or any linux machine.
And here I thought it was Linux users that were supposed to say "you're holding it wrong" and "just make sure you get supported hardware"
Also: your recommendation for resolving reliability issues is to reinstall the OS? Yes I know the historical reasons for saying this, but in 2017 if the user has to re-install the OS to get it to work I suggest the problem lies somewhere other than in the user.
I am also a technician and installed win10 more than i can count. Yes Old & Slow and New Budget-friendly machines are problematic with windows 10. Thats mainly because hardware. Because its new OS and getting better hardware is a must. You cant complain about a calculator can not run win10 properly. OF course 5200 rpm hdd and celeron cpu fails.
win10 is confusing? Yes. Sometimes goes hard on user? Yes. Annoying with their "windows store"? Oh very yes.
Slow and Freezing constantly? No. Proper UEFI setups works like a charm with proper machines.
Usable? yes it is.
As for full screen browser, touch-optimised IE was in Windows 8. It is not in Windows 10. Your rant is 2 years out of date.
Around half settings that the internets tell me to tweak these days are on [the old] Control Panel. Another half is in the registry or group policy or some "Run..." utility and never the new one.
> you don't get to access them unless you really want to
That one is correct, I can never find the thing when it's needed again.
Why would a so called "hacker" choose to use an OS that's slow, has horrible update policies, horrible privacy standards, injects ads into the main programs and start menu, requires anti-virus, etc?
Also, the idea that Windows has good drivers and Linux doesn't is asinine. My current dell came pre-loaded with windows 10 and failed to wake from sleep without me opening and closing the lid, then when it woke up, wifi would not come on and the only thing that fixed it was a reboot. Then when I used the touch screen things were going fine until I tried to select text and got an instant BSOD. Also I learned not to accidentally touch the screen and then try to type immediately afterward, or it would lock up the whole OS.
Linux just worked. Literally. Even the touch screen. I get 15 minutes less battery life but it's worth it.
I don't know, but that's why I use Windows 10 instead of Ubuntu.
Please back up your polemics with facts. I don't run antivirus on Windows and never have; it's the same fundamental security model as desktop Linux, and if you don't go around installing programs from untrustworthy places (whether download.com or SourceForge), you don't need it. And at a more-than-first-order level, Windows' security model is far better.
I have patches in the Linux kernel and I strongly recommend that someone looking for a secure desktop OS use Windows instead of Linux.
Obviously, there is some variation in experience, and I doubt all of it can be chalked up to the OS.
Oh come on, you can't blame the OS for that. Whenever I want to play games my Desktop is loading the desktop in less than 20 seconds, it's not optimal but if it takes 1 minute there has to be something wrong with the laptop.
So you want your cake and you want to eat it too? It's pretty well known that as part of the new iterative release cycle they're slowly moving things into the new "control panel". That's not going to happen overnight, and unless you want to go back to only seeing new releases every 4+ years, we're going to have to be patient.
>Takes more than a minute to boot on a new and pretty formidable laptop. This is the fresh factory install.
Then something is seriously broken with the laptop, or you're running off a spinning drive. Regardless, if boot time is your primary factor in choosing an OS, you're doing it wrong.
>Can freeze the desktop while apparently doing something under the hood (installing updates? scanning malware? summoning the devil?), without any indication as to why, and not come back in five minutes.
Between that and your boot times, I would imagine you've got a garbage hard drive. I've never had windows "Freeze the desktop for 5 minutes at a time". A quick google search also finds no relevant posts on other people experiencing the same behavior. Windows updates wouldn't freeze your desktop. Heck, video card driver updates will cause your screen to black out for a couple seconds, but not freeze for 5 minutes.
Linux DEs were blasted for things like that, but now they're suddenly OK for a multi-billion-dollar company's flagship product?
> you're running off a spinning drive
I also happen to walk on the ground and climb up the stairs, being aware of alternatives. That's what I've got in a shop and it has MS Windows logo glued to it.
> I would imagine you've got a garbage hard drive.
I imagine that's what gets sold these days. BTW, I've also bought Xiaomi phone for $200 and it's a real snap.
Yes actually. It's what users asked for, and I rather appreciate it. Linux DEs were BLASTED for breaking things. MS isn't breaking anything as they make the slow transition to the new panels. If you want to use the old control panel, everything is right there where it always was. If you want to use the new panel it will get you 90% of the way there on day-to-day tasks.
>I also happen to walk on the ground and climb up the stairs, being aware of alternatives. That's what I've got in a shop and it has MS Windows logo glued to it.
You're seriously on a technical site claiming you're pissed that you bought a dirt cheap laptop and got dirt cheap components? It's 2017, if you aren't willing to crack it and put an SSD into it, don't complain about performance. The laptop will be slow regardless of OS with a spinning drive.
Having a "windows logo" makes no guarantees of performance. Are you also pissed you can't run games in 4K on your $300 laptop?
As I've already said, you're a wrongfullt accusing right here. I've bought a mid-range laptop.
> The laptop will be slow regardless of OS with a spinning drive
As I've already said, you're wrong. Linux will still boot in 10 seconds and won't freeze for minutes during work.
Whoooa! I've now tried to find when you can change the hotkey for changing keyboard layout. It turns out, you can't find it now. New control panel has nothing and drops you into the old one immediately, which has nothing too.
It was working under Windows XP. Obviously you can't find how to configure anything in Windows these days without extensive googling.
I was fine with that, I like my desktop to just be there and get out of the way, not something that has to impress me with shiny new features constantly. Even the ported apps aren't consistent though, look at the mail app and the hideous background image they put in it.
> I've never had windows "Freeze the desktop for 5 minutes at a time".
I certainly have on an intermittent internet connection, the start menu can freeze for several minutes. That isn't good enough for a basic OS feature that shouldn't even have an internet connection. On the same connection it can also take several minutes to login to login to the machine because it's tied to the MS account.
Now Google Maps even asks me to upload pictures of places where I happen to be.
I disagree. If you're a programmer who cares about privacy use Linux.
Please explain how to do any of those things on Windows - either the new 10, or the retrofitted-telemetry 7 which one has to retrofit with telemetry if they want security updates.
How much of Ubuntu has undergone a security audit by people who are looking for actively maliciously obfuscated code?
In a codebase the size of Ubuntu (and all its packages), "you can look at the source" is a mindgame, nothing more.
Also, you can look at Windows' source code. In addition to the numerous programs Microsoft has for licensing the code to universities, researchers (including security auditors!), well-known community members, etc. the source code has been leaked multiple times.
You've just moved the goal posts from "we can look at what it's doing" to "we assume they tried to hide what it is doing" - which we know that e.g. Microsoft did bundling telemetry into Win7 security updates, but that Canonical never did. Nice.
I don't know how much has been gone through by people looking for underhanded code, but ... quite a few looking at the basic code. And if you expect underhanded code, I think you should just not trust the vendor.
> In a codebase the size of Ubuntu (and all its packages), "you can look at the source" is a mindgame, nothing more.
Actually, quite a few people diff ubuntu against debian to see the changes, and Ubuntu's original, independent code is not that huge - in fact, the community took over Unity, so there are a lot of people looking at it.
> Also, you can look at Windows' source code. In addition to the numerous programs Microsoft has for licensing the code to universities, researchers (including security auditors!), well-known community members, etc. the source code has been leaked multiple times.
Now, that's a complete joke.
Unlike ubuntu (which I have, in the very distant past 8.04 or 6.06 days rebuilt the base of, and which others regularly do), you have absolutely zero way to verify that the 400MB executable you installed does not include, in addition to the source you have, backdoors, telemetry etc.
When I was in Uni, I talked to one of the guys who get access to the source. It was view-only, can't rebuild, some critical parts missing. Maybe these days it is buildable, but I'd be surprised. And even if it is, you're not allowed to use it (except for auditing purposes), which goes back to the previous point - you have little idea what you're actually running.
> the source code has been leaked multiple times.
That's another joke. First, no professional would review _that_ because of legal ramifications.
I have a simple proof that you are completely, utterly, wrong in your assertions, and I would love for you to refute it.
If it's so easy to see what Microsoft is doing, how come there wasn't a single source for what Win10 actually sends home, for what the Win7/8.1 telemetry sends home, that was based on facts? In fact, the only semi-reliable (but not audited, or 3rd party confirmed!) source of what Win10 sends is from Microsoft, released over a year after Win10 was out. And it's frightening enough as it is.
I call bullshit on your claims. You're welcome to like Microsoft better than Ubuntu, but please stick to the facts.