Switched Back to Windows After over 10 Years on Linux
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S/he specifically writes "Although I’m not a big Wind7ows fan, it does what it needs to, and that’s a relief."
My cursor currently doesn’t show in VSCode after an update. My ‘Downloads’ folder also disappeared recently and everything now downloads to my desktop.
I’ve learned to reinstall the OS from scratch every year or so on Windows and that resolves my issues.
that's amazing, I haven't reinstalled my laptop OS since 2016, when I had to replace the SSD. it updated to the latest nixos without fail every time since.
I believe it comes down to popularity. The more popular something is, the more corner cases your OS has to deal with as people write software that apparently does weird unforeseen combinations to the underlying OS. I've had to reinstall linux several times because of bad AMD/nvidia driver installs. On windows, a windows update recently disabled my AMD video driver.
AMD and NVidia drivers have notoriously terrible histories when it comes to the linux kernel. But with Windows/Mac there's 10,000 times more crap like this. Particularly on windows.
Mac has locked a few more things down, so it should be more stable, but I still hear stories of people that do reinstalls on it occasionally.
Same. Had a work Windows 10 install that happily chugged along for years, on a very old machine with a spinning disk and no performance deterioration.
I wouldn’t say I’m a “fan” of windows. But I definitely hate my life when I’m forced to use Linux.
[1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/client-management/...
[2] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/client-management/...
But there’s a whole lot of MBAs forcing user-hostile “features” (eg. Ads and crapware) on top of it. Then there’s the backwards compatibility thing, which is a double-edged sword.
I feel the most attrition using MacOS for working. The UI is cumbersome with too many animations and things that get in the way; Finder is nowadays idiotic making accessing the file system a chore. Windows in a corporate setting is OK. It does not get in the way, at least.
I get it - it's "common knowledge" that Windows is full of "spyware" and "ads" and "popups" but I expected better from Hacker News posters. At least do your own research! Spinning up a Windows VM and letting it run for a week costs nothing. I'm sure HN users can handle that.
Source: I've been using Windows as my primary desktop for well over 20 years until finally switching to Mac recently because I'm tired of constantly having to look for workarounds to disable all this crap.
Ironically, that used to be called "customizable."
> I actually daily drive Windows for work (mandatory). It's the source of my seething anger. Just a couple days ago I was greeted with a fullscreen "UPGRADE TO WINDOWS 11. EXPERIENCE COPILOT" ad on login.
> It's common knowledge because it's true. Ads in the Start Menu, incessant pestering to switch to Edge etc.
I'm putting the above quotes in this order in order to remind people that I'm simply explaining how it's possible to be a Windows fan. When Windows 11 preinstalled Edge, as luck would have it, I was happy with it and wasn't one of the... perhaps XX% of users who are adamant about using Chrome or Firefox. Nor am I adamant about using Windows 10 instead of upgrading, because my PC is capable of running Windows 11 and I don't find the arguments for sticking with Windows 10 personally important, just like I don't find the arguments for using Chrome or Firefox personally important.
This is my lived experience, please don't try to condescend to me and tell me I'm wrong for having different priorities in life (in the small chance that anyone was thinking of doing that).
> "When I opened the start bar — ostensibly a place where you have apps you’d use — I saw some things that felt familiar, like Outlook, an email client that is not actually installed and requires you to download it, and an option for travel website Booking.com, along with a link to LinkedIn. One app, ClipChamp, was installed but immediately needed to be updated, which did not work when I hit “update,” forcing me to go to find the updates page, which showed me at least 40 different apps called things like “SweetLabs Inc.” I have no idea what any of this stuff is.
I type “sweetlabs” into the search bar, and it jankily interrupts into a menu that takes up a third of the screen, with half of that dedicated to “Mark Twain’s birthday,” two Mark Twain-related links, a “quiz of the day,” and four different games available for download. The computer pauses slightly every time I type a letter. Every animation shudders. Even moving windows around feels painful. It is clunky, slow, it feels cheap, and the operating system — previously something I’d considered to be “the thing that operates the computer system” — is actively rotten, strewn with ads, sponsored content, suggested apps, and intrusive design choices that make the system slower and actively upset the user.
[...]
The reason I’m explaining this in such agonizing detail is that this experience is more indicative of the average person’s experience using a computer than anybody realizes. Though it’s tough to gauge how many of these things sold to make it a bestseller on Amazon, laptops in this pricepoint, with this specific version of Windows (Windows 11 Home in “S Mode” as discussed above), happen to dominate Amazon’s bestsellers along with Apple’s significantly-more-expensive MacBook Air and Pro series. It is reasonable to believe that a large amount of the laptops sold in America match this price point and spec"Moving someone across ecosystems isn't always possible, either. While I've made some Linux migrations, and might consider Mac in some others, there are use cases where Windows is a must. Of the Windows installs I'm theoretically in charge of, there's Windows printing to a 20-year-old ribbon printer, Windows "because I need, specifically, QuickBooks Pro 2016", Windows on a cash register (!) that the vendor no longer supports, Windows for an autistic girl who I wouldn't ask to adapt, and so forth.
Yeah don't worry about her, she'll adapt to Linux on her own eventually. /j
Every one of these posts boils down to "I wanted to play Fortnite, now I can, that makes me happy." Sure, you've now given some random company access to your machine at the kernel level, but if you wanted to make that tradeoff, good for you. It's not a terribly interesting take though.
I'm squarely in the "use what works for you camp", but it seems like people forget their learning curve for what they are now used to.
My last foray into Linux included browsers that couldn't play videos, audio codec issues, and tons of other things that weren't worth the effort. I bet that's not the case for most, but that was my experience.
My windows systems have been running for years, with multiple hardware upgrades, and I have none of the issues you mention. Maybe it's because I don't play Fortnite?
I have seen trashed Windows, Linux, and Mac computers over the last few decades. It tends to depend on the user much more than the OS, and you're obviously going to find more windows users than any other desktop system.
The problem with snaps is they can cause unpredictable issues for a newcomer not expecting it.
It's espeically egregious when they force apt to pull in snaps, as it adds yet another layer of complexity no one asked for.
I started with Mint in Highschool and it served me well as a previous Windows user. It's quite literally Ubuntu, without snaps, and with a Windows-like UI out of the box (Cinnamon).
Not sure if it counts as "no-name" to you or the average beginner, though it's really starting to take the place Ubuntu used to have among beginners.
For my personal usage if there’s a .deb/.rpm/etc option for a program I install that instead of the flatpak or whatever. It almost universally works better.
I'm more okay with appimages; At least they don't require a framework to be installed on my end. I treat them akin to Windows programs with a "portable .exe" option.
Still, a regular user running Ubuntu LTS and regular backups will make snaps a non issue, because all OSes have similar annoyances and users learn to work with, or around, them.
Linux is exceptional in the sense that nearly all distros aim to give users more freedom to use their computers, not to corral them into a walled garden to milk them. It won't meet everyone's use cases, but it doesn't force you to choose: you can always use several OSes. It's not marriage.
Like, is there some alternative format you need it explained to you in?
> Every one of these posts boils down to "I wanted to play Fortnite, now I can, that makes me happy."
Dude, what?
Like ok, just imagine for a second, take something you do every day, maybe reading HN, and pretend that this just simply stopped working on Linux. How would that make you feel? Frustrated? Annoyed? Maybe you would, I don’t know, look for alternative software which would enable you to do the things you want to do?
> I was pretty hardcore with Linux. I’ve gone through countless distributions, preaching Linux as the good news to everyone.
This guy complains that Windows is easier after self-inflicting unwanted experimentation instead of staying with something stable that works, and ironing whatever quirks are left. Experimentation was not aligned with his needs.
Furthermore, it was gaming indeed. It's always gaming.
Keeping a Windows machine updated is a nuisance. You can do it manually or leave Windows to do it by itself. It's less of a nuisance than it used to be, but, still, you'll find the machine rebooting for no good reason from time to time because updates can't be applied while running, because the file system can't rename/delete/move a file that's open. Programs downloaded from the app store (the "package manager") will, sometimes, restart without warning, for the very same reasons.
Installing software that's not in the app store involves chasing down the company's website, navigating it, finding the appropriate executable, and running it. Sometimes it is not happy with the power to overwrite and erase all your files, it also wants to be able to do that with all files on the machine, and asks for administrative permissions, which, usually people grant them.
Then you are happy until your flow state is interrupted by the program asking to download an update, because each program manages its own updates, and can't install updates while the program is running, because the toy file system it uses can't do anything with open files. And all the DLLs the program uses are open.
If you are happy with all that, there is gaming, which is a nice thing Windows has that Linux isn't great at. I brought a console. It's simpler and more convenient. Also makes sense - my computer is my workstation and the console is my PlayStation. Even though it's not a PlayStation.
Who is keeping a Linux machine updated without regular restarts? I've never heard of that.
Yeah, many applications on Windows update themselves. I've never seen one restart without warning, though I also don't use the windows "app store".
Meanwhile, on Linux, you often do have a package manager with packages available for a bunch of third-party software. Except the version is often years out of date. If you'd like a more recent version, the instructions for that (on the project website) are usually either to run a bunch of CLI commands to install and approve keys for another external package source, or pipe a command from a website into a root shell.
And then sometimes you end up with 20 of those extra package sources. And one randomly breaks, and you have to do a bunch of debugging to figure out why and fix it.
And then some package may either fail to initially install, or an update fail to install, due to some bug or config error, and you're stuck until you can figure out why.
You only need to restart when the kernel has a security update, and you can do it at your own convenience. Same happens with some fundamental components (such and Gnome session manager). My Fedora box usually has a 30 day-ish uptime. The Ubuntu laptop a little less because of its usage pattern, but it signals when a restart would be a good idea, and leaves the decision to me. When it’s time, shutting down and restarting is just a couple seconds. Fedora is more cautious and does updates on startup or shutdown, and never automatically.
A distro is a curated work. All the bits and pieces are known to work well together. The price is that you might get behind the latest and greatest from time to time. If you are using 20 PPAs or package sources with varying levels of testing, you shouldn’t blame the distro for your self-inflicted wounds. Unless you actually know very well what you’re doing, use the packaged versions. I actually know what I’m doing and I use the packaged versions, because I’m paid to work, not to debug my setup.
> And then some package may either fail to initially install
I had experiences like that with Debian Sid. As is well known to anyone familiar with the Toy Story universe, Sid breaks your toys. I’ve never seen anything like that with Debian testing, Ubuntu, RHEL/Centos/Fedora in the past 20 years or so. But I never actively tried to break the package system by having 20 different sources for stuff.
What this person essentially did was describe why their workflow is the best for them. You responded by saying “I don’t understand why people like things that work for them” and then described the reasons that you like your workflow and how it is more comfortable for you. Do you not realize that you are doing the same thing? You are saying you “don’t understand” this person who is doing exactly what you are doing, solving the same puzzle and just arriving at different answers.
It’s not about which OS is better, I regularly use like four different OS for work and play, I get they all have strengths and weaknesses. It’s about the complete and total inability of hardcore Linux desktop users to empathize with anyone who disagrees with them. Which happens to be something like 95% of computer users.
This is one reason why I really appreciate people like Nate Graham and his work on KDE, he seems quite invested in making KDE polished and usable for everyone, not just Linux dweebs like us.
> It’s about the complete and total inability of hardcore Linux desktop users to empathize with anyone who disagrees with them.
I empathize. I also disagree with their analysis. Windows is still an objectively terrible OS and people just learned to live with all its misfeatures.
I use Linux but so many things randomly break or require running bash commands. I would love to be able to, but I can't recommended Linux on the desktop to anyone 'normal' who has better things to do with their time than fiddle with computers.
Having the “wrong” hardware alone can significantly degrade your experience, as can distribution choice, with some not including the drivers (usually Nvidia) and/or configurations (e.g. h.264 hardware acceleration in browsers) required for a good experience. Same goes for laptop battery life, with some distro/laptop combinations being reasonably ok out of the box and others being a disaster.
From the perspective of things mostly working as expected regardless of the user’s machine, skill level, etc, Windows unfortunately still has a leg up. Windows can’t compete at all on the grounds of annoyances like ads, but for many if not most users that’s secondary to the OS running reasonably smoothly and being able to do what they need it to with minimal fuss.
> I've never seen a Windows install over a year old that didn't have ad popups, corrupted drivers, 100 apps starting and running in the background at startup, or was just slow as all hell.
I've never had any of these problems, the sample being Windows 98SE, Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8.1/10. I've never once had to reinstall Windows. As far as I know, things like this happen because people install random binaries suggested by ads, not because of anything to do with Windows, and stopping that is a large reason why we have the locked-down ecosystem we have today.
I do think Windows has gotten worse over time, but I've never found Windows to require any "maintenance" since the days of defragging disks.
Funnily, when I myself tried to install Windows recently I immediately bumped into issues.
1. You can't install it without internet connection (by default). I don't have RJ45 port on a laptop and at the same time Windows couldn't get Wi-Fi card to work and connect to a Wi-Fi network in the install phase. Dead end for a casual user.
2. I wanted to use external GPU, but Windows could not make it work automatically even with correct graphics drivers installed. Had to search the internet and find a fixing .bat script that solved the problem.
Ironically, Windows has become the "It just works" platform.
Apple is so afraid to change their OS that it's forever locked into worship of itself. And desktop Linux refuses to make any choices for you.
To everyone's point, it doesn't mean you have to pledge allegiance to Microsoft. But I also take umbrage with the Linux community's idea that you are personally supposed to endure suffering to build character or for the greater good.
I gladly take the pain of freedom in lieu of suffering under penny-squeezers.
With Linux I can at least configure something non-commercial that's a tool for me and not trying to control me in some way.
hah, you haven't used gnome in 20 years.
Don’t agree with this, there’ve been changes made over the years, mostly to make the platform more palatable to users who were brought into the Apple fold by way of iPhones/iPads. The parts that haven’t changed aren't out of worshipping itself but more out of trying to not alienate its existing userbase - much as longtime Windows users don’t like longstanding conventions thrown out, neither do longtime Mac users. The conventions just happen to differ from those popular on the Win9X-desktop-paradigm side of the fence.
For example, there's no reason Apple can't offer modern features like screen pinning or window previews. Running multiple monitors on a Apple product is an embarrassingly bad experience still in 2024. Installing an application is goofy and antiquated.
There is also some ghastly bad UX hidden in OSX, like having to hold down Option to view some hidden settings (shudder).
I would argue that Windows has introduced some pretty stark changes to their conventions over the years, mostly around how to repackage an increasing number of settings and features. Where it feels like Apple just intentionally refuses to add features so it doesn't have to deal with the same types of reorganizations.
For instance I find the multimonitor situation on Windows entirely unserviceable and far worse than what macOS has going. Its inability to have separate sets of virtual desktops per monitor or to switch desktops on each monitor independently is just embarrassing… macOS has had this since the mid-00s and Linux DEs even earlier. On my Macs I just assign apps to their respective desktops and everything is smooth sailing.
As for app installation, disk images are a bit weird it’s true, but I’ll take copying an app package to /Applications/ over running an install wizard or script that wants admin priveleges and is doing goodness knows what. If I were in Apple’s shoes I’d take that bit further and require binary packages for end-user-facing applications to be entirely self-contained, with an exception made for ~/Library/Application Support/<appname>/ which they can use to downloading plugins, scratch space, etc.
Hiding menu items behind key presses isn’t optimal but between the extremes of overloading menus with less-used items or eliminating menus entirely (The GNOME Way™) I’ll take it.
This makes me cringe every time I see it. Seriously. Maybe if you ignored the security issues and drivers that didn't work with new releases and performance issues, old versions of Windows worked well.
Windows 11 is an endless battle with things that don't work. Number one on the list is laptops that don't sleep. It's to the point that when I hear "that sound" I start looking for the laptop with the closed lid that didn't sleep. My son had to disable his mousepad because it would randomly move the cursor and click while he was typing. My wife couldn't get the camera on hers to work. The list could go on...
This problem plagues every version of Windows. It's also a problem on my MacBook too, FWIW.
Windows has a lot of technical debt, heck, arguably that's Windows' USP: Backwards compatibility via technical debt. However, Microsoft has had a lot of the originals retire out in the last few years with a huge number during 2020 for obvious reasons; taking a lot of institutional knowledge with them.
So what we have now is a bunch of younger engineers at Microsoft who don't REALLY understand why a lot of things within Windows are the way they are, and therefore are afraid to improve core functionality. So we get almost all of Microsoft's efforts go into front end improvement, and gimmicks. Places where people can make a mark without needing to deep dive into the mysteries below.
Let's look at Windows 11's timeline:
- 21H2/2021 initial release: With a Start Menu/Taskbar that was half-baked and lost tons of functionality.
- 22H2/2021: Fixed the Start Menu/Taskbar to what 21H2 should have been.
- 23H2/2023: Half-baked "AI" stuff. Touch Gesture improvements.
- 24H2/2024: Tries to make the horrible search basically functional (and fails). Windows Recall (privacy issues). HDR backgrounds.
I still get regular exposure. I know what I'm "missing".
It does not just "do what it needs to", and is not a relief.
One individual opinion exactly negated by another. Result: null.
The reason: I want my system to just work, to not switch UI every other year or month, to not require ultra total upgrades twice a year, to not hog cpu to download and install some multigigabyte upgrade, to not start updating when I immediatelly need to fix my crashed webserver, to not hide basic settings from me etc...
I've win10/win11 on other mostly browsing only laptops, where I can ignore that OS is actively preventing me from using my device, but I can't have this on my 'prod' machine.
Sure, I had limitations back then using an external monitor (HiDPI) but all that went away once Wayland got stable. My new laptop has a GeForce and I needed a few commands to make it work nice.
I'm glad I have never had to resort to going back to windows except for gaming since I started using Linux as my main driver in... 2006 I guess?
If you sit someone down with both Windows 11 and Windows 10, the suck of Windows 11 is completely obvious to even a rank beginner. Windows 11 doesn't "just work"--Windows 10 is actually better at that.
I presume the issue is that so many people are used to interacting with the Internet solely from their phone that they don't feel the layers and layers of jank anymore. Consequently, shitty laptops with Windows 11 actually feel "better" to them.
On Debian, there is a universe of software in the repos. I can install anything I need with just a
apt install <something>
dothis somefile | dothat | thendothat
Download FFmpeg from the official website
or a trusted source
Extract the downloaded file to a folder,
such as C:\FFmpeg
Add the FFmpeg bin directory (C:\FFmpeg\bin)
to the Windows PATH environment variable
UPDATE: Thanks for the replies. Looks like Windows has a repository and now too and you can install stuff from it via a program called winget.
winget install ffmpeg1. winget. Probably has ffmpeg, but I haven't checked. 2. You can just download it from their site. Google ffmpeg windows and first link gets me here: https://www.ffmpeg.org/download.html. You can install from source or you can just get exes.
Installing stuff is the easy part.
Well, that's a pretty way to weird the question. If you searched on Google how to install ffmpeg on windows you'd just get the homepage which would link you to an executable installer.
Did you honestly never use Windows in your life?
However, the Windows Way is to typically avoid CLI tools and use a GUI program. For instance, you might use Handbrake instead of using ffmpeg directly.
These two rules solve the following problem:
> Holy moly. I can't imagine going through this "hunt it down, make sure it is from a trusted source, manually tie it into your system" for every little tool I want to quickly use
I actively like Windows. Not so much these days, but it was a substantially better user experience than MacOS for those of us that liked to tinker/didn't want to be nannied and for a long time a better experience for anyone that wanted to game or needed some apps that Linux had no equivalent for. Plus, as an OS hobbyist, it often had some very interesting and well designed aspects, even if the flaws took the limelight most of the time.
Windows has gotten so bad though. First with W10 taking away the security-only updates channel as well as allowing users to select which updates they ant to install.
The telemetry. The bloat. Bloody cortanna and spotify trials and zune and just garbage I have no interest in and can't even completely disable. I haven't really used W11 yet but it seems so much worse with the MacOS/dock cloned startbar and just some of the limitations they've imposed in attempting to modernize.
Not to mention the absolute mass of different GUI APIs...you have the old style, the 'metro' or whatever it is style, and I think the W7 aero style maybe? You still need to use classic control panel for some things but now you have to wade through a bs metro app to get there.
It's just become a mess and a real chore to use.
Now I use Alpine as a desktop with a heavily patched awesomewm. I have a perfect W7 like desktop that takes about 20mb of resources and is perfectly tailored to my needs, no third party utilities needed.
I have all the software I need, A W10 VM and Wine if I need to run a Windows app, complete control and peace of mind, and perfect stability and security.
I'll need to find a solution to run GTA6 natively maybe, but I have years until I have to deal with that problem.
I have an almost 10 years old MacBook Pro, that I can turn on at any time and I would be able to do modern software development on it easily.
I have a similarly aged high end gaming laptop, I turn it on it spends two hours fiddling with software updates, turns on the anti-virus that I never asked for, installs random software that I would never in a million years install, maybe breaks a driver or two on bigger updates and to top it all off, even with WSL2 I can't even get Docker to run things reliably on it.
For gaming I find the Steam Deck to be the superior experience.
Humm. I realized that a while ago, but I switched to Mac OS not Windows. I regularly work with Windows (and Linux for that matter) boxes as well and I don't understand how you can use "seamlessly" in that context.
I dont game much anymore but I do love BeamNG, Kenshi and the occasional GTA5 slaughter-fest. All of this is ran through Steam under Flatpak on Void Linux Musl running XFCE with the Chicago 95 (Windows 95) theme. Hardware is a 12 core Threadripper, 1920, 1st gen, and a goofy AMD Radeon Pro 5700 I got for the 5 mini DP ports I never used...
However, summer of 2023 was when I nearly gave up gaming on Linux. Everything was running just fine then one day late June, sudden instability. Just running the Steam UI would crash the machine within seconds to minutes after starting. And by instability I mean hard lock up - audio skips and machine is dead to the world. At first I thought it was Steam as running as other programs seemed fine. Then I had lock ups using browsers or randomly sitting at the desktop. I started to suspect thermal issues from summer heat and did everything I could including rebuilding the PC to redo thermal paste and re-seat components. No change. Left my AC running 24/7 for a few days to see if that helped. Nothing. I was at a loss and everyone I talked to had the same line of "I dont know why you are messing with that Linux shit. Just buy a windows machine for gaming and use WSL." Sigh. I was about to give up and seriously considered selling the machine and stating over with a new Windows machine.
Of course what I did not pay attention to was updates as I updated rather regularly, at least one a week, sometimes twice. Around the middle of September 2023 the crashing suddenly stopped and gaming resumed as if nothing happened. Same hardware, same install. I could run Kenshi for hours on end, leave Steam running and music playing from a browser. WTF! Then it occurred to me: kernel bugs. Then again this year I had a similar issue after updates so I rolled back the kernel and everything worked. So I now have updating PTSD and defer updates because I lost trust.
So yeah. I can see why people give up. I just happen to be too stubborn (stupid?) to give up.
The way I see it, you learned something useful by realizing kernel bus could cause issues, and you retain the control, efficiency and stability by not running Windows.
Having to give up an extra 30gb of space just because, losing control over new features being forced no you, privacy concerns, none of it is worth it anymore.
* Update Any PC to Windows 11 (2021)
Guide going over updating any PC to Windows 11 that “doesn’t meet requirements” or doesn’t use Secure Boot or has a TPM 2.0 chip.
If it'll run 10 it'll run 11 .. as long as you're not after all the fancy AI, adware, and Total Recall big brother stuff ( .. who is? )
IIRC I think (I'd have to check) you can use this Windows 10 | 11 kitchen sink GUI to create your own stripped down Windows 11 boot | VM disk that has all the crud including the hardware checks removed.
Gamers and Qubes users like lightweight VM images, there are forums dedicated to roll your own Win11-lite images.
- Anyone claiming one OS is the "best" is often either incredibly misinformed, or intentionally trolling.
- Use whatever OS does the job you need it to do, nobody cares. They're all great/suck/win/lose.