I’ve been using Linux exclusively for about 8 years. Recently I got frustrated with a bunch of issues that popped one after another. I had a spare SSD so I decided to check out Windows again. I’ve installed Windows 11 LTSC. It was a nightmare. After all the years on Linux, I forgot how terrible Windows actually is.
On the day I installed the system and a bunch of basic software, I had two bluescreens. I wasn’t even doing anything at that time, just going through basic settings and software installation. Okay, it happens. So I installed Steam and tried to play a game I’ve been currently playing on Linux just to see the performance difference. And it was… worse, for some reason. The “autodetect” in game changed my settings from Ultra to High. On Linux, the game was running at the 75 fps cap all the time. Windows kept dropping them to around 67-ish a lot of times. But the weirdest part was actual power consumption and the way GPU worked. Both systems kept the GPU temperature at around 50C. But the fans were running at 100% speed at that temperature on Windows, while Linux kept them pretty quiet. I had to change the fan controls by myself on Windows just because it was so annoying. The power consumption difference was even harder to explain, as I was getting 190-210W under Linux and under Windows I got 220-250W. And mind you, under Linux I had not only higher graphical settings set up, but was also getting better performance.
I tried connecting my bluetooth earbuds to my PC. Alright, the setup itself was fine. But then the problems started. My earbuds support opus codec for audio. Do you think I can change the bluetooth codec easily, just like on Linux? Nope. There is no way to do it without some third party programs. And don’t even get me started on Windows randomly changing my default audio output and trying to play sound through my controller.
Today I decided to make this rant-post after yet another game crashed on me twice under Windows. I bought Watch Dogs since it’s currently really cheap on Steam. I click play. I get the loading screen. The game crashed. I try again. I play through the basic “tutorial”. After going out of the building, game crashed again. I’m going to play again, this time under Linux.
I’ve had my share of frustrations under Linux, but that experience made me realise that Windows is not a perfect solution either. Spending a lot of time with Linux and it’s bugs made me forget all the bad experience in the past with Windows, and I was craving to go back to the “just works” solution. But it’s not “just works”. Two days was all it took for me to realize that I’ll actually stick with Linux, probably forever. The spare SSD went back to my drawer, maybe so I can try something new in the future. It’s so good to be back after a short trip to the other side!
I’d summarize the current OS situation as
Windows Just Works until it doesn’t, at which point there’s basically nothing you can do about it and you just have to kick it until something clicks into place and it starts working properly again.
Whereas linux Just Works to a slightly smaller degree, but when it stops Just Working it does so in granular steps most of the time, and every part of the ecosystem tries to help you fix things when they break.
Windows is a resin-potted black box that takes input and does stuff, if it breaks you’re supposed to just chuck it and buy a new one.
Linux is a slightly bulkier thing that you can just unscrew and replace a capacitor when it breaks.
Only if you refuse to put forth the same effort into fixing windows as you do with Linux. Not wanting to learn doesn’t mean it’s not learnable.
Have a different experience. Usually, Linux does not even boot, due to driver issues, in the first place. So, the first installation process usually easily takes 5 to 10 hours, straight. And this is only for common popular distributions, not to mention lesser known and lesser supported ones. (Talking about Linux GUI based installations, only.)
I almost never had Linux not boot after a fresh install, even with nVidia hardware. It happened a few times like 10 years ago and never again. What hardware are you running?
If you’re willing to put up with the low security options provided by default and don’t have a weird laptop, maybe.
Happened to me all the time, when, for example, setting up very generic and common laptops for family & friends. It never worked out of the box. Every single time, I had to give special treatment. Research extra drivers, etc… Hard to do in some locations, when they do not have a second system to do all the work from.
Laptops have historically been a little iffy yeah. Personally I haven’t had many issues except for Nvidia optimus, but since most of them are non standard and proprietary it used to be kind of a pain. Now though it’s much better, at least on newer hardware, even my newest laptop with hybrid graphics just worked out of the box.
Lol “the main computer market is iffy”
Historically, yeah. Nowadays (as in the last 2-3 years) I don’t really see many issues. It’s fairly solid in my experience.
And let’s be honest, Windows is a nightmare as well on many laptops. If you wipe them and start from scratch, there is a non zero chance that you’ll have to source like half the drivers manually.
Tried it over many years. Last one was last year. Every time, the same problem. I even considered moving to Windows, but it would be tougher for me to administrate for me, as I’m used to headless Linux. It’s just, whenever Linux tries to GUI, it fucks up everything colossaly.
I just don’t see it. I run it on all my PCs with nvidia, amd, hybrid graphics, pretty much any combination (I have too many 😅). It works. Even various friends of mine have tried it on their older setups, no problems there either.
Unless you’re using something like Debian or whatever with crazy old packages, everything works for the most part. Nvidia is still not great on Wayland but it at least works now.
I’m not saying your experience isn’t valid, I’m not trying to gaslight you, but I’m not sure it’s representative of the average experience nowadays.
Yeah, I am very familiar with Debian on servers. It works great on servers. Have experienced with all kinds of stability stages regarding Debian.
However, Desktop Debian usually does not work. Then I switch to the one, which should work the easiest, so Ubuntu or some derivative. And this usually still needs tons of troubleshooting over hours to make it work to a minimum standard…
Everything Debian based is an absolute clusterfuck in my experience. I mainly use Fedora or Arch, never had a problem with them. Every single time I’ve tried using anything Debian based it’s been a shitshow. Maybe that’s the source of your issues.
What PCs? Certified by some Linux supporting company? If you buy a random laptop or pre-made PC, chances are high, that it won’t work. And I’m not even a “beginner”, who does “beginner” mistakes. No, I’m actually a Linux pro. I work with Linux literally every single day, even in my free time.
Nah just stuff I built myself or random laptops.
Some old Lenovo laptop with an Intel iGPU and an AMD GPU I can’t remember, worked out of the box but was a bit finicky for some things. I don’t remember what it was, it broke years ago.
ASUS TUF FX504GM (1060 maxq), zero issues on X11
Lenovo Legion 5 (3070 + AMD iGPU), zero issues, daily driver
Custom Desktop (1070 + Intel iGPU though I didn’t really use it), some issues but i was testing Wayland years ago. Good on X11.
Custom Desktop (7900xtx + 3080), zero issues, daily driver. It used to just have a 3080, which is fairly solid on Wayland as well but not perfect.
A few other random laptops and desktop some friends owned over the years, fairly smooth on pretty much all of them.
I’ve found in general that anything that doesn’t have an Nvidia card as the display output works fine. Wayland is getting quite usable on Nvidia as well, but there are still growing pains. Still, no black screens anywhere.
Sure I’ve tinkered a bit during the years, but I almost never had a black screen, much less stuff not booting, on install. I did brick my display drivers a few times (just Nvidia being a pain, mostly) but it was mostly my fault.
It may be that you’ve just been really unlucky. There are definitely hardware combinations out there that cause problems, but I haven’t really found any particularly problematic ones up until now.
I think it highly depends on what kind of hardware you are attempting to install Linux on. You can make it work on almost anything, but the graphical installers are best used with hardware that was widely used when the distribution was released.
Also the older and more obscure distros may not have installers that pass secure boot checks, which is very frustrating if you don’t know what is happening.
yeah no i’m sorry but this just sounds completely fucking made up
Oh I just did that
Over the past 5 years, I’ve installed ubuntu about 30 times on different computers. Not once has an install on an SSD taken me more than an hour, with it typically taking me 30 minutes or less except for rare occasions where I’ve messed something up.
It’s not about the speed of the installation… It’s about the installation not working. Crashes. Hard to see error logs. Drivers missing for the most generic hardware, ever. No, I’m not talking about an unmaintained fringe distribution. I’m talking about Ubuntu, Lubuntu & Debian. Plain old stable and simple.
What do you need as proof? All I have to do, is getting a random laptop, doesn’t matter which one and I will make a video for you. Is that enough?