2d ago

Windows doesn't "just work"

I've been using Linux exclusively for about 8 years. Recently I got frustrated with a bunch of issues that popped one after another. I had a spare SSD so I decided to check out Windows again. I've installed Windows 11 LTSC. It was a nightmare. After all the years on Linux, I forgot how terrible Windows actually is.

On the day I installed the system and a bunch of basic software, I had two bluescreens. I wasn't even doing anything at that time, just going through basic settings and software installation. Okay, it happens. So I installed Steam and tried to play a game I've been currently playing on Linux just to see the performance difference. And it was... worse, for some reason. The "autodetect" in game changed my settings from Ultra to High. On Linux, the game was running at the 75 fps cap all the time. Windows kept dropping them to around 67-ish a lot of times. But the weirdest part was actual power consumption and the way GPU worked. Both systems kept the GPU temperature at around 50C. But the fans were running at 100% speed at that temperature on Windows, while Linux kept them pretty quiet. I had to change the fan controls by myself on Windows just because it was so annoying. The power consumption difference was even harder to explain, as I was getting 190-210W under Linux and under Windows I got 220-250W. And mind you, under Linux I had not only higher graphical settings set up, but was also getting better performance.

I tried connecting my bluetooth earbuds to my PC. Alright, the setup itself was fine. But then the problems started. My earbuds support opus codec for audio. Do you think I can change the bluetooth codec easily, just like on Linux? Nope. There is no way to do it without some third party programs. And don't even get me started on Windows randomly changing my default audio output and trying to play sound through my controller.

Today I decided to make this rant-post after yet another game crashed on me twice under Windows. I bought Watch Dogs since it's currently really cheap on Steam. I click play. I get the loading screen. The game crashed. I try again. I play through the basic "tutorial". After going out of the building, game crashed again. I'm going to play again, this time under Linux.

I've had my share of frustrations under Linux, but that experience made me realise that Windows is not a perfect solution either. Spending a lot of time with Linux and it's bugs made me forget all the bad experience in the past with Windows, and I was craving to go back to the "just works" solution. But it's not "just works". Two days was all it took for me to realize that I'll actually stick with Linux, probably forever. The spare SSD went back to my drawer, maybe so I can try something new in the future. It's so good to be back after a short trip to the other side!

178 comments

I'd summarize the current OS situation as
Windows Just Works until it doesn't, at which point there's basically nothing you can do about it and you just have to kick it until something clicks into place and it starts working properly again.
Whereas linux Just Works to a slightly smaller degree, but when it stops Just Working it does so in granular steps most of the time, and every part of the ecosystem tries to help you fix things when they break.
Windows is a resin-potted black box that takes input and does stuff, if it breaks you're supposed to just chuck it and buy a new one.
Linux is a slightly bulkier thing that you can just unscrew and replace a capacitor when it breaks.

I just installed Linux Mint yesterday. Can’t wait to get home to continue playing around with it. I like it so far!

I can’t relate to this at all.
We use windows machines as software developers at work and really have no issues at all. Never had a bluescreen in these two years.
I use windows at home to play Factorio, Minecraft, and RDR2. Again, never had an issue. No blue screens. I turn it on open steam and play my games then turn it off when done.
I tried Linux again cause I got sucked in by this echo chamber and that did not go well at all. I explicitly said I don’t want to have to be a nerd in my free time to manage Linux which I was assured isn’t the case. Then one day I turn it on and have no sound and no idea why it just died. I swiftly removed Linux and went back to windows.
I do use Linux for servers for Jellyfin and stuff and I like it for those things, but me personally have had a better experience using windows and I can’t understand all these people against it.

Yea, I have to use windows at work presently and I hate every second of fighting with it.
Windows doesn't even have a fully functional implementation of focusing windows on hover, a common feature of any Linux system WM I have ever used. There is a setting to do this in Windows accessibility settings, and it's true, it DOES change focus on hover; but it DOESN'T change the functionality of foreground windows getting pushed behind those windows, making it pretty much pointless, and actually more annoying to use.
Also just the performance is such shit, probably because it's now designed to be doing hundreds of unnecessary telemetry tasks at all time on the back end. Also what the fuck is with every piece of Windows software configuring itself to run on boot or as a service? So incredibly annoying.

As somebody who works in IT at a Windows-only environment, I know exactly what you mean.
I have to fight with Windows on a weekly basis. Driver issues, firmware issues, software crashes/lockups, performance issues, etc etc.
Just this week, I have two users experiencing issues with their monitors. Identical enterprise grade laptops, identical drivers, identical docking stations, all totally up to date on Windows 11. Their old Windows 10 computers worked fine. Still trying to figure out what's wrong.

Yeah when I see people say that gaming on Linux "isn't there yet" I have to wonder how long it's been since they've tried. And people who install Windows on their Steam Deck? Don't get it.
- And people who install Windows on their Steam Deck? Don't get it.
  Please don’t say that, I don’t believe people like that exist.

Yep. The difference is simply put just ppl are used to the quirks on Windows but not on Linux.
- How to install an application on Windows
  You hear about some application
  You google the application name
  You get a bunch of links
  You click the first one (and hope it's valid and not hijacked by malware ads)
  You scan the webpage to find the correct download button (and hope it's not an ad link)
  Download the application
  Double-click the application.exe
  Windows UAC pops up which you have to allow
  Install start and you click next, next, next (You hope the installer does not change your homepage or install some browser toolbar)
  Installation finished
  Windows is so much easier /s
  
  Tbf, winget is a god sent and works surprisingly well, took them what? 30 years to get it done?!
- Exactly. It took me 4 hours a couple months ago to get a scanner to work on our Windows 11 PC. It turns out there was some Windows Image Acquisition service built in that had to be disabled because it was conflicting with the driver of the scanner. Absolute insanity lmao
  I told one of my friends about this since my friends sometimes tease me about using Linux, their response was get a better scanner.
  lol
  
  Just today I logged into a Workstation at work, just to see 2 versions of Teams being auto launched. And no, no one installed 2 Versions, it was Windows.

Bluetooth is so bad on Windows. You cannot simply "reconnect" a headset
You have to unpair and pair each time you want to use it.
This was with Intel Bluetooth too which works extremely well, under Linux and Macos.
- If anyone wants a great terminal bluetooth manager, use blutuith (https://github.com/darkhz/bluetuith)
- What? That's just not true. If I turn on my Bluetooth earbuds they reconnect to my laptop right away as that's the last thing they were paired to
- Windows Bluetooth paired my Google Pixel Buds Pro once and refused to unpair or delete them no matter what I tried, but would happily connect to them every time I booted the system. I had to literally wipe the install clean and start fresh before it was ever fixed. And those same earbuds worked everywhere else, even my fucking gaming laptop with a MediaTek wireless card running Arch. genuinely the worst experience I've had with Bluetooth so far.
  
  Yep exactly my experience with several Bluetooth headphones.
  Fine on my Android as well.
  Windows just seems to always struggle with Bluetooth and printers.
- I will say I had a lot of trouble with Bluetooth (bluez) on Linux, but I think it mainly comes down to the implementation. I have a cheap dongle and pairing gamepads has been a nightmare sometimes.
- I'm no great fan of windows, but I have no issues reconnecting to bluetooth things. Kinda the opposite really, my phone and windows keep wanting to compete for who gets to be connected to my headset as soon as I turn it on, I have to make sure to turn off bluetooth when I'm done with it. I think the problem may be on your end in this case.
- I had to transfer files over Bluetooth to a Windows PC. Fuck that is terrible compared to doing it on my Linux PC.
  
  Oh yeah I just use magic wormhole now for file transfer it's much more reliable

The problem with Windows is that it is not build to be parametrised. Anyone a bit tech-savy will be frustrated by the inability to tune it effectively for their need.
The problem with Linux is that it is not tech-normie friendly. Sure it has distribution easy to use and pre-parametrised so anyone with basic computer skill can use it. But people with basic computer skill don't have computers with Linux. Anyone who just want to use a computer has to first learn how to install an OS.
- The problem with Linux is that it is not tech-normie friendly.
  That probably was true 15 years ago. That is absolutely not true now. This misconception stems from the fact that most tech normies have a lot of experience with Windows through job, so people assume Windows is friendly, but in reality they just know how it works.
  Learning how to use Linux is dead easy. It's not popular because it's not pre installed, as you said, but it's not because the OS is bad, it's because Linux doesn't have multibillion corporation behind it to make sure its everywhere.
  
  [...] in reality they just know how it works
  In my experience, they know how a few utilities and how a handful of programs work, but have no idea how Windows works. Not that many people actually know how Windows works.
  Roughly figuring out the boot sequence of Linux is relatively easy once you've used it for a year or two. What happens when Windows boots? Who knows? kernel32 probably is involved at some point.
  Linux/Unix is actually relatively simple and logical once you've figured it out. Windows is a messy dark maze with grues waiting at every corner to eat you.
  
  You should have the end of my comment with more attention. That's not my point you counter here.

Third party licensed apps are everything on Windows.

i almost forget how much it sucks whenever i'm not forced to use it for a while.

In my experience as well, fedora just works more than windows. Games work and run better without crashing. No bsods. No needing to manually start drivers for my tablet and restart my DAC.
Only thing windows has is coherent one release and exclusives in terms of a few softwares. Like adobe which is a scam now.
And the second advantage will vanish with more people on linux.
- My exact experience too. Fedora "just works". I especially like the immutable varieties for even more "just works (and continues to just works)-iness"
  
  I have been using Nobara and Bazzite, both Fedora spins, and they are working great.
  
  I've had an issue where nvidia drivers stopped working. For half a day while the update was rolling in. Thankfully linux has super easy rollback feature that automagically activates when you force restart using the power button.
  Seriously, ever since I went to "shitty, always broken tinkerers toy not a real os for real people" linux, I have not had to use the switch on my psu. Seems it's literally only there for windows.

I think Windows is successful because it creates a nice Enterprise environment, where companies can easily get into investing into new apps to use in their offices. I think that's why it's successful.
- part that, and part just that windows is successful because it's successful. Everyone learns windows, thus everyone uses windows, thus everyone teaches windows.
  It's like how all life on earth produces and consumes a specific form of sugar, but when you make sugar in a lab you get both forms, and the second form is completely inert to all digestive systems on earth.

Level1tech was reviewing the Ryzen 9950X/9900X and he noted how performance on Windows was wildly inconsistent depending on peculiar settings such as sidestepping security features and marking apps to run as administrator (aka also sidestepping windows security features) yet on Linux you can get better performance via Proton OOTB.
Linux has its quirks too but people kid themselves when they convince themselves that the dozens of weird tasks and apps and tweaks they make to Windows are "plug and play" compared to Linux, which in my experience has been way less tweaking.
The main tweaks I've done on linux usually include installing ROG-control-center (optional laptop faff) or cryotweaks on Steamdeck (which just sets some sensible options already enabled on most distros)

Windows sure is bad, though I haven't seen an actual blue-screen in years. That's some foul luck.
- You just get forced update while you're in the middle of work and random settings resets.
- I had one last week because of Storage problems.

I tried connecting my bluetooth earbuds to my PC. Alright, the setup itself was fine. But then the problems started. My earbuds support opus codec for audio. Do you think I can change the bluetooth codec easily, just like on Linux? Nope. There is no way to do it without some third party programs. And don’t even get me started on Windows randomly changing my default audio output and trying to play sound through my controller.
Bro wait until you want to use them for a call. How do you tell it to switch to call mode when it won't by default. Ah yeah that's right, you can't. And if you do, good luck switching it back for music when you're done. I've had friends who got bluetooth headphones and tried to use them wireless on Windows and it's just a battle every single time
- I just recently learned this when I tried to take a Teams call (ugh) with my Bluetooth earbuds, only to find that the microphone worked, but I couldn't hear anything.
  Turned out, by default, it had set the input as headset mode, but the output as stereo headphone mode, so I couldn't hear anything.
  Because that makes sense.
- I have a wireless keyboard. It comes with its own dongle, so you can expect it to work with some generic keyboard driver. I plugged into my USB-hub, works just fine on Linux. No lag, no nothing.
  On Windows? Well, it works, but the audio device I have plugged in just straight up refuses to function while the dongle is hooked up as well. It seems to gobble up pretty much the entire bandwidth. Amazing.

You know what just works ? Bazzite. It's as easy to use as a PlayStation.
- The only reason I could not use bazzite was because i was trying to make it into a work PC as well (making/compiling git repos). I could use the built-in distrobox but was becoming a bit of a hassle. So switched to Nobara.
  However, bazzite works great on my ROG Ally.
- You can also use it for everything else. It can be as easy to use as a PlayStation if that's what you want it for.

My main issue with Windows isn’t its technology, but its attitude. The user is no longer the most important consideration. In that way it’s become adversarial.
- Windows is fine for me. I work with it all day long too. But yeah Windows is just another enshitification product.
- It's definitely an abusive relationship.
- Yes. I prefer my os to be more passively adversarial. Like Gentoo. It hates everything equally.
  
  Eh, Gentoo is pretty quiet most of the time once you've got it installed. After that, you just have to keep an eye on it and make sure it doesn't go off its meds (although once every few years, it will come up with a weird and wonderful way of doing so that you can't block.)
  
  Now I'm imagining an angry Gentoo penguin snapping at fingers any time someone wants to use their PC 😅
  
  All operating systems suck, some just suck harder than others.
- In that way it’s become adversarial.
  Back in the 2000s, I was able to say that while a fundamental install took only about a half hour to set up, usability tweaks and a full fleshing out of functionality took another 4-8 hours depending on what the user was going to use the machine for.
  I just did a Win11 24h2 install. It took nearly 24 working hours before I considered it even minimally functional for my needs. Cycling through Win10Privacy two or three times was particularly frustrating. Registry work alone took me a good 8-10 hours of trying stuff a step at a time and then rebooting to see how it worked.
  At this point, the only reason why I am still running with a Windows rig is for those half-dozen programs that don’t have appropriate non-Windows variants. It’s why I’m also running a Mac Mini and an OpenSUSE tower through the same 4-port, 6-head KVM.
  
  Put it in a VM?
  
  Indeed it is difficult to hammer it in to shape. In addition, Microsoft will often quietly reset setting back in their favour. It's that constant fight that tipped the scales for me.
- My work just changed from gsuite to m365 and it is atrocious. Obviously fuck google but god damn if microsoft arent just the worst at designing UI and considering actual consumer concerns when dsigning programs. Quit your job if they change to office.

This was sorta my fault, but I'm counting it. I have been flashing meshtastic devices recently and flashed two just fine from fedora (just had to DL ungoogled chromium because fuck chrome but librewolf can't access serial ports so..), tried to flash a third from my friend's windows PC and it just would not recognize it in the serial monitor, tried for like an hour being dumb, then I remembered drivers exist, downloaded one set of drivers, couldn't install lord knows why, downloaded a second set that finally worked on a reboot and got it flashed.
I understand that sometimes you still have to install drivers on Linux too, but can we stop pretending you don't have to on windows? What's more while I was in there and edge wasn't using my serial port my friend said to install a chrome based anyway to try, and I had to find the damn download pages instead of using a package manager, philistines.

I just reinstalled and configured Windows for a friend who's machine was hacked, so my frustration with Microsoft is very fresh. (She lost 8 thousand dollars of her savings she's still trying to get back.) After years of using Linux I feel like I'm being punished every time I help someone with their Windows machine.
/Rant
These things in particular drive me nuts:
Sending everything users do and type (including passwords) back to Microsoft. It's called spyware when other companies do it. It should be called spyware when it's an OS called Microsoft Windows.
Flooding 1/2 the screen with web search results when a search is done from the start menu. I'm looking for an installed program, not a potato recipe.
Requiring a registry edit to turn that web search off and lots of other simple things that use to be configurable in settings.
Placing ads throughout the operating system and making it difficult to turn those ads off.
Forcing the use of the Edge browser no matter what users choose.
Preventing the removal of unwanted programs without editing the registry.
Forced updates at Microsoft's convenience.
Absurdly long restart times after updating.
Forced OS version upgrades.
Reverting settings that have been changed by the user to settings that directly benefit Microsoft's sales and marketing goals.
Forced restarts of the operating system causing data loss and the loss of millions of hours of work for millions of users.
Removing more and more user settings with each new OS release.
Burying commonly used menu items multiple menus deep.
Preventing the removal of Start menu items. I will never use the Xbox Game Bar no matter how many time I'm forced to see it.
/
- Windows is so annoying like why does it always display word, excel etc when I don't own it. These are paid programs that I do not own they should not be coming up in search results when I'm looking for a word processor.
  
  I used to work for a Fortune 500 tech company that dealt with thousands of other businesses. Someone on the executive team decided that everyone in the company should be actively pushing our products every time they had customer contact. Customer calls about a bill? Sell them something. They have a major problem and are angry about it? Sell them something. Need to use their bathroom? Sell them something.
  It just irritated our customers and didn't result in any more sales. It seems that executive got a job at Microsoft.
- That sucks about your friend. I can relate.
  Scammers hacked my elderly mother on her windows laptop. They tricked her with an ad saying there was a problem with her computer, and they had her install remote access software. She mentioned seeing the terminal so I assumed they installed (at least) a keylogger. Luckily, they either ran out of time, or their con took two days, but they said they were going to call my mom the next day and have her log in to the bank to make sure her computer was still working.
  So, I wiped her computer and installed Linux Mint with auto updates set up. She only had one simple question about logging in to google chrome and that's been it for the last month. She has just been using it no problem.
  Side note: The next day the scammers had the nerve to call my mom and ask her why her computer was turned off.
  
  My friend got a call from "Best Buy" technical support saying they'd noticed her computer was slow and followed their instructions to set up remote access. Unfortunately she didn't realize that there was anything to be worried about. It wasn't until months later when she left the computer on and unattended that the scammers took control. Fidelity wired the money out of her account before she saw the notification and Fidelity has been jerking her around ever since. She's still badly shaken.
  I'd put her on Mint, but as much as I enjoy her company I don't want to be permanent tech support for her computer.
- Sending everything users do and type (including passwords) back to Microsoft. It's called spyware when other companies do it.
  Do you have any proof that Microsoft keylogs you? That's quite a serious claim.
  
  Recall?
  
  Have you tried a Google search?
- Forcing upgrades at Microsoft's convenience.
  This is the only one I agree with. Upgrades are necessary for security, it’s just a fact of life.
  
  The problem isn't the updates. The problem is microsoft downloading things and restarting my pc without my consent (annoying me until I say "fine, do it" is not consent). No one but me decides when my machine installs updates and reboots. I know I'm putting myself at risk if I let my system fall behind on updates. That's on me, it's my computer, it is my right to make that decision.
  
  On my kid’s laptop I was holding Windows 11 24H2 back because of Recall, but this week it just decided to install itself. Now it’s a Linux laptop.

Well, Windows was never perfect. People just got used to its shenanigans. They tend to meddle with bullshit registry yet somehow basic commands on Linux is too complicated.
- That's true, never thought about how many times Ive used the registry to do something when the ui doesn't work, eg forcing games into exclusive fullscreen or getting acces to old features in the Nvidia control panel.
  Still my gaming pc "needs" to be windows because of the games i play. Either be it kernel level AC or not getting stretched Res + 280hz gsync to work.
- Poor comparison, honestly. Only like 5% of Windows users will only have a vague notion about what a registry is and a fraction of that would have messed with it under duress. By comparison, nearly all Linux users are expected to learn a handful of commands with strange abbreviations and arcane symbols to perform otherwise basic tasks. That's not some unsubstantial barrier to be dismissed.
  
  I know it's not an exact comparison but I think it's fair. Almost every Windows user (or the ones who fix others' computers) hit a situation where they had to modify registry (or run a .bat file they have no idea what it does -there were even official solutions like this-) to fix something, at least once in their lives. As a go-to tech-savvy person for a lot of people around me, I know I did this all the time. (I still remember that once someone asked me to remove 3D Objects folder because they couldn't and it was also a registry fix). On the other hand, while Linux is mature with its commandline, it also came to a point where a normal user don't need it, just like in Windows (it's a plus if they know at least how to paste commands if they need though). For example, my sister uses openSUSE and I taught her about YaST and she never had a single issue in the last 2 years, everything is done via GUI. She can install flatpaks if she needs too.
- In windows' defense, the "complication" comes from the fact that there is no constant visual display of the filesystem structure in a terminal window like there is in the Windows registry.
  That said, taking an hour to become comfortable with the terminal is not a difficult task. Understanding ~, and constantly using df -h and ls -al (for me anyway) will help a lot of people figure it out.
- The average user doesn't even know the registry exists.

Yep, I have used Linux since 2017 after W10 just made everything slower for home use and work. I have been using W11 for work lately, and it sucks. The office16/root/vfs/ProgramFilesCommonX64(86)/office16/ai.exe and aimgr.exe keep hogging resources in task manager and bogging down the system when ever I try to get work done. Deleteing those files helps but they come back after updates, so for now I created two empty text files and changed the filename and extensions to match the deleted files, so far that has kept updates from reinstalling those ai files

I have an ongoing irritation with windows (use it for work, Linux at home): It steals focus from the window you're using if another window opens.
Drives me nuts. I'll be typing my password and pop! Oh look I just typed my password into something else that popped up because IT requires this program to run on login today.
KDE is much better about not stealing window focus like that.
- Mac os is pretty bad with that bullshit too
- The sad thing is back in the Windows XP days Microsoft had the focus stealing thing pretty much solved. Well okay - I remember you had to install some of the PowerToys or make some registry edits to get at some of the settings. But once setup pretty much nothing could steal focus away from the current window, which was a welcome change from where we had been. That started to break again in Windows 7, and has gotten worse with every release since then.
  Admittedly XFCE isn't perfect either, but it's much better behaved than modern Windows.
- What windows are you having randomly pop up? That might be width investigating because that shouldn't be happening.
  
  Automated command-line jobs, in my case, which are technically not random but still annoying, because they don't need to show a window at all. Interestingly, the one thing I can get to absolutely not pop up any window ever are Perl scripts using Win32::Detached . . . which means that it is possible, but Microsoft doesn't bother to expose such a facility.
  
  They're things like drive mapping scripts, stuff like that. They're definitely normal for our setup. Just not sure why they have to interrupt me!
  
  Say I print something, and it’s going to take 5 minutes, I go and work on an email or something, and the save dialog pops up and what I’m typing for the email starts going into/overwrites the save name. Hate it.

In my experience, a stable beginner friendly distro such as mint, is 10x closer to "just working" but...
I do think that the windos DE tends to be more reliable than any linux DE I have tested. The only DE that compares is gnome, which I find very very stable (but I hate it)
I think that non-technical people are just used to a simple playbook of:
GUI is rarely the issue, so you never need to see the terminal.
If there is an issue, restart
If that didn't work, ask for help from your local techy
And for linux step 3 usually doesn't work because your local techy is probably someone who just knows how to google and paste into cmd.
- Huh? Only DE thing not being stable for me was xfce Thunar being crashy for a while. There are unstalbe DE?
  
  I tried Cinnamon, KDE, XFCE and gnome. The only one that I can't recall having any issues with is Gnome.
- I think problems that could be solved are generic hardware compatibility. Being able to install Wi-Fi adapters and Digital Tokens easily on Linux would go a long way. I think it will get there, though.
  
  Wifi works great on every distro I tried
- And for linux step 3 usually ~~doesn't~~ works because your local techy is probably someone who just knows how to google and paste into ~~cmd~~ the terminal.

I dunno, I dont think it's normal to get two blue screens on a fresh windows install.
Windows audio really is trash though, I'm totally with you there.
- Yeah on my Linux desktop, it's plugged into the TV for watching shows, so I sometimes switch between the PC Line Out and HDMI audio. The Linux audio logic seems to be "I'll stay at whatever you last set me to, until you set me to something else", which makes perfect sense.
  On Windows, it seems to be some combination of whatever device Windows thinks was last plugged in (which is very rarely what was actually plugged in last) whether it's an audio device or not, combined with the phase of the moon in whatever location Windows thinks it's in (which is also rarely correct.)
- Windows will never have the flexibility of JACK
  
  what is jack?

Windows bloat sucks. I wish Microsoft gave you the option to just install the components/features you're likely to use. That way you could have an agile, minimal custom installation like you do in Arch.
- I wanted to try the gamer windows distro. Aurora or atlas or whatever. Its install wanted me to manually get drivers. I wasn't feeling like doing annoying tech stuff and troubleshooting so i just got fedora instead.
- like tiny11?

Overall, I'm happy with Linux for everything. But it is a hard sell for your average person when you have to change the init configurations for every single game you download (even if it's just for enabling gamemode).
Also I'm am very curious as to how you even got a bluescreen. I don't even remember when I last saw one.
- Also I’m am very curious as to how you even got a bluescreen. I don’t even remember when I last saw one.
  That's the thing - I wasn't really doing anything. I had my web browser open, had steam running in the background. I moved my mouse around and then got jumpscared with a blue screen saying "unexpected store exception". I even managed to catch the blue screen on camera and send it to my friend to make that "windows just works" joke.
- you have to change the init configurations for every single game you download (even if it’s just for enabling gamemode)
  I haven't had to do this for a single game I've played. Am I lucky? What does "gamemode" do? (Am I missing out on something?)
  The worst I've had to do to get a game to work was change to "Proton Experimental" in the compat settings for one game that had basically just launched. (I also remember the EA launcher being terrible when I played "It Takes Two" with my partner, but I don't remember what was terrible about it and also remember them having problems on Windows so I don't know if it should count or not, lol). My partner is still using Windows, and we game together a lot, and honestly I think they have games crash far more often than I do. Games take longer to launch for me though - "Processing Vulkan Shaders" takes up to a minute or two if it is the first launch since boot of a larger game. No idea what happens if I skip it, so I don't.
  It's honestly been such a breath of fresh air, I am so grateful for the talented people making this shit work so well, especially in the last several years.
  
  I'm not unsatisfied and I very much appreciate the work put into proton, but it's rather lame how common it is to have small problems that require tweaking. Just a few days ago I had to do the gamemode thingy(which slightly improves performance and tends to fix some performance issues) on Elden ring since I was getting small but noticeable stutters when moving about, and that's a verified game.
  I don't mind putting in a bit of work to get something specific I want set up, but there's a reason people want things to just work when it comes to their pastimes, and I feel Linux is still a bit far from that.
  PS: I have no idea if Bazzite and other gaming distros have this issues, I use a general use one.

I forgot how terrible Windows actually is
Windows, while always shitty, has seriously gone downhill in the past 5 years. I'm looking to switch back to Linux myself, but I have an NVidia GPU that needs constant driver babying on OpenSUSE (my preferred distro). My current plan is to find someone who is willing to swap a RTX 4070 for a equivalent or slightly worse AMD card, and then switch back to OpenSUSE.
- That's more of an OpenSUSE issue, as much as I hate to say it's not Nvidia. Fedora may work better for with the options available for non-free DKMS builds on kernel upgrades, but you'll always be battling the Nvidia side with newer kernels pack releases. The open builds don't work for display yet, so that's not an option anywhere.
  
  Oh for sure. I just like OpenSUSE enough to switch GPUs for. I only really run older games aside from Baldur's Gate III and Cyberpunk, so I really don't need the latest and greatest.

There is no perfect OS that just works for everyone. They are all software so they all have bugs. People how say an OS just works have never hit those bugs or have gotten used to fixing/working around or flat out ignoring them.
This is true of all OSs, including Windows, Linux and MacOS. They are all differently buggy messes.
Linux is the buggy mess that works best for me though.
- While that's true, there are objectively different levels of 'just working' though.
  I've never spent so little time googling how to fix things as I do with Ubuntu or Mint. It's much more frequently needed and time consuming on other Linux OSs, iOS, Windows, Android. Haven't personally used Mac.
  Also, I've always found a fix on Ubuntu. The same can't be said for other OSs.
  That's just personal examples, but the general idea still stands: different systems have a different amount of bugs, (or worse, 'features') and the difficulty of fixing them isn't the same for everything either.
  
  My point is the different levels of just working are subjective, not objective. I personally have spent far more time fixing bugs or just reinstalling ubuntu systems then I have over the same period for Arch systems. So many of my ubuntu installs just ended up breaking after a while where I have had the same Arch install on systems for 5+ years now. Could never get a Ubuntu system to last more then a year.
  Everyone has different stories about the different OSs. It is all subjective.
  
  Man I'd kill to be able to use all of the APT commands I see online. DNF forces me to know what I'm doing lol.
- Nothing is bug free, but that doesn't mean everything is sort of the same just different flavor.
  The last couple days I dealt with Windows, which is out of the ordinary for me. I had to build a little thing and chose PowerShell and that is quirky but ok at a glance. Now we are in 2025 and PowerShell is a modern thing, and kid you not you install a thing using Module-Install and then you uninstall it using Module-Uninstall and what happens? The thing is only gone partially and some broken remains stay. And then another curiosity comes up where after long rummaging it turns out that one user (Admin) simply cannot see another user's mounted share - has microsoft ever heard of the concept of "permission denied"?
  That's not a differently flavored bag of bugs, that is like decades of computing and software engineering hadn't taken place
  
  I use Powershell a lot at work, and I really like it. Especially compared to bash which gives me headaches when reading.
  But yeah install-module and uninstall-module can sometimes be quirky. The easiest solution is to remove the files for the directory.
  it turns out that one user (Admin) simply cannot see another user's mounted share - has microsoft ever heard of the concept of "permission denied"?
  I'm pretty sure the reason is that because the share is mounted using the users account and doesn't affect anything else. It kinda makes sense for me because that is just the way Windows works ¯(ツ)/¯.
  Two users can have different mapping so giving a permission denied doesn't make a lot of sense since it simply doesn't exist for the user.
  
  You can cherry-pick examples of problems from every OS. That is my point. They all have issues that you may or may not encounter and quite a few that would make people from other OSs scratch their head and think what the hell the devs are thinking. Pointing out one issue of one OS does not change any of that.
  Which is proven by the other replys to your comment - others dont find this issue to be as show stopping as you do and just live with it or dont use it at all. How many issues do you do the same for on your favorite OS?

i setup my old job with linux internally. never had issues. day i quit boss told me to install windows so he can find a replacement employee. sure.
3 years later. boss wants me back. they've had nothing but problems. but i'm not allowed to install linux again.
he says, "if windows didn't have so many problems you would be out of a job."

Windows 11 LTSC
I'm using Window 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC; the biggest issue I've had was that I couldn't get my video card installed. I had to wait until there was an updated driver, a few weeks after I assembled my computer. Every time I tried to install the driver that was supposed to be the correct one, I got a BSOD.
Honestly, I like 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC better than I liked the 10 Pro version that I had. And--compared to the only Linux distro I've used, Tails--it's fairly straightforward. And yes, I know the Tails is kind of a pain in the ass, and it's not fair to judge all of Linux against that. But i'm old, and cranky, and just want Win 3.11 back.

It's interesting seeing the variety of experiences in this thread. I definitely had to fight Linux to get it setup and stable on my machine, but ever since then it's been rock solid in a way I've never experienced with a Windows install.
Windows has a mind of its own...and being at the mercy of their update cadence or w/e other nonsense Microsoft is pushing sucks.
Meanwhile on Linux, I've had two CPUs that have C-State/P-State issues (5900x, 1700x), some weirdness with my audio interface, and a GPP0 bug that interferes with sleep. All of them are fixed or managed on Bazzite now, and it took plenty of digging for docs/reddit threads but now it's rock solid.
On Windows, any time I've needed to deal with the Microsoft Store I run into issues that require registry fixes, uninstall/reinstalling various things, etc. Sea of Thieves and Forza Horizon 5 had issues launching as a result on Windows but not on Linux.
Ultimately, not being under the Microsoft gun is such a relief that the initial battle is completely put out of my mind. I've had some instances where I'll boot into Windows for games, or HDR/Atmos support more reliably for my living room setup, but they have gotten rarer and rarer over the past couple of months.
- Does Sea of Thieves work on Linux? I thought it had kernel anti-cheat.
  
  Sea of thieves has been working on Linux for years, and really well. I regularly play it on both my Linux gaming rig and on my Steam Deck, it runs awesome on both.
  
  It works! Looks like some people have run into issues with EAC but it worked without finicking around for me.
  https://www.protondb.com/app/1172620
- For the record, Sea Of Thieves is also available as a standalone purchase through Steam, bypassing the Microsoft Store and their half abandoned UWP format entirely. Never had any issues with the Steam version on Windows.
  
  Honestly I think this may have happened on the Steam version for me, I ended up reinstalling on Linux same-day and didnt have the same issue.
  IIRC it had something to do with the Xbox Game Bar/App registry entries that still applied to the Steam version. I had definitely used the UWP version before though, so it's possible it was that or that had contributed.
  But downloading it on Bazzite and just having it work was...a little bizarre to experience.
  
  The microsoft store sells games? I thought that was only used to occasionally update your xbox for pc controllers by grabbing the xbox accessories app. Never seen the microsoft store otherwise.

Ltsc is supposed to be better too. If you didn't like it then it only gets worse from there

I disagree, as much as I wish it weren't so. Compared to Linux from the perspective of this gamer, it does just work. I wish I could main Linux but I can't handle any more critical boot issues or significant reductions in framerate. Not to mention that I cant easily auto-wol my lg tv "monitor" like I could from windows.
- Yeah, op just had a very rare experience.
- Yeah, sadly some games still do not work well on linux. Recently I had issues with Talos principle 2, where it may randomly crash on loading screen.

I came to the same conclusion recently. Had a bunch of issues after i decided to try running windows 11 instead of 10 in a vm. One of them being that my usb dac refused to work, turns out after googling and finding a weird random chatgpt article that it was caused by a specific update. Had to roll the update back to solve it. Now i have to hope that they solve it before they decide to force the update on me anyways.

Fedora Linux has been the most stable OS in my experience, having used Windows XP to 10 and switching to Linux before 11 came out. I can leave it on for literally weeks on end and the memory never randomly fills up, nor does it get more and more glitchy/crash prone as you leave it on, both of which I have experienced on Windows.
- In my experience, Fedora tends to be what a lot of developers settle on after distro hopping. This is by no way universal and RedHat has issues. But at some point, the OS and desktop environment become background noise compared to your own code and IDE. Younger people probably have different preferences — and they should — but you get more experienced and you have your setup. If my laptop dies, I can get back to coding quicker with Fedora than any other distro and it’s almost always stable.
  In the end, a computer is a tool and being skilled with an old tool can be better than being new to a more modern tool. I still use the same brand/type power drill that I used in high school/college when I worked construction in the summers. (Dewalt and I’d rather the old 18v but they switched to 20v. I have an adapter to charge either battery, though, so it’s fine.)

Good call. I’ve had to use Windows on work computers for the last 15 years, and I think it’s insane when people talk about it being simple or just working. I feel like I’m being gaslighted by people who maybe don’t know Linux very well so they decided Windows is good actually.
It appears to be all held together with string and ready to crumble randomly.
We keep one Windows laptop in our house so my partner can use some proprietary software she needs for work. When something goes wrong we just reimage it with the HP support tool because otherwise trying to fix it is like pulling your own teeth out.
- I work in IT supporting windows (server primarily) and from my perspective it does work pretty well. We have around 1500 Windows clients and around 400-500 Windows servers and it works pretty damn well. Sure problems happen, in general it does work. Now, I don't work in T1 support so I'm not sure how often people have problems but I would definitely hear about it if it were as bad as some on Lemmy claim.
  Our Windows Servers in general work great, I don't think we have noticeably more problems with them compared to our Linux servers which we have maybe 20% more of.
  Remember that pretty much the entire enterprise world use primarily or exclusively Windows clients and that would absolutely not be the case if they were "held together with string and ready to crumble randomly." That would simply not be acceptable in companies which could lose millions in just lost productivity.
  
  Relax, mate. I’m not trying to take away your Windows Server. Just talking about how bad windows is from end user perspective.. absolute rubbish, barely usable, nearly impossible to troubleshoot.
  I’m glad you get along with it from your IT professional/server admin role.
  
  That's because of active directory. It makes managing hundreds of users, across as many devices, in a centralized manner, easier. You make a user for the person with the intended access scheme, hand them a random laptop imaged from a master system OS, and off they go with access to all the software and tools tied to their user login. There's no similar alternative with a robust support service for Linux clients. If there were, then changing a culture to Linux clients wouldn't have so much friction.

See, I've had a similar experience getting games to run on Debian. Steam games crash and require research and testing to see if I can even get them to run, having some in-game videos just not play, black screens, and games just kinda freezing are all super common for me. That's just when trying to run games via Proton.
I get some of it can be tied to a skill issue on my part, but at the end of the day I'm tired and don't want to spend what little free time I have tinkering to get a game working, at least most days.
Still, my dislike for Windows 11 outweighs my interest in gaming so Debian stays.

Amen. This is similar to the experience I have too. When I use Windows I have as many if not more problems. If I was only using a web browser, like most non-power users, I would have across the board worse issues on windows.

I was in a somewhat similar place when I first got a laptop with Windows 11 preinstalled. Decided to dual boot, set Windows up with strictly local accounts, and actually poke around in there out of curiosity.
Tbf, the last time I was regularly doing anything in Windows was during the Vista --> Win 7 era. This did not make 11 any more approachable or easier to get even very basic things accomplished. I didn't like the UI (still don't), and kept getting frustrated at those "little" things like the Bluetooth codec issue you mention. Haven't even tried to do much gaming on that side, to compare, other than a couple I couldn't get working properly through WINE/Proton. (A couple of other software packages too.) So I ended up rarely playing those, and only booting into there at all once in a blue moon.
I did recognize that a lot of that frustration was on me and my expectations, though. Doesn't mean that I still don't want to have more control over basically everything about my system. I probably could make even modern Windows work better for me, but why bother when I'm already happy enough elsewhere. ¯(ツ)/¯

How did it play under Linux?
Look, I'd get my Mom to switch to linux if she still had a chance to play warcraft. Does it play on a rolling RPM release so I don't have to periodically reinstall the OS? I'm serious. This is almost the only reason I don't switch the family -- very particular games.
- can't imagine you would have many problems on opensuse tumbleweed
- Go atomic immutable. Is it different? Yes. But the system is always updated without any package hell. Makes managing a system for others extremely simple. Bazzite for gamers, aurora for workstations, bluefin if you like Gnome.
- Wow works fine on Linux for me

Windows is a just the comfort zone for normies...
Linux once set up has less issues but it can be hard to set if you your hardware doesn't work out of the box. Which is a real risk

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