I've been using Linux exclusively for ~15 yrs. I've recently started a fantastic new job -- the only wrinkle was that it came with a Windows 10 laptop.
This is my first time using Windows after a 15-year break. This is how it's been going.
This is exactly my reaction: I don't understand how people can be Ok with this.
I remember seeing this more than ten years ago already: you demand your computer to shut down (maybe you're done with your work, and you need to catch a train, and your laptop needs to shut down _right now_) and it replies with a command: "Do not shut down the computer". WHAT? Why is my computer not doing what I ask it to do? I don't think it's healthy to tolerate this kind of behavior.
yeah, surprised by this, as this answers some of OP's issues. Windows is still a mess, and WSL kind of adds a third inconsistent UI, but being able to essentially have two platforms in one is the nice part.
I'm on Enterprise, and you can't actually turn it off permanently, after a time (maybe a reboot, or scheduled that i can't find) it just turns itself back on, and usually knackers my nvidia drives, even though i have it set to not update drivers, and even though i killed the medic service as well ffs.
Found a trick where you basically remove windows access rights to wuauclt.exe and wuaueng.dll, causing an error code 5 whenever it tries to run its update service.. so far its been stable. Not sure if this would work for other versions.
If you are going to work on a Windows box for a while, you can install some Unix tools and have a poor Unix experience, use WSL, or learn PowerShell. Some places are Windows only environments so learning PowerShell might cut down the frustration and allow you to do the automation you want.
I use windows full time for a desktop OS and I find myself agreeing with everything in here, I just don't normally notice it day to day because I'm used to it.
I wish CAD software companies would support linux, I've tried FreeCAD and whatnot, but they're nothing like Fusion360.
You mention that no one has figured out how to make GUIs as composable as command lines. I would argue Apple is actually getting there with Shortcuts. Combining that with the Share Sheet/Share Menu and you get some pretty nice composability.
Microsoft did with VBX, OLE and later ActiveX, the entire point was to have embeddable reusable UIs. They sabotaged themselves by tying those to separate products you had to buy though instead of having a simple drag-and-drop form/window designer to put things - basically something like the QBasic equivalent of Visual Basic but also closer to the original idea of VB1 where instead of writing basic code you'd drag connections between controls to activate methods or pipe data between them.
X11 supports this by allowing programs to "swallow" each other - the XEmbed protocol as well as normal IPC can be used for communication between them. Older desktop environments and window managers (CDE, FVWM, etc) can use this to compose programs. Some minimalistic window managers rely on this using single-purpose tools like dmenu.
BeOS, as mentioned elsewhere also has a very limited form of OLE-like functionality.
I'm sure there are others but TBH i think MS came closest, but they abandoned the entire idea after they decided to focus on .NET. FWIW the underlying tech is still there and in theory such QB-like-VB-lite app could be made but nothing really exposes reusable controls anymore so it'd be pointless. After all having the tech and ability is only half the battle at most, you also need applications to support it and nowadays everything GUI is made to be cross platform agnostic so any such solution would need to work everywhere there is a monitor, a keyboard and a mouse - not impossible but much harder nowadays than when computers were synonymous with Windows.
Enterprise and Pro editions don't have the same bloat as Windows Home, in my experience. Since the author is using a work computer, it's likely that they didn't encounter Candy Crush pre-installed and pinned to their start menu.
Windows has a long history of preinstalled games of various quality all the way back to Reversi in Windows 1.0. Solitaire, of course, was the third most popular application in Windows 3.1. But there hasn't been a single version of Windows that hasn't had games preinstalled.
Wow, this was almost my exact experience (except that I had somehow gone through life never using Windows). Using WSL is working out pretty well for me for the most part, except networking seems to break when the corporate VPN is on that I'm required to use (which is very irritating). I find myself prototyping things on my personal Linux laptop and only using the corporate machine for required company stuff. It's been an awful experience.
I feel pretty fortunate to be able to turn down jobs where I'd need to use windows as a daily driver. I don't mind using it occasionally, and I've gotten quite good at targeting Windows cross compiling from Linux, but using it daily just grinds me into a paste.
I mostly use Macs for work now, and while they do a pretty good job of exposing a Unix environment, they've been getting steadily worse over the past couple of years. I've had so many problems with recent critical OS patches that I'm debating convincing my employer to let me have a Linux machine, not that I would ever recommend that for a company who wants their employees to be productive.
That being said I'm actually really impressed at how good Linux on the Desktop is right now. I've got my whole family running KDE on NixOS and it's basically flawless.
What workflow do you use to target Windows builds from Linux? For myself I've used mingw64 to compile, then NSIS as an installer. Only problem is that quite a few Windows anti-malware systems automatically flag NSIS compiled based packages as suspicious.
Also, any good guides for targeting Windows APIs for Linux programmers?
>> not that I would ever recommend that for a company who wants their employees to be productive.
That's a little odd to read considering you've got your whole family on it. I could imagine a lot of work going into internal software for the most part, are there other reasons you'd advise against it these days?
Not OP: Companies of any size are already enmeshed in the security/deployment/productivity flows offered by 'enterprise' software, which I don't see Linux as matching currently. Is there anything comparable to Office + $whateverEndpointProtection + $whateverImaging that Linux could use to make IT jobs easy/fast?
Depending on how recent the model is, it can be somewhat tough. Generally it takes a bit of time after a new model appears before there are working drivers for wifi, which quite often is a deal breaker. Sometimes a driver will be working a bit earlier but not be released yet, so you can compile your own kernel with it patched in, but even as a daily Arch user that's more effort than I'm willing to go through on a regular basis. I know there's progress being made on a distro that fully supports the new ARM macbooks, but my understanding is that most distros will not work on it right now. I think "everything works out of the box" is mostly true for most non-Apple laptops nowadays for Linux, but I'm not sure it will ever be the case for macbooks (unless Apple decides to make sure it's the case, which seems fairly unlikely).
> I think "everything works out of the box" is mostly true for most non-Apple laptops nowadays for Linux, but I'm not sure it will ever be the case for macbooks (unless Apple decides to make sure it's the case, which seems fairly unlikely).
My understanding is that "everything works out of the box" is still restricted to very specific products line when it comes to laptops and linux. And that the new Apple Silicon macbooks might actually make this situation a lot better because most of the hardware is Apple's and they seems to keep a more or less stable binary interface between hardware components even across hardware generations (presumably for their own benefit when writing their own firmware). So while the support isn't there yet (well, it's in Alpha), once it is there we might expect Apple laptops to have some of the best linux support going forwards.
I guess I can only speak to my own experience, which is that any non-Apple laptop* I've bought in the past six or so years has had working wifi, trackpad, bluetooth, etc. out of the box when I've installed Linux on it, and this has been without doing any sort of research beforehand to make sure that it would work with Linux. The last time I tried to put Linux on a macbook was with an early 2015 Macbook Pro, which at least through the summer didn't have a working wifi driver by default on Linux. I did find a working driver that was yet to be included by default in Linux around the summer, and by a year or two after the macbook came out (I don't remember the exact amount of time), it was available by default in Linux releases.
* The one exception was when I tried to buy an ARM laptop shortly after all the news about Spectre/Meltdown came out and I was frustrated with Intel's PR response to it. I never did actually figure out how to install Linux on it due to the bootloader being locked down, but that's either my own fault or maybe the manufacturer's and certainly not Linux's.
Only helps for M1 macs. Intel T2 laptops are in a particularly bad spot when it comes to Linux support and things haven't really gotten better. You still need to add drivers to get the keyboard/trackpad working (AFAIK not supported on all kernels either), you can't have audio AND suspend just one of them, WiFi is a pain. I tried on my 2018 just had freezes every five minutes on the 1/3 of times it would boot correctly.
Same all around. It's my first 'do you have any questions for us?' at every interview. My company now is starting to hint at clamping down the screws, and I was honest in saying I'd just go elsewhere before being forced to use a gimped Windows laptop daily. We'll see.
I've used desktop Linux for a long time, and it's really, really good now. I cannot even remember the last time something didn't just work out of the box(probably my laser printer).
Still working on the last part. Parents buy and use tax software each year for some odd reason, and I don't feel like even trying to navigate through WINE.
I would not even attend an interview if it's not clear that I can work on Linux in that company. I was forced to use Windows daily for 8 years. After that I got a chance to move to Linux development. I'll never want to go back. Not that Linux is free of problems. But the feeling of being in control cannot be replaced. If I don't accept the wart I can patch it. If I don't want to invest the effort to patch it I live with it. The choice is always mine.
> not that I would ever recommend that for a company who wants their employees to be productive.
As someone who has moved to Linux from MacOS (Gnome 42, Debian Bookworm), it has been a near seamless transition.
I expected it to consume a lot of time in overhead maintaining it - but it hasn't. It has been great so far. MacOS is still more ergonomic in a lot of ways by comparison to Gnome, but Gnome 4x has come a long way in the last few months.
At this rate it, by the end of the year I would think it the best desktop environment offered by any platform.
I'm in a similar boat, but I turn down jobs that require osx use. my current job I was told I was able to use osx, windows, or kubuntu, whichever I prefer. I chose kubuntu, and was handed a mac on day 1 because of chip shortage. it was the worse 3 months of my professional career, finally my Dell came in and I could actually get work done. I don't understand how people use them, I don't consider them a viable alternative to a nic environment.
all you people here surprise me, I consider windows + wsl a better development environment and more nix like than osx. but maybe I'm just hurt in the head and missing something...
Really interested why you felt that MacOS wasn't unix-like and wasn't productive? Assuming you have administrative control over your computer, you can use the terminal for everything. Open the terminal and you're literally dropped into a unix-y shell (zsh is the new default, but GNU bash and a POSIX-compatible sh are shipped as well, all right out of the box) and all of your favorite *nix commands will be available. The filesystem is like any other unix file system. There's several package managers available (Homebrew, MacPorts) for installing software - I virtually never use the Mac app store or even download .app images directly from vendors.
Mac OS is not just Unix-like, it is a certified Unix-compliant operating system.^1
Apple prefers to keep this fact far away from the average mac consumer, but if you want to use them, the Unix/BSD underpinnings are right there. There are plenty of things to criticize about MacOS, but not being Unix-like is not one of them.
The only thing that feels UNIX like is the terminal and even then zsh is different than most are used to and the included bash is essentially ancient. Even basic things like getting to your home folder with Finder is more trouble than it needs to be on a stock modern macOS install. They really go to lengths to hide it. If all that feels *nix-like is the the terminal why bother? WSL can do that too but if I want apt I can use that.
I feel like there's no integration between the macOS UI stuff and the Unix underpinnings.
From a technical/programming perspective, there's just so much that MacOS (unix) does right: things like file permissions, the layout of the file system, and having industry-standard tools like vim, make, gcc, ssh, bash (even if older versions) built in. I haven't used Windows for anything other than playing games for almost 10 years, but I remember things like Ruby (especially Rails) and Python programming were a complete PITA in Windows versus Mac (Unix) or Linux. Maybe that's changed...I honestly couldn't tell you.
I agree that it's annoying how much apple tries to hide the Unix nature of the OS. I have no idea why they hide the home folder from Finder by default, it's on my list of "things to change immediately" when I do a fresh Mac install/setup, as well as things like installing newer versions of Bash, Vim, etc (via Homebrew). But overall I think the pros of the OS vastly outweigh the cons. For the most part, all of the things I don't like about the OS can be turned off or tuned. And I value how things work under the hood too much to give that up.
I will admit I have never tried WSL - because I've never had a need to. I've considered trying it, but then I just tell myself I'd rather just use Linux.
> [...]Even basic things like getting to your home folder with Finder is more trouble than it needs to be on a stock modern macOS install. They really go to lengths to hide it.[...]
Open finder then cmd-shift-h or cmd-shift-g, "~"
Both of these work right out of the box, what would you rather macOS do to be easier?
I mean you're not wrong, but at the same time I figured that stuff out on day one of using my Mac simply by just googling around a little bit and from then on I knew it... You only have to learn these things one time so this feels like a pretty minor nitpick.
That was one of the hardest things for me to get used to when I moved primarily from Linux --> Mac (and it still makes switching between Mac and Windows annoying). Keyboard remapping helped at first but I was getting tired of inconsistencies so I just forced myself to relearn the modifier keys.
Funnily enough, the command key and many of those popular shortcuts (eg cut copy paste) predates windows by several years. The story goes that windows wanted to use the same shortcuts, but PC keyboards lacked a command key - so they used control instead. Since windows was backwards compatible with lots of hardware, they couldn't require a key that didn't exist on most keyboards.
Prior to that of course, Control has a long history of interacting with command-line based applications in Unix/family (eg Ctrl-C to cancel a running CLI app). Of course those same things still work in MacOS like they did in the older Unixes.
That's what the default Mac keyboard layout has been for decades. Just because Microsoft/IBM won the desktop OS wars and forced everyone to use their keyboard layout doesn't mean Mac users have to comply.
I'm used to switching between Mac and PC layouts every day, but I personally prefer the Mac keyboard layout. Command is easier to press with a thumb compared to Ctrl, which requires the pinkie. Option allows you to input special characters with far more ease compared to any PC operating system (e.g Opt + Shift + - for an em-dash compared to some crazy incantation on Windows). Control is still available as an additional modifier if you want it.
A great side-effect of using Cmd as the primary modifier is that shortcuts inside your terminal become simplified. E.g Cmd + C to copy rather than Ctrl + Shift + C, or Cmd + T to open a new tab rather than Ctrl + Shift + T.
In an ideal world, Windows would switch to using the Win key as its primary modifier instead of Ctrl. That would make life so much simpler.
Yes the included Bash is very old, but installing an updated version is trivial. I'd rather have something included than nothing.
Does BSD varient vs GNU varient matter when we're considering if something is unix-like? No one would say that the BSD distributions are not Unix derivatives. As they say, "GNUs Not Unix..."
In keyboard preferences > modifier keys, remap so that alt is cmd and win/logo is option. I do this on several non-laptop Macs and it feels right enough.
To be even more pedantic, the Unix tools that come with Git for Windows are MSYS2-based, not MinGW-based, and MSYS2 is more like Cygwin than it's like MinGW (it's Cygwin with a few patches.)
MSYS2, rather, which often seems to be bundled with a hybrid mingw install, but itself is based on a patchset to the main cygwin DLL and generally is a 'saner cygwin'.
git bash is definitely one of the first things I install on any Microsoft Windows build -- gives me a half-way decent terminal, vim, and of course a complete and modern git.
I guess that would be a no-brainer if someone considered anything that made Windows more like Linux an improvement, but they probably don't. People in general feel most comfortable with the Desktop shell they are used to (the little differences feel jarring) and people who are used to using Windows probably also use some Windows-exclusive software.
Also, it's not like Windows has no upsides to it. Relatively recently, I bought a laptop that came with Windows 10 (as they often do), and I noticed that it boots up pretty quickly to login screen; I think a fair bit faster than it takes for another OS to boot up to just the full-disk encryption prompt. It's certainly not enough to make me consider using Windows, but it's not nothing, either.
Because the way to make Linux better is to install things that make it more like Windows. Unfortunately for Linux, the one thing you can't install is software compatibility with Windows apps (unless you count Wine, which even after all these years you really can't). So if you want to run Windows apps the way to go is Windows augmented with Linux features rather than Linux augmented with Windows features.
Unfortunately it still leaves you with a terrible terminal emulator. IDK if you can use MSYS2 with "Windows Terminal", though. I haven't bothered to try.
I remember trying ubuntu for the first time in cca 2007. Then few years after that, I bought my first mac. Both linux and mac os felt like the UI was a veneer on top of the actual system. I grew up with windows, old version like 95 or 98, they never felt like a veneer or facade, the user interface was the OS for me. Well, windows 11 feels like a facade, cheap toy interface bolted onto an ageing platform.
Then we read different articles. Window arrangement, multi-monitor mode, depth of the Windows Store, and automatic rebooting are still bothersome after tuning a perfect WSL.
Before I started using Linux I used OS/2. The system had many idiosyncrasies and was quite ramshackle in a lot of ways but it did multitask quite a bit better than Windows. Its main problem was the dearth of good software, a problem which was "solved" by the addition of WinOS/2 which enabled you to run Windows 3.1 applications in OS/2. It ran most Windows software quite well, often better and faster than "real Windows". Did this solve OS/2's problems, though?
It did not. All it did was tell OS/2 users about the world of Windows software. When Microsoft finally launched a slightly less horrid version of Windows most users migrated to it, leaving OS/2 but a footnote in history where it concerns desktop use.
Enter the current situation: Windows is a horrid mess, it consists of layers of plaster upon plaster upon jury-rigged interfaces built on quicksand. For those who are used to the way things work on Linux it feels like an enormous step back, like having leaden shoes and gloves fitted for no good reason. This problem is supposedly "solved" by the addition of WSL which enables you to run Linux applications in Windows. It runs most Linux applications quite well even though performance is lacking in many ways. Does this solve Windows' problems, though?
That was surprisingly balanced and reasonable. Even as long time Windows user I have to agree with everything he wrote and don't really have any real quibbles.
I'm guessing those things didn't apply to him or his use case. Yes, hardware support is better, but if your needs are simple you buy smartly, Linux also works pretty well.
Yes, installing third party and closed source software is much easier on Windows and there is much more of it to chose from. This is in fact my main reason for using Windows. However if you're a developer and your entire job can be done using open source dev tools then this doesn't matter.
Power management is better on Windows, but I wouldn't say it works "reliably". I've pulled many a hot, dead laptop from my backpack after it decided to wake up and kill itself after I thought it had gone to sleep. Apple is the only company that really be said to have solved this in my opinion.
Settings being GUI-accessible is at best questionable advantage. It's nice for people who don't want to use the command line and don't see its point, but if you're used to and comfortable with the command line (like the author seems to be) it is far from a selling point. Plus just because the setting exists in GUI, that doesn't in any way solve the problem of actually locating where and how the set that setting.
That is, assuming something is even packaged as a .deb for your distro's age in the first place.
Trying to get something written using new, say, C++ runtime libraries shipped as a binary working on even a two year old Linux distro is a struggle in itself, meanwhile on Windows, the VC CRT bundled with VS2022 with C++22 support even runs fine as a bundled portable .dll down to Windows 7 (2009) and probably even before.
Running modern libstdc++ (as a binary, mind you) on an otherwise 2009 distro on the other hand - unlikely. Even more so if you stray out of the GNU libc option, or want to deal with libc++ for some reason (such as cross-platform parity, as it is better behaved on Windows/Mac than libstdc++), or any other edge cases out of the usual /lib, especially for GUI apps or worse, GPU apps.
Yeah as long as the software is provided in .deb format, doesn't use any newer dependencies than you have, and you're using Debian or Ubuntu. Not remotely the same as Windows where it just always works.
All those points are true for me using Ubuntu on a Dell XPS 13.
* Every piece of hardware has worked flawlessly: Ultrawide monitor, printer, wireless keyboard and mouse, Bluetooth mouse, Bluetooth headset, usb drives.
* I am able to install most things I want using the software installer GUI or using command line apt, but sometimes I download a deb file directly, to install something that is not in apt. Other times I just download the executable and I am done (kubectl for example).
* Never had a problem with sleep, it works fine for me every time, and I use it daily.
* Settings are GUI accessible. It would be rare to be required to do something command line. I do a lot of command line work for development, but it is not really needed just to configure the OS or desktop environment.
Man, I don't know. I just got a new HP work laptop at the end of last year. Some HP "enterprise" model, nothing fancy, which only officially supports Windows. It came preloaded with win 10 pro, even though "HP recommends Windows 11". Whatever. (The pc was manufactured in November 2021, so Win11 was already out).
When I turn it on, my first impression was "damn, that's a dim screen". Even turned all the way up, with auto-dim disabled, it would still be just "meh". I rebooted in the BIOS, and it burned my eyes off.
Install Linux: I get the full brightness. Brightness keys work out of the box, light sensor, sound / mic mute leds light up as needed, Wi-Fi, BT, IR camera, fingerprint reader, everything just works.
I figure I should install a Win 11, just in case (I daily drive Linux, but work for a windows shop). What a freaking shitshow. Mostly nothing works out of the box. No brightness keys, not brightness sensor, no volume keys, the touchpad is barely usable. I have to go through multiple Windows update reboots (on a freshly created Windows install USB stick), and then start going through all the HP drivers, complete with reboots. For some reason, after the updates, the USB Ethernet adapter (from HP) doesn't work reliably anymore. And after all this song and dance, there's some USB controller that has an exclamation mark in device manager, and the webcam isn't detected. "Update the driver" doesn't find anything. There's also some weird lag with the audio LEDs. It has no idea there's an ambient light sensor. And if I tell it to sleep, it'll go to sleep and wake up after a while for no reason ("Wake up for updates" is of course disabled).
> * Settings are almost all GUI-accessible. You rarely have to fiddle on the command line etc.
But you have to fiddle with the registry. I wouldn't say that's that much better. Also, bonus points for whatever settings you do being undone on an update.
> It's about the most biased thing I've ever read.
I gather from this that you either have not read many things in your life, or you are yourself an outlier. I found it to be completely unbiased, just reporting the facts of what it is like to use Windows after having become accustomed to Linux.
> Hardware all works mostly without issue.
I have not had a hardware issue with Linux in almost twenty years.
> Software is easy to install even if it isn't in the official store (e.g. apt).
./configure && make && sudo make install is pretty damn easy to do.
> Power management (sleep etc.) works reliably.
A fair point, although it has gotten tremendously better. One of my laptops has never had a single sleep/suspend issue, and the other has an issue every several months (which is still too frequent).
> Settings are almost all GUI-accessible. You rarely have to fiddle on the command line etc.
I want all settings to be in text files, period, neither the command line nor a GUI. Just let me edit the settings!
Don't forget there is still Cygwin. I recently had to work on Windows, and Cygwin was actually the rescue, with a terminal which just works and proper bash commands that put PowerShell at shame.
I guess WSL is similar but still painful/impossible to install if you don't have BIOS access for enabling CPU virtualization.
What can you do in bash that can't be done in PowerShell? To me, it always felt like there is a lot more stuff you can do in PowerShell. For example, it's easy to read the registry, create COM objects, etc...
why bother learning powershell, as it's extremely unlikely to run in production (or any other linux box) environment. Bash works well and it's ubiquitous with tons of documentation.
From a quick look at the article, I can see a few subtle "omissions" or "rants that have easy fixes". I can't tell how long the author has spent on Windows (it's not in the article) so it's hard to know how much effort they have put in getting adjusted. It takes a really long time to switch platforms and feel comfortable in them, and without spending a long time adjusting, it's too easy to complain and quite hard to provide a fair review...
For a more positive spin, I'll leave here my own review of Windows after being off the platform for 25 years, spending 15 of those on macOS, and then spending the last year primarily on Windows. TL;DR: I'm quite happy with the switch, but obviously there are many things that could be different/better and some of the issues that the OP highlights are valid.
Funny, I've read the "finale" part and the PowerShell part. When I read you, my fealing is that PowerShell is not there yet and telemetry and Defender have big issues (telemetry 'cos it allow MSFT to remove feature, spy on me) and Defender ('cos sometimes it just eats my time)...
As a dev/data scientist/netflix/websurfer/photo-sorter/privacy-aware dude, well, my Linux box just rocks and Windows is not fun (although it does the job).
The linux kernel updates every day, yes, but unless there's a security issue, you don't _have to_ reboot into every new kernel your distribution pushes. Certainly no one forces you to.
"Need" is a bit much. I know companies that haven't updated or rebooted servers in years. A few weeks ago I logged into a server with a 1400 day uptime.
That doesn't mean it's not a ticking time bomb though.. I could understand this in very special legacy production situations with almost air-gapped security mitigations. Otherwise it's just laxness and a hack waiting to happen.
We have some Windows 95-era crap that's still there because it controls stuff that would cost millions to replace and the vendor is long out of business. But certainly nobody is "logging into it" as a side note. They're physically and logically isolated. You can do it if the risks are otherwise controlled but it should be the last resort and it's extremely impractical. You basically need a situation where every single network packet allowed to go in or out is dissected and validated. And I don't just mean at the protocol level.
>It takes a really long time to switch platforms and feel comfortable in them, and without spending a long time adjusting, it's too easy to complain and quite hard to provide a fair review...
I agree.
Some of the fixes for his complaints are effectively customizations, not unlike the customizations I'd make in Linux. I'm not sure some of these differences are really that different.
Thanks. My original article made its way as a separate submission a while ago but barely got any votes :) My conclusion is that a single (very long) post might have worked out better from an engagement perspective as opposed to the series, but would also have been much harder to make coherent. Thanks for reading!
I am told, every time someone claims *nix isn't a good desktop, that having to fix things is unacceptable; if a problem can be fixed by editing a config file/setting or installing an additional program, that proves the platform will never be good enough for desktop use. I am perfectly happy to watch NT failing by the same standard.
It was interesting to me to see Linus, of YouTube's LTT, mess up unzipping and then last into the distro he was using because - even though there was on screen feedback (obscured by his massive screen) - a folder needed updating to see changes. But, for me, across dozens of machines and many years MS Windows' file explorer has failed to do live updates, egg when making a new folder from the right-click menu (even pressing F5) the folder doesn't show, folders occasionally get littered with New Folder subfolders. Same happens with unzipping, the exact thing that apparently made Linux unusable and "not ready for the desktop" ... except for me Ubuntu at least always shows a notification for unzipping (and new folders just work).
Mostly these things are familiarity, using Windows just boils my blood though, it feels so hostile to me,
Buying and installing Minecraft client on Linux was super easy and straight forward (I did that pre-MS), buying and installing on MS Windows was a total trauma, the account process was so convoluted. Their greed just wrecks all their awesomeness.
> Speaking of keyboard shortcuts provides the right segue to the clipboard behavior. I don’t know who had the brilliant idea of making copy and paste preserve the formatting of the source text. This is almost never ever what you want.
I think it depends on what you're copying. If you're copying text only, then no. But if you're copying text with images or other non-text elements, then possibly yes.
I think it also depends on where you are copying from and pasting into. If it's within the same document, you likely want to maintain everything. If it is within the same app (different docs), you may want to maintain everything. If it is across apps... I cannot imagine the use case for maintaining formatting.
But as you well said, respecting images, tables and the like is one thing. The other is keeping fonts.
Anyhow... so many options that a single feature doesn't fit all. The problem with Windows is the lack of a uniform solution to paste without formatting (my complaint) as opposed to macOS.
> But as you well said, respecting images, tables and the like is one thing. The other is keeping fonts.
Oh, to clarify: I meant: "if you're copying text along with images, you probably want to keep the text formatting [fonts etc.] too, whereas if you're only copying text, you probably don't want the formatting either." It's not a perfect heuristic by any means, but I think it'd be better than the current situation.
> If it is across apps... I cannot imagine the use case for maintaining formatting
You have some formatted text (maybe some bold or italic in a line) on a webpage, you want to copy it into an email (lets set aside the argument that email should be text only).
I'd never heard of this, thanks for the tip. I just tried it in Word and had no luck, but it worked in Chrome. Any other programs you're aware of that respect this?
This might be because Word overrides system shortcuts (i.e. the 'paste without formatting' in this case). Google Docs tries to do this in the browser as well, but it happens to support this particular shortcut.
Is "paste without formatting" really a system shortcut? I'd never heard of it before. I feel like it might be something semi-standard that apps implement?
Yeah the two main places where it comes up for me is LebreOffice and Google Docs! I'm surprised as word doesn't have it as its quite useful. It's really nice when I'm doing citations as most titles have some annoying color / font size.
I think there were a couple other programs that worked with it but I forget them! I've had quite a lot of success though as It seems like most of the programs I use respect it.
Word just has you press Ctrl+V to paste the text, and then Ctrl again to select the type of formatting you want to paste it with. It's not as elegant as Ctrl+Shift+V, but it works.
> I can't tell how long the author has spent on Windows
About 3 1\2 months so far. I tried to be fair - but my article is not as comprehensive as your series!
I've read some of your series and I didn't see anything, but you don't happen to know if you can get primary selection middle click paste on Windows? That's the only thing so far that I've got no kind of solution to at all.
The Microsoft Mouse and Keyboard Center (optional install) supports remapping the middle button to paste text, but I don't know if that works for arbitrary keyboards and mice. (I have a Sculpt keyboard.)
Also, I had forgotten about the common use of the middle button for pasting as I have not used Linux desktops for a while. Maybe I should remap this now :)
This worked for me in Windows XP and 7, but no idea if it still works in Windows 10 since it hasn't been updated since 2005: http://fy.chalmers.se/~appro/nt/TXMouse/
Mostly the same experience having had 10+ years on Mac before a switch to Windows. Powertoys[0] are great although some are slow (especially the one acting like Mac's Spotlight). UI is different but not a bad experience once you've used it for a couple weeks. I didn't see any mention of file explorers (i.e. Explorer vs Finder) in your articles but it's fascinating how those two concepts are the same thing yet so different in their strengths and weaknesses - and to be honest, my explorer experience improved once I started using QTTabbar[1] to customize everything to my liking.
I'm surprised your WSL article is so short, because WSL2 is so incredibly convenient for Linux and keeps on improving steadily.
I've been able to set up and practice on virtual kubernetes cluster using KinD[2] (Kubernetes in Docker) thanks to the seamless integration of Docker for Windows into the WSL subsystem. VSCode can tap into Linux VMs with pretty much no delays too. Shutting down the whole thing to free up resources takes one line in Powershell and happens within a few seconds. The terminal app despite having a bit of a clunky UI is highly configurable and just works, etc.
There are things that scare me about Windows though, for example the mandatory real-time "defender" file scanning that you have to disable either manually at every boot or disable entirely through registry thus losing the virus scanning functionality. The amount of clunky Cortana stuff that really took a while to remove. The store app that feels flimsy, the games dependency on Xbox apps and subsystems which can lead to annoying bugs, and certain UI delays that make the system sometimes feel not so fast compared to the tricks Macs can pull to make you feel at ease. Consequently I'm not very likely to touch Windows 11 as Microsoft is seemingly trying to enforce more things in configurations and UI.
Yeah, I'm also concerned about some of the things you mention, as I described in the finale. But about Defender, it cannot be disabled at all? I didn't know that. I have just whitelisted the few directories where I do builds to keep things speedy...
Since you mentioned that the tool that act's like Mac's Spotlight was very slow. I have found two better alternative which works wonders:
1. FluentSearch: https://www.fluentsearch.net/. I highly recommend trying this out. It's magically and amazing, and I think this is the closest a tool has got to Spotlight on windows and also has amazing amounts of customizability. I recommend using Everything as the Search Provider, which is tried and tested solution for searching on windows.
2. Keypirinha: https://keypirinha.com/. This is another amazing tool. I believe it's would be a bit faster compared to FluentSearch with my initial tryout, but it is customized using a text file.
The Spotlight-esque tool in PowerToys - PowerToys Run - is unbelieeeeeeeevably slow compared to other things I've used. I've been trying it for a couple months now and it feels really clunky and awkward. Previously I was using the excellent (and open source) Launchy[0] which I simply loved but it hasn't been updated for a while and isn't so great on high DPI monitors and has a few quirks (there are some forks which are more recently updated).
I know there are other alternatives that are apparently much better (another poster mentioned Keypirinha and Fluent Search, both of which look great but not OSS), but I really hope they keep tweaking PowerToys Run to try to make it a little nicer.
Yeah from reading the article that's the impression I'm left with is someone who is just baffled by new things and generally not very good at computery stuff. /s
I learned a lot of Windows tricks from this one article written by someone who supposedly hasn't spent enough "effort getting adjusted".
I just realized I've been using windows for 30 years... wow!
The main problem here is that this is a work machine. Generally you can't do what ever you want on those. I imagine Linux is harder to lock down in a corp environment and the complaints are rooted in that notion. WSL fixes many issues, I don't think I'd be spending much time in power shell if I had the option to use WSL.
It was a pretty big change when our (already outdated at that time) lab in college scrapped the PDP11-44 and replaced it with 20 Windows 3.0 machines and 10 Macs.
Been using Linux since I picked up a Yggdrasil CD in 1993.
Sorry to hear you can't use WSL ... it's great IMO.
I use Ubuntu & Mint as my daily driver. I have relegated Windows to a VM (Windows 8.1) and need it for iTunes (which has no Linux alternative). I also have an old version of Photoshop installed in the VM which I use a lot. I don't connect the VM to the Internet for security (what if I get a rogue .DOCX or Excel macro script trying to download malware?).
The points about non-composable software and paths is why I try to keep all of my development work when using Windows relegated to WSL2. I have no interest in dealing with Windows paths and figuring out syntax for PowerShell when I will never actually interact with a Windows Server in my life.
This article just comes across in bad taste, or lacking a bit of self awareness. Linux is not really a viable alternative for most mainstream non technical users.
I really really don't see how you can take holier than thou view of installing software on Windows vs Linux when it seems half the packages I install on Linux never even start!
Windows is built around legacy support. They're spinning a lot of plates, which is why it feels and looks the way it does to some extent.
> Linux on the other hand is just better for people who don't value their time as much and are happy to tinker with things at a very low level
You criticize the author for lacking self awareness, but then turn around and do the same.
Many linux users (myself included) do not spend time 'tinkering'. I've had the same experience as the author. I've used linux almost exclusively since around 2000 and the few times I have to use windows, I'm completely stuck. It takes forever to get things done. Just helping my parents out with simple things like 'move these files', 'rename these photos', etc take hours and hours of work, whereas on linux it's like a minute.
> Linux is not really a viable alternative for most mainstream non technical users.
Perhaps that's true, but technical users are ... still users.
> They're spinning a lot of plates, which is why it feels and looks the way it does to some extent.
That's great, and while it may excuse their poor operating system, it doesn't suddenly make it a great OS.
If it's more complicated than 'move this one file from folder A to folder B' it gets very complicated very fast.
On linux, the 'normal' way to move files is using the terminal using 'mv'. On Windows, the terminal is available, but the main interface is the UI. It's easy to move one file. It's even easy to move several files 'next to' each other in the window. It's not easy to move files matching a particular name, or across multiple folders.
So usually what happens is I have to find (perhaps even purchase) a purpose-built utility to do exactly what I want. Or, sit there and move files. Like ctrl+click on them (that interface is terrible by the way, because one click makes the entire selection go away... who thought that up?) and then move them. What other way is there without delving into automation? Windows Explorer cannot even do the most basic selection of 'select all files with NNN in the name'. It's completely useless for anything but the most silly of operations.
Also, if you have to do actual work moving files between different filesystems or across network filesystems, it becomes even worse. You have to find something compatible with Windows, install it. It's probably some ad-containing shareware non-sense, so you pay for the license so you don't get bombarded with ads, a browser toolbar, and whatever other nonsense the MSI decided to install. Then, after about 30 minutes of downloading, installing and endless clicking on the 'do you want to allow this software to do blah' (which I never really read and click by default), it may or may not work.
On linux, it's just mount.
I don't really get the complaints about linux being hard to use. Different sure. But if you're used to it; if you grew up with it, it's mind-numbingly easy.
>On linux, the 'normal' way to move files is using the terminal using 'mv'.
And that's exactly where you loose every average user when trying to convince them to switch from Windows to Linux. I work with Linux every day too but the command line elitism needs to stop.
>if you have to do actual work moving files between different filesystems or across network filesystems
This is the classic HN paradox where your 'actual work', differs from everyone else's 'actual work'.
>Like ctrl+click on them (that interface is terrible by the way, because one click makes the entire selection go away... who thought that up?
In Explorer go to:
View -> Show -> Item checkboxes
>Windows Explorer cannot even do the most basic selection of 'select all files with NNN in the name'. It's completely useless for anything but the most silly of operations.
Type verbatim in the Explorer top-right search-bar :
*NNN*
Then Ctrl + A, and hey presto, all files containing NNN in your current directory are selected.
The way I see it, the issue here is that you don't know how to use Explorer features, but instead of looking it up and learning how to use it, you're pushing the narrative that somehow it's Explorer's fault for you not bothering to look up such solutions. It' not like you were born with the Linux command line in your head. You had to take the time to learn
all those commands and practice. Same with Windows and MacOS and other OS. You need to re-learn certain mechanics whenever you switch OS and it's not the OS's fault you refuse to do that and choose to remain stuck wanting everything to work the Linux way.
>moving files between different filesystems or across network filesystems, it becomes even worse. You have to find something compatible with Windows, install it.
For which file systems do you have to do that? Windows works out of the box with the storage of any consumer device or external mass storage device sold today and in the past 20+ years, even iPhones.
The way I see it from your arguments, I only get that Windows is the wrong OS for you and your particular use cases, which is fair, but that's no argument that it's a bad OS in general for the avenge joe, as you keep moving the goals posts from copying and renaming files to linux power user activities, which you consider 'actual work'.
> And that's exactly where you loose every average user when trying to convince them to switch from Windows to Linux. I work with Linux every day too but the command line elitism needs to stop.
I have made no argument that everyone needs to use the CLI. I like it, and it is a fair criticism of Windows to say that it makes things harder by not having it. That criticism rings true for me and many others. Some other people with different experiences probably think CLI is hard. That's fine. To each their own.
The comment I responded to accused the author of being disingenous. I pointed out that (1) technical users are still users and (2) there are things that if you're used to a unix shell are simply an absolute pain to do on windows.
> The way I see it, the issue here is that you don't know how to use Explorer features, but instead of looking it up and learning how to use it, you're pushing the narrative that somehow it's Explorer's fault for you not bothering to look up such solutions. It' not like you were born with the Linux command line in your head. You had to take the time to learn all those commands and practice. Same with Windows and MacOS and other OS. You need to re-learn certain mechanics whenever you switch OS and it's not the OS's fault you refuse to do that and choose to remain stuck wanting everything to work the Linux way.
> It's even easy to move several files 'next to' each other in the window. It's not easy to move files matching a particular name, or across multiple folders.
This is nonsense. Just embrace PowerShell.
gci | where name -match $regex | move-item $destination
Instead of learning a young, new language, I could just boot into Linux and used an established operating system?
I don't understand this mentality of 'Windows must be better'. PowerShell is alright, but as the article pointed out, the Windows terminal experience is terrible. Even the OG terminal interface on linux is better (supports copy paste with mouse for one thing).
For really casual users (who don't really need much beyond web browsing for example), Linux is actually often a lot better than windows. It's more consistent and changes less often.
> Linux is not really a viable alternative for most mainstream non technical users.
I would dare say that's the target audience for which Linux works best, because their main usecase is to fire up a web browser. Just like a chromebook would fit their needs.
Lack of funding/alternatives/support/or interest in free/OSS software make it a hard switch to professionals doing video, photo, music, CAD, etc. work.
It's a great desktop for power users, developers and tinkerers.
Thanks to Valve investment in the platform gaming support on Linux is excellent, while not being the main target of developers. Excellent, in my opinion, cause I don't play AAA games that need ~rootkits~ kernel-level anticheat software, thus native+proton got me covered.
Queue Linus Tech Tips videos with them having issues on Linux.
Not all anticheat enabled games[1]. Which is pretty impressive when you consider anticheat has only been working in Proton for a couple of months officially.
Once we see how well the Steam Deck does I think we'll have a lot more companies willing to support Linux/Proton if the number are there.
Both Windows and OS X have become utterly unreliable for my professional and increasingly personal use.
Here's the smell test:
If I stop working on something and go to the shop, or to sleep, or say "It's 8pm on Friday, I can pick this back up on Monday", can I reliably walk away and have my stuff (apps, sessions, etc.) where I left it when I come back?
Not. A. Hope.
I've done all the regedit hacks, the group policy changes, the mouse jiggler, but it's never enough.
Your computer shouldn't fight you. Homeservers have uptimes measured in weeks or months, that's what I need my desktop to be like.
Yeah, same here. There’s been several occasions where I’ve left both desktop and laptop macs sleeping for weeks and they sprang back to life right where I left them with no problems.
MacOS does better, but it still does the "restart by default if an update appears" usually, and it is pretty darn good about opening everything where you had it, but it's not perfect by a long shot.
Your company-provided Mac is being managed by your company - they have the ability to force updates and re-boots on you. If this were your personal Mac then you would not have enabled automatic updates. The fact that companies can manage their fleet of Macs in this manner is why they use Macs and not Linux. So no, Linux is not miles ahead of Windows or Mac OS when looking at managing a fleet of company-owned laptops and desktops.
BTW - I have a company-owned and managed Mac and my own personal Mac. World of difference in experience between the two. My company forces updates on a frequent basis, and not just to Mac OS. There's a lot of software they manage and license on the machine and force updates.
MacOS updates are ridiculous. Doing a point update (like 12.1 to 12.2) on my 2018 MBP would literally take no joke over 20 minutes. In that time I can completely reinstall Ubuntu and have already set basically everything up.
Oh, it’ll open everything alright. Perhaps it’s asking too much, but could macOS open everything in the correct virtual desktop so that I don’t have to spend five minutes after a restart dragging-and-dropping windows?
It’s odd that it remembers that there were four virtual desktops, but then forgets which window goes where. And I’d swear that it remembers some, but the majority get dumped into Desktop1. Not the end of the world, and I don’t restart all that often, but it’s enough to make me hesitate come update time (“do I really want to be rearranging my desktops right now?”)
Yes this seems like a total crapshoot. I have an application that always lives on my second monitor, and it’s seemingly completely random if it will start there or not. Just like this for a decade!
The uptime of my Linux machine (general server/media machine) is… A few months at least. Probably half a year at this stage.
The Mac (main work machine) has an uptime of at least 1-2 weeks.
The Windows (gaming) machine. Haha, no. Turn off in the evening, start up in the morning. Loads Steam UI in full screen, and nothing else. Given its purpose, I feel a mixture of love and loathing towards it.
So, my personal experience agrees with yours, with the exception of MacOS. It'll definitely be where I left it.
True nirvana for me would be to have a functioning Linux desktop, with which I can send a startup command to a windows PC when I want to run some Windows-only games, that also switches my monitor input and peripherals.
Instead of dual-booting, I could give Windows a 1tb SSD that it thinks it owns, and let it live on in its little bubble.
That might be the ticket for me, thanks! I don't have a spare license key (or high-seas version) for Windows, but if I can get a game working with Proton, then I can at least try running some Proton-supported game within that tool on a Linux desktop.
Not yet, since my 'new pc' idea is shelved for at least another year or so, but that sounds like it could be a great help if Steam and Proton don't make things work out of the box. Thanks!
I find this funny because this feels like the opposite of my experience: my Linux laptop, Windows laptop, and Windows desktop usually have an uptime of a month+ with a sleep and resume schedule. Mac on the other hand is the one that is most unreliable and most flakey for me. I have to hard reset it regularly after it becomes completely unusable. At least when I am deciding to restart Windows/Linux it's because I want to pick up an update instead of it just being unusable.
My Mac laptops typically have uptimes of months (85 days, currently). However, I am still on Mojave, and I do have 32 GB of RAM. I do routinely encounter two problems. When switching desktops while have full-screen video the cursor frequently disappears; the solution is to move up a ways until the cursor is surely at the menubar and then click, which will restore the cursor to visibility. The other problem is that audio occasionally stops working (one symptom is that pressing play seems to work but the play time never advances, and of course there is no sound). The solution here is `sudo killall -9 coreaudiod`.
My Windows NUC, on the other other hand, seems to reboot itself within a week, but usually is unusable long before that because it won't wake the monitor up after sleep. And even though I disabled sleep, it still seems to not be able to wake the monitor up.
You don't need coreutils on Windows if you just embrace PowerShell. It has everything you need built in. Grep, wget, curl, jq, you name it and PowerShell already has it.
For environment variables you only have to set them via the environment variable:
The whole multiple design languages in the UI is insane and I can't believe they didn't fix it by Windows 11... rather they're poking at it slowly / poorly.
But aside from that Windows is fine for me... I don't find there's anything I can't do easily.
"I am a software & web developer - and Linux is a toolbox, full of highly polished tools, crafted over decades by software developers, for software developers. Windows is… not that. It’s a commercial OS, aimed at users of Word, Excel & Outlook, pretty much. You can feel this difference all the time that you’re using it - it pervades everything."
Isn't this just familiarity?
When I use Linux I hardly imagine it to be some magic developer playland, at least not without a lot of my own work put into it to make it so... just like my experience in Windows.
> The whole multiple design languages in the UI is insane and I can't believe they didn't fix it by Windows 11... rather they're poking at it slowly / poorly.
That's because MS's basic selling point is that nothing gets removed. I mean, obviously over time some things do get removed, but they're deprecation timeline is measured in decades.
Some of the things they deprecated in Vista they notified people they were going to deprecate when they released the new versions at the launch of XP. That's how long they gave people to shift over.
I think the poking / changes they're doing in Windows 11 indicates that they are happy to change things. But they're just really bad at it / should have done it all or not at all until they were ready.
They seem to have finally picked some UI overlords to make decisions, but sadly they're bad decisions... and doing it bit by bit.
Are they actually updating some of the old UI this time? Usually they just add a new version of some UI, with less features than the original, so you often have to dig back through layers of Windows versions to find the option you want.
I feel like an archeologist, digging through a Win10 setting panel, to get to a Win7 style, that links down to an XP style dialog where I can actually change what I want.
Usually, in the 'modern' panels, either scroll to the bottom or look for 'related settings' on the far right and go from there.
I am most familiar with the sound panel, as I keep having to tweak my inputs and outputs cause windows likes to forget I don't want sound coming out of the speakers, for example.
Right click on the volume widget in the tray next to the clock -> sound settings -> related settings pane, "Sound Control Panel". This gets you the tried and true sound control panel we know and love.
You can also short circuit this, by selecting "sounds" from the right click menu on the volume widget, as this brings you to the same XP era sound control panel, just on the sounds tab rather than playback or recording. Its all such a mess.
At least from what I've seen I get the feeling they're trying to go towards a unified UI / eliminate as much of the X types of UI... sorta. Unfortunately it doesn't seem like they're making better choices.
I've found the new version of WSL plus the Windows Terminal pretty good. I have a small side project using Docker/Docker Compose and it was pretty easy to get WSL to talk to Docker for Windows just as if I were using my work Mac using Docker for Mac.
There's still all of the numerous headaches of Windows, but everything has its own headaches. My work Mac for example, loses its monitor arrangement for my dual monitors about once every other day, so much so that I have a shell script to fix it.
Yeah, I was surprised that even with Windows 11, we still have some subsystems using the old interface. It is better than it was (Windows 8... having to look in multiple places to change various settings, yuck), but still far from consistent. I do wonder why they didn't (couldn't?) update everything to the latest standard by now.
BTW, you can theoretically set "active hours" for Windows, so that updates and such don't bother you so much. This is far better than it was, where Windows would basically say "I'm going to restart, you have 5 minutes to save your work". [1]
If you need to run X apps remotely, there are various X servers you can get. I've been using X410 with PuTTY successfully, though most of the time I'm in WSL instead.
Also, since you did skip the last 15 years, you have missed the "joy" of UAC prompts with Windows Vista, so you should count yourself lucky there.
[1] OK, it wasn't quite _that_ bad. But it was kind of bad.
> I do wonder why they didn't (couldn't?) update everything to the latest standard by now.
Many people has been asking this same question on this thread. The answer is simple: backwards compatibility. That begets tough trade-off decisions. Otherwise, no product designer loves inconsistency.
The other alternatives are either to never innovate, or to keep support timeframes short.
573 comments
[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 367 ms ] threadThis is my first time using Windows after a 15-year break. This is how it's been going.
This is exactly my reaction: I don't understand how people can be Ok with this. I remember seeing this more than ten years ago already: you demand your computer to shut down (maybe you're done with your work, and you need to catch a train, and your laptop needs to shut down _right now_) and it replies with a command: "Do not shut down the computer". WHAT? Why is my computer not doing what I ask it to do? I don't think it's healthy to tolerate this kind of behavior.
Found a trick where you basically remove windows access rights to wuauclt.exe and wuaueng.dll, causing an error code 5 whenever it tries to run its update service.. so far its been stable. Not sure if this would work for other versions.
I wish CAD software companies would support linux, I've tried FreeCAD and whatnot, but they're nothing like Fusion360.
I've an architect friend who wanted to ditch Windows - except for his cad software - which we run in a VM on the home server so can access anywhere.
beos did
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UiGnpmwAJk
X11 supports this by allowing programs to "swallow" each other - the XEmbed protocol as well as normal IPC can be used for communication between them. Older desktop environments and window managers (CDE, FVWM, etc) can use this to compose programs. Some minimalistic window managers rely on this using single-purpose tools like dmenu.
BeOS, as mentioned elsewhere also has a very limited form of OLE-like functionality.
I'm sure there are others but TBH i think MS came closest, but they abandoned the entire idea after they decided to focus on .NET. FWIW the underlying tech is still there and in theory such QB-like-VB-lite app could be made but nothing really exposes reusable controls anymore so it'd be pointless. After all having the tech and ability is only half the battle at most, you also need applications to support it and nowadays everything GUI is made to be cross platform agnostic so any such solution would need to work everywhere there is a monitor, a keyboard and a mouse - not impossible but much harder nowadays than when computers were synonymous with Windows.
I mostly use Macs for work now, and while they do a pretty good job of exposing a Unix environment, they've been getting steadily worse over the past couple of years. I've had so many problems with recent critical OS patches that I'm debating convincing my employer to let me have a Linux machine, not that I would ever recommend that for a company who wants their employees to be productive.
That being said I'm actually really impressed at how good Linux on the Desktop is right now. I've got my whole family running KDE on NixOS and it's basically flawless.
Also, any good guides for targeting Windows APIs for Linux programmers?
That's a little odd to read considering you've got your whole family on it. I could imagine a lot of work going into internal software for the most part, are there other reasons you'd advise against it these days?
Could you just install Linux on your mac? That way you could also dual boot in case you need macOS on occasion.
My understanding is that "everything works out of the box" is still restricted to very specific products line when it comes to laptops and linux. And that the new Apple Silicon macbooks might actually make this situation a lot better because most of the hardware is Apple's and they seems to keep a more or less stable binary interface between hardware components even across hardware generations (presumably for their own benefit when writing their own firmware). So while the support isn't there yet (well, it's in Alpha), once it is there we might expect Apple laptops to have some of the best linux support going forwards.
* The one exception was when I tried to buy an ARM laptop shortly after all the news about Spectre/Meltdown came out and I was frustrated with Intel's PR response to it. I never did actually figure out how to install Linux on it due to the bootloader being locked down, but that's either my own fault or maybe the manufacturer's and certainly not Linux's.
I've used desktop Linux for a long time, and it's really, really good now. I cannot even remember the last time something didn't just work out of the box(probably my laser printer).
Still working on the last part. Parents buy and use tax software each year for some odd reason, and I don't feel like even trying to navigate through WINE.
As someone who has moved to Linux from MacOS (Gnome 42, Debian Bookworm), it has been a near seamless transition.
I expected it to consume a lot of time in overhead maintaining it - but it hasn't. It has been great so far. MacOS is still more ergonomic in a lot of ways by comparison to Gnome, but Gnome 4x has come a long way in the last few months.
At this rate it, by the end of the year I would think it the best desktop environment offered by any platform.
all you people here surprise me, I consider windows + wsl a better development environment and more nix like than osx. but maybe I'm just hurt in the head and missing something...
Mac OS is not just Unix-like, it is a certified Unix-compliant operating system.^1
Apple prefers to keep this fact far away from the average mac consumer, but if you want to use them, the Unix/BSD underpinnings are right there. There are plenty of things to criticize about MacOS, but not being Unix-like is not one of them.
[1]: https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/brand3678.htm
I feel like there's no integration between the macOS UI stuff and the Unix underpinnings.
I agree that it's annoying how much apple tries to hide the Unix nature of the OS. I have no idea why they hide the home folder from Finder by default, it's on my list of "things to change immediately" when I do a fresh Mac install/setup, as well as things like installing newer versions of Bash, Vim, etc (via Homebrew). But overall I think the pros of the OS vastly outweigh the cons. For the most part, all of the things I don't like about the OS can be turned off or tuned. And I value how things work under the hood too much to give that up.
I will admit I have never tried WSL - because I've never had a need to. I've considered trying it, but then I just tell myself I'd rather just use Linux.
Open finder then cmd-shift-h or cmd-shift-g, "~"
Both of these work right out of the box, what would you rather macOS do to be easier?
Put Home on the sidebar by default like Thunar, Nautilus, Dolphin, Caja, earlier versions of Mac OS X...
I just need control, alt, and a meta button ("Windows" button).
What is this option and command nonsense?
Funnily enough, the command key and many of those popular shortcuts (eg cut copy paste) predates windows by several years. The story goes that windows wanted to use the same shortcuts, but PC keyboards lacked a command key - so they used control instead. Since windows was backwards compatible with lots of hardware, they couldn't require a key that didn't exist on most keyboards.
Prior to that of course, Control has a long history of interacting with command-line based applications in Unix/family (eg Ctrl-C to cancel a running CLI app). Of course those same things still work in MacOS like they did in the older Unixes.
I'm used to switching between Mac and PC layouts every day, but I personally prefer the Mac keyboard layout. Command is easier to press with a thumb compared to Ctrl, which requires the pinkie. Option allows you to input special characters with far more ease compared to any PC operating system (e.g Opt + Shift + - for an em-dash compared to some crazy incantation on Windows). Control is still available as an additional modifier if you want it.
A great side-effect of using Cmd as the primary modifier is that shortcuts inside your terminal become simplified. E.g Cmd + C to copy rather than Ctrl + Shift + C, or Cmd + T to open a new tab rather than Ctrl + Shift + T.
In an ideal world, Windows would switch to using the Win key as its primary modifier instead of Ctrl. That would make life so much simpler.
From 15 years ago!
> all of your favorite *nix commands will be available
Except that they are the BSD variants, not the GNU ones.
Does BSD varient vs GNU varient matter when we're considering if something is unix-like? No one would say that the BSD distributions are not Unix derivatives. As they say, "GNUs Not Unix..."
But probably WSL is you best bet for a saner environment.
https://github.com/msys2/msys2-runtime
Also, it's not like Windows has no upsides to it. Relatively recently, I bought a laptop that came with Windows 10 (as they often do), and I noticed that it boots up pretty quickly to login screen; I think a fair bit faster than it takes for another OS to boot up to just the full-disk encryption prompt. It's certainly not enough to make me consider using Windows, but it's not nothing, either.
For me, personally, the answer is that I feel Windows provides a better desktop experience, but Linux provides a better command-line experience.
For more opinions on that topic, see https://www.reddit.com/r/bashonubuntuonwindows/comments/s0m8...
Unfortunately it still leaves you with a terrible terminal emulator. IDK if you can use MSYS2 with "Windows Terminal", though. I haven't bothered to try.
It did not. All it did was tell OS/2 users about the world of Windows software. When Microsoft finally launched a slightly less horrid version of Windows most users migrated to it, leaving OS/2 but a footnote in history where it concerns desktop use.
Enter the current situation: Windows is a horrid mess, it consists of layers of plaster upon plaster upon jury-rigged interfaces built on quicksand. For those who are used to the way things work on Linux it feels like an enormous step back, like having leaden shoes and gloves fitted for no good reason. This problem is supposedly "solved" by the addition of WSL which enables you to run Linux applications in Windows. It runs most Linux applications quite well even though performance is lacking in many ways. Does this solve Windows' problems, though?
It's about the most biased thing I've ever read. He even lists some advantages (it doesn't have two different copy/paste buffers) as a disadvantage.
What happened to:
* Hardware all works mostly without issue.
* Software is easy to install even if it isn't in the official store (e.g. apt).
* Power management (sleep etc.) works reliably.
* Settings are almost all GUI-accessible. You rarely have to fiddle on the command line etc.
Yes, installing third party and closed source software is much easier on Windows and there is much more of it to chose from. This is in fact my main reason for using Windows. However if you're a developer and your entire job can be done using open source dev tools then this doesn't matter.
Power management is better on Windows, but I wouldn't say it works "reliably". I've pulled many a hot, dead laptop from my backpack after it decided to wake up and kill itself after I thought it had gone to sleep. Apple is the only company that really be said to have solved this in my opinion.
Settings being GUI-accessible is at best questionable advantage. It's nice for people who don't want to use the command line and don't see its point, but if you're used to and comfortable with the command line (like the author seems to be) it is far from a selling point. Plus just because the setting exists in GUI, that doesn't in any way solve the problem of actually locating where and how the set that setting.
You can install any .deb package not in the "official store" simply by typing: `dpkg -i package.deb`.
This has essentially never failed in my decade+ of using Debian-based Linux OSes.
It's pretty dang easy to install anything nowadays.
Trying to get something written using new, say, C++ runtime libraries shipped as a binary working on even a two year old Linux distro is a struggle in itself, meanwhile on Windows, the VC CRT bundled with VS2022 with C++22 support even runs fine as a bundled portable .dll down to Windows 7 (2009) and probably even before.
Running modern libstdc++ (as a binary, mind you) on an otherwise 2009 distro on the other hand - unlikely. Even more so if you stray out of the GNU libc option, or want to deal with libc++ for some reason (such as cross-platform parity, as it is better behaved on Windows/Mac than libstdc++), or any other edge cases out of the usual /lib, especially for GUI apps or worse, GPU apps.
* Every piece of hardware has worked flawlessly: Ultrawide monitor, printer, wireless keyboard and mouse, Bluetooth mouse, Bluetooth headset, usb drives.
* I am able to install most things I want using the software installer GUI or using command line apt, but sometimes I download a deb file directly, to install something that is not in apt. Other times I just download the executable and I am done (kubectl for example).
* Never had a problem with sleep, it works fine for me every time, and I use it daily.
* Settings are GUI accessible. It would be rare to be required to do something command line. I do a lot of command line work for development, but it is not really needed just to configure the OS or desktop environment.
> * Power management (sleep etc.) works reliably.
Man, I don't know. I just got a new HP work laptop at the end of last year. Some HP "enterprise" model, nothing fancy, which only officially supports Windows. It came preloaded with win 10 pro, even though "HP recommends Windows 11". Whatever. (The pc was manufactured in November 2021, so Win11 was already out).
When I turn it on, my first impression was "damn, that's a dim screen". Even turned all the way up, with auto-dim disabled, it would still be just "meh". I rebooted in the BIOS, and it burned my eyes off.
Install Linux: I get the full brightness. Brightness keys work out of the box, light sensor, sound / mic mute leds light up as needed, Wi-Fi, BT, IR camera, fingerprint reader, everything just works.
I figure I should install a Win 11, just in case (I daily drive Linux, but work for a windows shop). What a freaking shitshow. Mostly nothing works out of the box. No brightness keys, not brightness sensor, no volume keys, the touchpad is barely usable. I have to go through multiple Windows update reboots (on a freshly created Windows install USB stick), and then start going through all the HP drivers, complete with reboots. For some reason, after the updates, the USB Ethernet adapter (from HP) doesn't work reliably anymore. And after all this song and dance, there's some USB controller that has an exclamation mark in device manager, and the webcam isn't detected. "Update the driver" doesn't find anything. There's also some weird lag with the audio LEDs. It has no idea there's an ambient light sensor. And if I tell it to sleep, it'll go to sleep and wake up after a while for no reason ("Wake up for updates" is of course disabled).
> * Settings are almost all GUI-accessible. You rarely have to fiddle on the command line etc.
But you have to fiddle with the registry. I wouldn't say that's that much better. Also, bonus points for whatever settings you do being undone on an update.
* Hardware mostly works, using the manufacture's drivers and all their bundled bloatware.
* The official store is so bad that you have to go get software a different way.
* Sleep I'll grant with the caveat that it's also mostly flawless on Linux these days so that's not really an advantage.
* Settings are all in GUIs. Want to script your configuration? Good luck!
I gather from this that you either have not read many things in your life, or you are yourself an outlier. I found it to be completely unbiased, just reporting the facts of what it is like to use Windows after having become accustomed to Linux.
> Hardware all works mostly without issue.
I have not had a hardware issue with Linux in almost twenty years.
> Software is easy to install even if it isn't in the official store (e.g. apt).
./configure && make && sudo make install is pretty damn easy to do.
> Power management (sleep etc.) works reliably.
A fair point, although it has gotten tremendously better. One of my laptops has never had a single sleep/suspend issue, and the other has an issue every several months (which is still too frequent).
> Settings are almost all GUI-accessible. You rarely have to fiddle on the command line etc.
I want all settings to be in text files, period, neither the command line nor a GUI. Just let me edit the settings!
I guess WSL is similar but still painful/impossible to install if you don't have BIOS access for enabling CPU virtualization.
For a more positive spin, I'll leave here my own review of Windows after being off the platform for 25 years, spending 15 of those on macOS, and then spending the last year primarily on Windows. TL;DR: I'm quite happy with the switch, but obviously there are many things that could be different/better and some of the issues that the OP highlights are valid.
The intro and index: https://jmmv.dev/2022/03/a-year-on-windows-intro.html
[edit: wording]
As a dev/data scientist/netflix/websurfer/photo-sorter/privacy-aware dude, well, my Linux box just rocks and Windows is not fun (although it does the job).
I will say in windows defense that the linux kernel seems to need updates almost every week requiring a reboot.
I'm kinda surprised it hasn't happened with all the mutual love (eg Ubuntu being the poster child for WSL)
To be fair, it doesn't bug me when I use stumpwm instead of the default WM, but the default WM is otherwise quite nice for most things.
Even at it's worst, the worst distro with the worst default behavior, it's still nothing close to as inconsiderate as Windows.
I don't understand the complaint.
We have some Windows 95-era crap that's still there because it controls stuff that would cost millions to replace and the vendor is long out of business. But certainly nobody is "logging into it" as a side note. They're physically and logically isolated. You can do it if the risks are otherwise controlled but it should be the last resort and it's extremely impractical. You basically need a situation where every single network packet allowed to go in or out is dissected and validated. And I don't just mean at the protocol level.
I agree.
Some of the fixes for his complaints are effectively customizations, not unlike the customizations I'd make in Linux. I'm not sure some of these differences are really that different.
Mostly these things are familiarity, using Windows just boils my blood though, it feels so hostile to me,
Buying and installing Minecraft client on Linux was super easy and straight forward (I did that pre-MS), buying and installing on MS Windows was a total trauma, the account process was so convoluted. Their greed just wrecks all their awesomeness.
+1
But as you well said, respecting images, tables and the like is one thing. The other is keeping fonts.
Anyhow... so many options that a single feature doesn't fit all. The problem with Windows is the lack of a uniform solution to paste without formatting (my complaint) as opposed to macOS.
Oh, to clarify: I meant: "if you're copying text along with images, you probably want to keep the text formatting [fonts etc.] too, whereas if you're only copying text, you probably don't want the formatting either." It's not a perfect heuristic by any means, but I think it'd be better than the current situation.
You have some formatted text (maybe some bold or italic in a line) on a webpage, you want to copy it into an email (lets set aside the argument that email should be text only).
I think there were a couple other programs that worked with it but I forget them! I've had quite a lot of success though as It seems like most of the programs I use respect it.
About 3 1\2 months so far. I tried to be fair - but my article is not as comprehensive as your series!
I've read some of your series and I didn't see anything, but you don't happen to know if you can get primary selection middle click paste on Windows? That's the only thing so far that I've got no kind of solution to at all.
Also, I had forgotten about the common use of the middle button for pasting as I have not used Linux desktops for a while. Maybe I should remap this now :)
I'm surprised your WSL article is so short, because WSL2 is so incredibly convenient for Linux and keeps on improving steadily. I've been able to set up and practice on virtual kubernetes cluster using KinD[2] (Kubernetes in Docker) thanks to the seamless integration of Docker for Windows into the WSL subsystem. VSCode can tap into Linux VMs with pretty much no delays too. Shutting down the whole thing to free up resources takes one line in Powershell and happens within a few seconds. The terminal app despite having a bit of a clunky UI is highly configurable and just works, etc.
There are things that scare me about Windows though, for example the mandatory real-time "defender" file scanning that you have to disable either manually at every boot or disable entirely through registry thus losing the virus scanning functionality. The amount of clunky Cortana stuff that really took a while to remove. The store app that feels flimsy, the games dependency on Xbox apps and subsystems which can lead to annoying bugs, and certain UI delays that make the system sometimes feel not so fast compared to the tricks Macs can pull to make you feel at ease. Consequently I'm not very likely to touch Windows 11 as Microsoft is seemingly trying to enforce more things in configurations and UI.
[0] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/
[1] https://github.com/indiff/qttabbar
[2] https://kubernetes.io/blog/2020/05/21/wsl-docker-kubernetes-...
Yeah, I'm also concerned about some of the things you mention, as I described in the finale. But about Defender, it cannot be disabled at all? I didn't know that. I have just whitelisted the few directories where I do builds to keep things speedy...
Thanks for reading.
1. FluentSearch: https://www.fluentsearch.net/. I highly recommend trying this out. It's magically and amazing, and I think this is the closest a tool has got to Spotlight on windows and also has amazing amounts of customizability. I recommend using Everything as the Search Provider, which is tried and tested solution for searching on windows.
2. Keypirinha: https://keypirinha.com/. This is another amazing tool. I believe it's would be a bit faster compared to FluentSearch with my initial tryout, but it is customized using a text file.
I know there are other alternatives that are apparently much better (another poster mentioned Keypirinha and Fluent Search, both of which look great but not OSS), but I really hope they keep tweaking PowerToys Run to try to make it a little nicer.
0. https://www.launchy.net/
I learned a lot of Windows tricks from this one article written by someone who supposedly hasn't spent enough "effort getting adjusted".
The main problem here is that this is a work machine. Generally you can't do what ever you want on those. I imagine Linux is harder to lock down in a corp environment and the complaints are rooted in that notion. WSL fixes many issues, I don't think I'd be spending much time in power shell if I had the option to use WSL.
It was a pretty big change when our (already outdated at that time) lab in college scrapped the PDP11-44 and replaced it with 20 Windows 3.0 machines and 10 Macs.
Been using Linux since I picked up a Yggdrasil CD in 1993.
Sorry to hear you can't use WSL ... it's great IMO.
Your powershell profile script path is also available using `$Profile`. You can access a clipboard history by pressing Win + V.
I really really don't see how you can take holier than thou view of installing software on Windows vs Linux when it seems half the packages I install on Linux never even start!
Windows is built around legacy support. They're spinning a lot of plates, which is why it feels and looks the way it does to some extent.
You criticize the author for lacking self awareness, but then turn around and do the same.
Many linux users (myself included) do not spend time 'tinkering'. I've had the same experience as the author. I've used linux almost exclusively since around 2000 and the few times I have to use windows, I'm completely stuck. It takes forever to get things done. Just helping my parents out with simple things like 'move these files', 'rename these photos', etc take hours and hours of work, whereas on linux it's like a minute.
> Linux is not really a viable alternative for most mainstream non technical users.
Perhaps that's true, but technical users are ... still users.
> They're spinning a lot of plates, which is why it feels and looks the way it does to some extent.
That's great, and while it may excuse their poor operating system, it doesn't suddenly make it a great OS.
Just how, may I ask? I never needed more than a few seconds to trigger the moving files action via the GUI.
On linux, the 'normal' way to move files is using the terminal using 'mv'. On Windows, the terminal is available, but the main interface is the UI. It's easy to move one file. It's even easy to move several files 'next to' each other in the window. It's not easy to move files matching a particular name, or across multiple folders.
So usually what happens is I have to find (perhaps even purchase) a purpose-built utility to do exactly what I want. Or, sit there and move files. Like ctrl+click on them (that interface is terrible by the way, because one click makes the entire selection go away... who thought that up?) and then move them. What other way is there without delving into automation? Windows Explorer cannot even do the most basic selection of 'select all files with NNN in the name'. It's completely useless for anything but the most silly of operations.
Also, if you have to do actual work moving files between different filesystems or across network filesystems, it becomes even worse. You have to find something compatible with Windows, install it. It's probably some ad-containing shareware non-sense, so you pay for the license so you don't get bombarded with ads, a browser toolbar, and whatever other nonsense the MSI decided to install. Then, after about 30 minutes of downloading, installing and endless clicking on the 'do you want to allow this software to do blah' (which I never really read and click by default), it may or may not work.
On linux, it's just mount.
I don't really get the complaints about linux being hard to use. Different sure. But if you're used to it; if you grew up with it, it's mind-numbingly easy.
And that's exactly where you loose every average user when trying to convince them to switch from Windows to Linux. I work with Linux every day too but the command line elitism needs to stop.
>if you have to do actual work moving files between different filesystems or across network filesystems
This is the classic HN paradox where your 'actual work', differs from everyone else's 'actual work'.
>Like ctrl+click on them (that interface is terrible by the way, because one click makes the entire selection go away... who thought that up?
In Explorer go to:
>Windows Explorer cannot even do the most basic selection of 'select all files with NNN in the name'. It's completely useless for anything but the most silly of operations.Type verbatim in the Explorer top-right search-bar :
Then Ctrl + A, and hey presto, all files containing NNN in your current directory are selected.The way I see it, the issue here is that you don't know how to use Explorer features, but instead of looking it up and learning how to use it, you're pushing the narrative that somehow it's Explorer's fault for you not bothering to look up such solutions. It' not like you were born with the Linux command line in your head. You had to take the time to learn all those commands and practice. Same with Windows and MacOS and other OS. You need to re-learn certain mechanics whenever you switch OS and it's not the OS's fault you refuse to do that and choose to remain stuck wanting everything to work the Linux way.
>moving files between different filesystems or across network filesystems, it becomes even worse. You have to find something compatible with Windows, install it.
For which file systems do you have to do that? Windows works out of the box with the storage of any consumer device or external mass storage device sold today and in the past 20+ years, even iPhones.
The way I see it from your arguments, I only get that Windows is the wrong OS for you and your particular use cases, which is fair, but that's no argument that it's a bad OS in general for the avenge joe, as you keep moving the goals posts from copying and renaming files to linux power user activities, which you consider 'actual work'.
I have made no argument that everyone needs to use the CLI. I like it, and it is a fair criticism of Windows to say that it makes things harder by not having it. That criticism rings true for me and many others. Some other people with different experiences probably think CLI is hard. That's fine. To each their own.
The comment I responded to accused the author of being disingenous. I pointed out that (1) technical users are still users and (2) there are things that if you're used to a unix shell are simply an absolute pain to do on windows.
> The way I see it, the issue here is that you don't know how to use Explorer features, but instead of looking it up and learning how to use it, you're pushing the narrative that somehow it's Explorer's fault for you not bothering to look up such solutions. It' not like you were born with the Linux command line in your head. You had to take the time to learn all those commands and practice. Same with Windows and MacOS and other OS. You need to re-learn certain mechanics whenever you switch OS and it's not the OS's fault you refuse to do that and choose to remain stuck wanting everything to work the Linux way.
Okay, now do any file with a number at the end?
There is a search feature. Search, select, drag&drop.
> across network filesystems
Windows support SMB protocol, it should just work ?
Not everything uses SMB? Windows compatibility for anything not Microsoft is sporadic.
This is nonsense. Just embrace PowerShell.
Instead of learning a young, new language, I could just boot into Linux and used an established operating system?
I don't understand this mentality of 'Windows must be better'. PowerShell is alright, but as the article pointed out, the Windows terminal experience is terrible. Even the OG terminal interface on linux is better (supports copy paste with mouse for one thing).
PowerShell is 16 years old. Your kids should know it by this point. Mine do.
> the Windows terminal experience is terrible.
Was terrible. Bash is still terrible, even the creators do not like it, and it has nothing to do with terminal experience.
This doesn't sound right. Are you sure you're starting them correctly?
I would dare say that's the target audience for which Linux works best, because their main usecase is to fire up a web browser. Just like a chromebook would fit their needs.
Lack of funding/alternatives/support/or interest in free/OSS software make it a hard switch to professionals doing video, photo, music, CAD, etc. work.
It's a great desktop for power users, developers and tinkerers.
Thanks to Valve investment in the platform gaming support on Linux is excellent, while not being the main target of developers. Excellent, in my opinion, cause I don't play AAA games that need ~rootkits~ kernel-level anticheat software, thus native+proton got me covered.
Queue Linus Tech Tips videos with them having issues on Linux.
Once we see how well the Steam Deck does I think we'll have a lot more companies willing to support Linux/Proton if the number are there.
1. https://areweanticheatyet.com/
Here's the smell test:
If I stop working on something and go to the shop, or to sleep, or say "It's 8pm on Friday, I can pick this back up on Monday", can I reliably walk away and have my stuff (apps, sessions, etc.) where I left it when I come back?
Not. A. Hope.
I've done all the regedit hacks, the group policy changes, the mouse jiggler, but it's never enough.
Your computer shouldn't fight you. Homeservers have uptimes measured in weeks or months, that's what I need my desktop to be like.
My third Macbook (company provided) doing an unexpected update. That takes 10(!) minutes. After the download.
My ElementaryOS on a 6 year old thinkpad downloads and installs 3GB+ updates weekly, without rebooting, in 2 minutes!
Mac and Windows are ages and miles behind Linux.
BTW - I have a company-owned and managed Mac and my own personal Mac. World of difference in experience between the two. My company forces updates on a frequent basis, and not just to Mac OS. There's a lot of software they manage and license on the machine and force updates.
Regardless if I manage a Mac or not, the time it takes to apply the update is the same.
It’s odd that it remembers that there were four virtual desktops, but then forgets which window goes where. And I’d swear that it remembers some, but the majority get dumped into Desktop1. Not the end of the world, and I don’t restart all that often, but it’s enough to make me hesitate come update time (“do I really want to be rearranging my desktops right now?”)
The uptime of my Linux machine (general server/media machine) is… A few months at least. Probably half a year at this stage.
The Mac (main work machine) has an uptime of at least 1-2 weeks.
The Windows (gaming) machine. Haha, no. Turn off in the evening, start up in the morning. Loads Steam UI in full screen, and nothing else. Given its purpose, I feel a mixture of love and loathing towards it.
So, my personal experience agrees with yours, with the exception of MacOS. It'll definitely be where I left it.
I'm assuming you're not using ksplice, which has its own issues and should really only be used for critical updates when you're unable to reboot.
On the other hand, it’s very, very locked down. It barely has access to the internet at all.
Instead of dual-booting, I could give Windows a 1tb SSD that it thinks it owns, and let it live on in its little bubble.
It works really well when/if it works, but I found it to be a rabbit hole of constant tinkering.
There is some software that can pass the framebuffer back to your Linux desktop without a huge performance hit.
My Windows NUC, on the other other hand, seems to reboot itself within a week, but usually is unusable long before that because it won't wake the monitor up after sleep. And even though I disabled sleep, it still seems to not be able to wake the monitor up.
I have disabled updates and defender among other things tho.
For environment variables you only have to set them via the environment variable:
But aside from that Windows is fine for me... I don't find there's anything I can't do easily.
"I am a software & web developer - and Linux is a toolbox, full of highly polished tools, crafted over decades by software developers, for software developers. Windows is… not that. It’s a commercial OS, aimed at users of Word, Excel & Outlook, pretty much. You can feel this difference all the time that you’re using it - it pervades everything."
Isn't this just familiarity?
When I use Linux I hardly imagine it to be some magic developer playland, at least not without a lot of my own work put into it to make it so... just like my experience in Windows.
That's because MS's basic selling point is that nothing gets removed. I mean, obviously over time some things do get removed, but they're deprecation timeline is measured in decades.
Some of the things they deprecated in Vista they notified people they were going to deprecate when they released the new versions at the launch of XP. That's how long they gave people to shift over.
They seem to have finally picked some UI overlords to make decisions, but sadly they're bad decisions... and doing it bit by bit.
I am most familiar with the sound panel, as I keep having to tweak my inputs and outputs cause windows likes to forget I don't want sound coming out of the speakers, for example.
Right click on the volume widget in the tray next to the clock -> sound settings -> related settings pane, "Sound Control Panel". This gets you the tried and true sound control panel we know and love.
You can also short circuit this, by selecting "sounds" from the right click menu on the volume widget, as this brings you to the same XP era sound control panel, just on the sounds tab rather than playback or recording. Its all such a mess.
To Windows XP style
Settings -> Searching Windows -> Indexer Options -> Advanced Options -> Index Location [Select new]
To Windows 2k/9x holdovers.
Settings -> Network and Internet -> Ethernet => Networking and Sharing Center -> Network Connections -> *Any connection
There's still all of the numerous headaches of Windows, but everything has its own headaches. My work Mac for example, loses its monitor arrangement for my dual monitors about once every other day, so much so that I have a shell script to fix it.
BTW, you can theoretically set "active hours" for Windows, so that updates and such don't bother you so much. This is far better than it was, where Windows would basically say "I'm going to restart, you have 5 minutes to save your work". [1]
If you need to run X apps remotely, there are various X servers you can get. I've been using X410 with PuTTY successfully, though most of the time I'm in WSL instead.
Also, since you did skip the last 15 years, you have missed the "joy" of UAC prompts with Windows Vista, so you should count yourself lucky there.
[1] OK, it wasn't quite _that_ bad. But it was kind of bad.
Many people has been asking this same question on this thread. The answer is simple: backwards compatibility. That begets tough trade-off decisions. Otherwise, no product designer loves inconsistency.
The other alternatives are either to never innovate, or to keep support timeframes short.
Windows 1.0 had 100% consistent UI.