I realize this is a Linux community, but I was wondering why you still hate Windows. I mean, I love Linux, but I will not argue that it's more convenient to the average person in most use cases to use Windows, I recently had to switch back to Windows and I realized how convenient it all was and how I was missing so many things because of my love for Linux. But at this point, Linux is a part of my personality and my self-image and I will not leave it, but I gotta be honest, it's pretty convenient being on Windows. So, why have you guys chosen to still stay on Linux? Some reasons I can appreciate include
- The terrible privacy policies of Microsoft. It sometimes makes you feel like your computer is not owned by you but lent to you by Big Tech.
- The community and the spirit of sharing
- The joy of "figuring it out" and customizing everything you want to the minutest details
- FREEDOM!!!
sudo su
Kinda ties into the previous points, but still one of the best selling points, the freedom to do whatever you want is liberating. You can run a server on it or you can create a script while knowing you have control over almost every FOSS app there is or just destroy your whole system with one command. Idk, feels good man!
These are the big ones, but one must realize you are sacrificing many things while not using windows too, productivity can be much greater there if you are a normie, it's really convenient! So yeah! Give me your reasons! Also, how many of you dual boot?
I honest to god find Linux easier to use. Though it's maybe because the most used programs on my laptop are neovim, gcc and rust compiler and Firefox . And I shit you not, Microsoft purposefully slowed down the Firefox browser I installed from their store.
Plus I like using a tiling window manager when coding, now in Linux I have 500 options. On windows I get a middle finger and a dedicated nsa/fbi agent. Whats not to hate?
Aside from all the usual points that everyone else has already made: automation. Scripting stuff on Linux is relatively simple, trying to fuck about with powershell or work around a tool that's GUI-only is infuriating.
So. Fucking. True. oh my god.
I want to turn Bluetooth on in a script!
Linux? Two or three commands.
Powershell? Here, run this monster or download an application to do it for you and call that via the command line.Last time I used Windows, the only way to suspend the machine was either poking some random ass .dll from System32 or downloading PsSuspend by Sysinternals ffs!
Scripting stuff on Linux is relatively simple, trying to fuck about with powershell
that is the fucking best thing about Linux, I have so many scripts and customizations, I can't even tell you!
I don't know if I "hate" Windows but more like "I'm done dealing it." I might come and use it time to time, but only when absolutely necessary, and the mental capacity to remove things I don't need and make sure its removed.
.” I might come and use it time to time, but only when absolutely necessary
I get that!
I think I need like 2 weeks to tell all the reasons I hate it.
Because every time I’m reminded the underlying OS exists it’s always something negative.
On windows: Forced restarts and updates that take over 5x as long as my Linux (or FreeBSD build), ui that constantly undoes what I customized, ads and preinstalled malware essentially like candy crush even on builds from Microsoft directly, worse performance with a much higher number of crashes under load on my current box, and no auto login/name any simple customization without screwing around with registry editor to name just the simple things. More advanced problems include no hypervisor built in to the home version, everything is pay to unlock features my Linux install does for free, no zfs software raid for storage safekeeping, most fixes when I do have errors involve googleing cryptic hex codes and being told to run fsck/chdsk as the only solution for often times hours of searching before finally finding the actual answer - not to mention most other fixes being to download a library/binary of the sketchiest sounding website ever that i can't verify isn't a virus.
On linux or even FreeBSD which took a bit to get installed to my liking i may have put work in up front but its like 3 hours at most of my time for 6+ years of stability and proper functioning to avoid all of the above plus no microsoft telemetry etc. I switched when i first tried Vista and even today every time i have to use Microsoft's horrific excuse for an OS it is heartburn inducing.
Because windows is inconvenient for me.
Nothing works as I expect it, terminal takes ages to open, everything lags like shit, annoying popups everywhere, every setting is hidden behind ten thousand menus, subpar packaging system, explorer crashes every so often, PATH is hard to access and modify, takes a PHD to install a raw compiler without visual studio, you can forget about shortcut system cus even with autohotkey it's a pain.
(Talking about permissions) Why do I have to write names of users from the ground and then click button "check if it actually exists" in a fucking gui? Couldn't there be a drop down list?
If you ever want to modify the windows iso image or make an automated script without using online services you're just done mate. There's nifty surprises like special software which name I so conveniently forgot (God bless) that can open the file image contained inside the iso image, but if that inner image has wrong format you have to spend time converting it. Then you'll see some fucking insane shit in front of you, where you need to drag objects from a drop down list into different categories that have random ass names and not at all simple to understand even after reading official documentation. Oh you think that's all? You can drop same objects into different categories and they will do different shit. I took TWO WEEKS WORTH OF CLASSES to work with that software and I ALREADY DONT REMEMBER JACK.
Then there's utterly long startup times even on ssds, colemak dh mod basically doesn't exist... And that's all I could remember out the top of my head.
The only redeeming quality I'd say, is having a very simple setup for Japanese and Chinese IME. On arch KDE it took me awhile to set up fcitx with mozc the first time around.
Windows, macos, all the same. I want a free device. I love donating to KDE. How could I love giving money to microsoft?
Microsoft is more difficult for me nowadays because I use it very rarely. I hate that nothing works as expected. I hate that they force everything upon you.
We are free. We are GNU. We are linux.
I don't like the fact that even if you have a Pro or Enterprise license, some amount of telemetry is still being sent to MS for any number of nebulous reasons.
At least with bigger names like Fedora et al, they give you the option up front to opt-in, and you can have a reasonable amount of trust that they won't do it in secret.
Please stay to the end because it's important, and it's going to be a horrible bait and switch but it's not INTENDED that way. I can't think of another way to present the difficult combination of interests that seem to be driving MS software lately.
I actually quite like Windows 11, and I love Edge when they're doing their core functions. Windows 11 is reasonably solid and useful for normal use. Edge is faster than Chrome and has the best vertical tabs implementation on the planet. Much of the baseline software that Microsoft is putting out has never been better, and is often really good at doing the basic things software should do. I really do feel like the genuine technology people in Microsoft are trying, and often succeeding, to make good technology products.
But... the bottom-feeder marketing drones and MBAs got their hands on them and started layering creepier and creepier nonsense over the top. Mandatory logins to glorified data collection engines. Monetization strategies masquerading as features. Overt advertisement. Heavy-handed promotion of Microsoft's own products. I finally stopped using Edge (on Linux!) when I discovered that just looking at the settings the wrong way would re-enable every intrusive setting imaginable and ditched Windows entirely when I saw the same things creeping into the OS (as well as a general disgust with privately-owned OSes in general). They are destroying trust.
In the great irony of my life, because normally work PC Windows installs have been hot garbage, I have Win11 on a work laptop and it's actually really great to use since all of the intrusive stuff is turned off by our security team. I would still prefer linux or macos (in that order), but as a "forced to use it" option, it's not bad at all. Go back and read that again: it's a pleasant and easy to use OS if all the intrusive marketing functionality is turned off because it presents a security hazard.
PS. Not sacrificing anything being predominantly linux-based and am in fact far, far more efficient on linux (and I am not a programmer or in any other technology role).
Proprietary software is a security risk, especially for US companies that can be legally served NSLs
Same. I'm a little embarrassed that I have little idea what it's like. Last one I used daily was Windows 7. But then I wonder
how convenient it all was and how was missing so many things
What are these things I'm missing?
For me the straw that broke the camels back was the fucking updates. I got so tired of Windows forcing updates, and I never could get the registry edits to disable it to stick. Besides, you shouldn't have to EDIT THE REGISTRY to just turn off updates! But there's also stuff I'd really miss if I went back (I've been on Nobara for a year now) like the package management on Linux. I love that I can choose to update on MY terms, and that almost everything updates during the process. I have a few random jar apps for Switch hacking stuff, and an appimage for R2Modman, but besides that I don't have to worry about needing to download the latest version of shit all the time. AND, having most of what you need just available on a software store is so nice. Never mind that its so much safer to not have to download random .exe's from all over the internet. These days the only thing I actually struggle with is modding certain games. Like BG3 took me awhile, but then I found out there's a Linux mod manager called lampray and it works perfectly. Then there's also the fact you have to know how to do DLL overrides for things like bepinex or anything that adds some kind of DLL. But otherwise, it just works and infuriates me less than windoze
I dual boot, but I've been dreading booting back into Windows recently because I upgraded my motherboard/CPU and know they are going to make me buy another license. And I understand Windows is more convenient for a lot of people but I am not one of them.
I can't think of anything that is more convenient for me on Windows other than that I have to use it to run Studio One to record music from time to time. But "software availability" has nothing to do with the operating system itself; market position does. And a company's market position rarely drives my purchasing decisions.
I dislike Windows for all the reasons people here typically state.
I've been dreading booting back into Windows recently because I upgraded my motherboard/CPU and know they are going to make me buy another license.
Windows tends to be better at this these days. If this does happen though, go through the activation process and start the troubleshooter. There's an option there to transfer the licence from another machine. You should be able to transfer it from the same machine if Windows thinks it's a new one.
This assumes that it's the same version of Windows, but in your case it shouldn't be changing 👍
I... Don't? But I've used it since 3.11. It's incredibly usable software, when it works. Switched recently because even I have my limits - that win11 recall even made it as an idea at the table is enough to make me jump ship. The ads in win10 pushed me to the limit, but recall is insane unless they're literally gonna give away free hardware and software. I paid for that damn computer and bought a license - wtf. It's not Microsofts hardware to datamine or put ads on. Paid for things with ads in them that also keylog and screen scrape and datamine can fuck all the way off.
Saw the netbsd video posted on lemmy recently and dude said he was offended at the lack autonomy he had over his own hardware in ms and I kind of get it now.
I'm the kind of user that cares about function over form, so everything in Windows 11 just annoyed me. Mainly because it was just changes in design that required me to reorient and to learn to use again with no good reason.
I still use Windows at work just because our whole dev stack is on Windows. And every new design change just gets in my way. An OS should enable me do the things that I need and want, it should move out of my way. Sure I've added some hacks to restore the functionality I was used to. But the fact that I need to fight the OS to bring back context menus annoys me to no end.Also, as a dev, I find many things easier done on Linux that Windows, mainly because it just has a better CLI support. It's not as bad now with Windows terminal,
winget
and other improvements (dotnet
having a proper CLI interface), however I still mostly use git-bash for common stuff like searching the file system. Not to mention that for something like docker I basically just need WSL.