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

  1. 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.
  2. The community and the spirit of sharing
  3. The joy of “figuring it out” and customizing everything you want to the minutest details
  4. 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?

  • Mr. Satan@monyet.cc
    0·
    7 months ago

    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.

    • morbidcactus@lemmy.ca
      0·
      7 months ago

      The task bar change annoyed the hell out of me, get why people were so upset with w8 now, I’ve been a top taskbar person since xp, small gripe but it jarred me, at least the hotkeys didn’t change, the hiding of context menus irks me too, if you are going to do things like that, let me toggle it off. Windows has been getting increasingly frustrating to power users, more annoying to me because winget is solid and windows terminal is actually really nice.

      Same boat, work is windows, I’ve found it easier to work on a linux VM or totally in wsl with a chunk of tasks, had grief with docker too which to be fair, I’m pretty sure most of these issues are because of group policies, company i work for bought tech firms but the central IT is setup for business users so things like local admin I had to fight for weeks to get just to install the azure CLI.

  • SitD@lemy.lol
    0·
    7 months ago

    there are too many little details to point out but windows just controls your experience too much. for example on a widescreen i don’t want to be forced to have the taskbar on the long edge. and up to including w10 the taskbar placement could be chosen. in windows 11 it’s forbidden… i installed a software to hack this but of course then explorer.exe breaks every 10 minutes.

    the spirit of computer technology is a universal tool. Microsoft strongarms the user to be a tool. so no thanks

  • socphoenix@midwest.social
    0·
    7 months ago

    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.

  • GravitySpoiled@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    7 months ago

    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.

    • Telorand@reddthat.com
      0·
      7 months ago

      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.

  • Peffse@lemmy.world
    0·
    7 months ago

    The “we know better than you” attitude Microsoft has. They’ve very slowly removed more and more power user functionality. Almost every customization has to be hacked in with a group policy or registry edit now, or by outright replacing explorer.exe

      • aksdb@lemmy.world
        0·
        7 months ago

        I still rank OSX higher, simply because it’s at least consistent. Windows is a fucking mess.

          • aksdb@lemmy.world
            0·
            7 months ago

            Although to be fair, WSL fixes that issue to a big degree. Maybe even better than OSX, since you get a real Linux with real userspace. WSL(2) might be the only really cool feature Microsoft added to Windows, that actually brings value for the user.

  • atzanteol@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    0·
    7 months ago

    I genuinely don’t find Windows easier to use. And troubleshooting Windows problems is a friggin’ nightmare compared to Linux.

    • Telorand@reddthat.com
      0·
      7 months ago

      The Microsoft support forums are pitifully hilarious, too.

      “Hi, I need help with N. I’ve tried X, Y, and, Z.”

      “Hello, sorry to hear that you’re having trouble with N. Have you tried X, Y, or Z?”

      “Yes.”

      “I’m sorry to hear that it’s still not working. Please refer to this thread, and feel free to contact Microsoft Support with any future questions. Have a nice day.”

      “But my problem still isn’t solved. Hello?”

      • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        0·
        7 months ago

        It seems to be populated exclusively by people (or these days LLMs?) who have had MS customer interaction training, but simultaneously have no grasp of reading compression.

        • bizarroland@fedia.io
          0·
          7 months ago

          And the other one is either use a third party registry cleaner or run this esoteric powershell command as admin.

          And if it doesn’t work, just reinstall your entire computer. Fuck your entire day.

          • Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            0·
            7 months ago

            I’ve genuinely seen a post asking for help because DISM wouldn’t run, where the recommended answer was to run DISM 🙈

  • joe@feddit.org
    0·
    7 months ago

    Many government agencies and businesses are too dependent on Windows and other Microsoft products. The dependence on a few huge American corporations is problematic especially for organizations outside the US.

    I don’t hate Windows but I see it as a political problem.

    • sping@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
      0·
      7 months ago

      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?

      • null@slrpnk.net
        0·
        7 months ago

        This is where I’ve gotten. My wife got a new laptop with Windows 11 and wanted some help settings things up. I was bumbling through everything realizing I haven’t kept up with the Windows way of doing things in years.

  • ___@lemm.ee
    0·
    7 months ago

    After decades of user interfaces and internet access, we’re making things worse rather than better.

    Someone at Microsoft realized that hardware will speed up, hiding the fact that the OS is getting bloated and riddled with code that doesn’t directly benefit the user.

    The value Windows provides isn’t great enough to deal with this state any longer. In fact, my experience shows it’s slower and just as buggy.

    We have technology available to improve experiences, let’s not mix it with profit incentives for once.

  • ftbd@feddit.de
    0·
    7 months ago

    It just… lacks features? I couldn’t use ZFS or Btrfs, FDE requires third-party software (veracrypt) and lots of other things that I see as standard system utilities (think ssh, git etc.) are not available on a fresh install. And then you’re supposed to download and install .exe files from the internet? Since microsoft controls what goes in the windows store, that could provide the same experience as your distro’s repositories. But again, most things you want aren’t there, and you can’t even trust the things that are there. For some reason, a billion dollar company cannot curate a software repository of the same quality as the ones maintained by unpaid volunteers in the Linux world.

    So yeah, I think it’s just not there yet. Maybe in a few years windows will be a viable alternative for desktop systems.

    • ReversalHatchery@beehaw.orgEnglish
      0·
      7 months ago

      FDE requires third-party software (veracrypt)

      There’s bitlocker, I think it was added in 7 or Vista. What do you mean?
      But other than that, I would rather use VC too.

      standard system utilities (think ssh, git etc.) are not available on a fresh install

      Hmm, depends. It has a built in openssh client and server, but the “feature” (automatically installing package) is off by default. It can be enabled at install time with the use of the standard windows image modification tools (DISM I think?)

      And then you’re supposed to download and install .exe files from the internet? Since microsoft controls what goes in the windows store

      I think it’s better that Microsoft does not have that much control over software distribution.

      But again, most things you want aren’t there, and you can’t even trust the things that are there.

      Of course you can’t, nobody can tell by looking at the store page if it was modified by anyone, including Microsoft.
      The amazon app store for android explicitely tells that they are adding tracking code to every uploaded app, and to make this possible they replace the digital signature of apps uploaded. Google with the play store does not tell anything like this afaik, but for a few years now it also basically compromised the digital signatures of developers, by requiring the private keys to be mandatorily handed in for continued app updates.
      I don’t trust that these companies that already rely on mass surveillance as a revenue stream, they won’t add tracking code to apps unauthorized by the devs. If not right now, it will happen in the future.

      For some reason, a billion dollar company cannot curate a software repository of the same quality as the ones maintained by unpaid volunteers in the Linux world.

      Besides quality, I think open source distro’s repository and it’s packagers are largely more trustable. They are not motivated financially to modify the packages in unwanted (by the user) ways, and they are transparent.

      So yeah, I think it’s just not there yet. Maybe in a few years windows will be a viable alternative for desktop systems.

      I think they are drifting farther and farther away.
      It was an option. But the shitshow of 11… thanks that’s too much. I’m not installing that for anyone. And 10 is soon end of life…