It’s the simple things really. I’ve swapped back to Linux as my primary about a year ago, and still I have issues I don’t have with Windows.
6 months now, particularly on Linux Mint (Bazzite to its credit hasn’t had this issue much) I just can’t fit connect to the internet. Linux is the only thing with this issue. By some arcane lucky magic, it somehow fixes itself when I’m fiddling around trying to fix it myself.
Only for the problem to come back next time I boot up my PC on Mint.
I have it connected to a TP link switch, just like other devices. None have the issue, not even a console (Nintendo Switch). Months, fucking months of going through forum posts, articles, social media, and trying out dozens upon dozens of “solutions”, both in gui and the terminal - and the problem persists.
Now, I don’t think I’m tech savvy exactly, but I’m not tech illiterate either. I understand some simple lines of code, some very basics of networking, etc. I’m patient enough to deal with issues like these for over half a year.
But how the hell is Linux even going to dream of being anywhere near mainstream when one of the most recommended “beginner” distros can’t even run a year long without something as simple as the damned internet working???
And it’s not just the internet. It’s little things that just pop up one day and now you have to solve a puzzle to figure it out. Oh, suddenly you have to print something? Oh, you decided to get a light up keyboard that was on sale? Try to use Steam Link? Get ready to roll the dice on whether it’ll take you a weekend to do / use it.
Microsoft is shit. Windows, is shit. Windows 11 is a privacy goddamn nightmare.
But in the end of the day, it just fucking works, those damn bastards ensure that. And even when something doesn’t work, it seems, for some unknown reason, most of the online solutions do fix the issue.
Now imagine someone who’s less likely to open up a terminal using Linux. They won’t. They’ll sacrifice their privacy because they might have full time jobs in something not remotely tech related and just wanted to watch some YouTube and don’t want to spend the little free time they have fixing their own computer.
What’s hilarious is just as I’m finishing this rant, the internet on Mint just magically decided to work again with no issues.
Maybe next time then I’ll try yelling at the Linux fairies in my PC to see if they’ll do their magic. At this point it’s about a valid solution as any other.
Turns out that is your experience, and it cannot be extrapolated to the rest of the world.
In fact, my experience is actually opposite. Everytime I go back to Windows to do some task… Wi-Fi has trouble finding my access point, and when it finally connects (sometimes after having to reboot) the connection is simply not as strong. Oh, and some bullsh*t software got reinstalled and it even set itself up as launching-at-start-up, after I had to almost hack the OS to allow me to do that.
So, do I extrapolate to the rest of the world?
Yes. Also assume that anyone who disagrees with you is either insane or stupid. It’s the modern human condition!
True. Just this weekend I spent far too much time trying to get a printer to work again on Windows after its IP address got changed. In the end Windows refused to talk to the printer unless I removed and then readded the device from the Settings app, which prompted a reinstallation of the device driver. No, just changing the IP address in the device settings wasn’t enough; Windows insisted on the driver being reinstalled.
Linux didn’t need reconfiguration; it just autodetected that the printer had moved.
I’m not saying that Linux is without issues, not by far. But Windows has never been terribly “it just works” for me either. The closest to “it just works” was (aptly) OS X somewhere around Snow Leopard.
Probably not but it’s the exact same for me. If something doesn’t work on Linux it takes me a few minutes to fix it (there have been a few rare exceptions) but the time I spend trying to get closed source software to work is infuriating and I usually just give up.
I recently tried compiling a rust project on a Windows computer that has special software to reset the PC after a reboot.
I had to download an executable installer from the cargo website. That installer then said I needed a (1.3GiB) Microsoft C++ Compiler which then required a reboot after it was installed??? Why???
Yep, same here ! But with this stupid MacOS ! Expensive as hell and they can’t even get some basic networking tweaks right…