- Listary (windows) Not sure if its 100 hours, but I love its search in any context of explorer. Default explorer search is terrible IMO. For example when you open file - you can use search there instead of navigating by hand.
OTOH building on windows takes literally multiple times the time it takes for building the same software on the same machine / SSD on linux. And that's something that I do every day, multiple times per day.
The VS Code remote wsl and ssh support has also been invaluable.
I'm guessing you haven't tried Linux in 10 years or so, but even then I don't understand how Windows does any better on the drivers front.
Wife’s Mac mini sometimes prints, but it can take 20 minutes to go.
Unless the driver is broken or doesn't exist, then you're SOL.
Bonus: you can update video drivers on Windows without even rebooting or losing your GUI session.
The only major roadblock I encountered was with PHPStorm, as it doesn't have native access to files inside the Linux subsystem due to the different file system format. In the end I opted for running an X server on Windows (via MobaXTerm) and running PHPStorm inside the Linux subsystem.
I wouldn't mind going back to Ubuntu (and probably I'll do so when the quarantine ends), but it was a nice surprise to see how good Windows has become for dev work.
But there's no doubt I've spent at least 10x as much time on Ubuntu configuring and reading and fixing.
The only upside of Windows, and definitely a major one, is power management. On Ubuntu, my battery lasts around 2.5h with moderate use whereas on Windows, it's around 3-4 hours. Yes, I am already using powertop and TLP. =)
In truth I don't like any current OS - when you add up all the pros and cons, Linux has the best overall balance of attributes for my use. It's far from optimal though. I find the state of OSs in 2020 pretty sad.
On Windows I would have vaguely but very briefly googled. I would either find a quick fix or not, and be on my way.
On Ubuntu I only bother searching online if I know what software's causing it, and it's open source. Otherwise I find the signal/noise ratio too high (and I rarely get useful answers on SO or other forums - I either get nothing or too many people helpfully but uselessly saying "try this!" "try that!"). More often I just dig into things myself.
So I trawled the syslog, couldn't initially find anything, narrowed down by triggering the issue deliberately while `journalctl -f`'ing, etc. I traced the problem to a recently installed Gnome extension that was crashing X on screen blanking. An uninstall failed so I had to find out where extensions are on the filesystem, remove it manually, restart mutter, etc.
The whole thing took about 25 mins.
The upside for Ubuntu here is that I could actually fix the issue. This is rarely a given with Windows (though for me it produces fewer such small issues). On Windows, if I can't fix something that's not critical within a few minutes, I end up just putting up with it. These accumulate over time and I find the OS increasingly irritating. Ubuntu's irritation level doesn't increase over time (though its plateau is way above zero). The downside for Ubuntu is that this really does involve more fiddling time (a known known because I keep logs). For me (a regular non-expert user) anyway.
- you will run the latest software
- from the very beginning you are involved and personally responsible for your machine.
- the wiki is very well written
- no periodic upgrade hell, since it has rolling updates (everything is always updating all the time)
- if software is not in the repository, it has AUR, which will help you build anything that is missing
Ubuntu is a necessary evil, but I don't like some things:
/etc/default/apport
/etc/default/kerneloops
/etc/default/motd-news
snapd
unattended-upgrades
ubuntu-report
whoopsieThe good thing about Ubuntu is that it’s the default “Linux” (distribution) so whatever you are looking for, there is likely an AskUbuntu question, a .deb package, a blogpost, or a mailing-list entry to help.
Also, it is dead simple to make your own PKGBUILD script for arch, but last time I tried looking into making a .deb my eyes rolled into the back of my head.
And for the past 2 months or so, WSL2, Docker Desktop (WSL2 enabled) and VS Code's WSL extension have made using windows for development about as nice as it gets.... all the non-essential stuff works (rgb controls, etc), and I can still just use linux for development using my GUI editor.
These day I read more stories about people switching from macOS to Windows than the other way around.
OTOH I have to reboot Ubuntu from time to time (once every week or two) because I can't solve a problem (eg. the suspend getting in a snit).
WSL, Docker Desktop and VS Code with WSL integration. It works well enough.