What can you do on Linux that you can't do on Windows?

Ganesh Venugopal@lemmy.ml to Linux@lemmy.ml – 188 points –

edit: hey guys, 60+ comments, can't reply from now on, but know that I am grateful for your comments, keep the convo going. Thank you to the y'all people who gave unbiased answers and thanks also to those who told me about Waydroid and Docker

edit: Well, now that's sobering, apparently I can do most of these things on Windows with ease too. I won't be switching back to Windows anytime soon, but it appears that my friend was right. I am getting FOMO Fear of missing out right now.

I do need these apps right now, but there are some apps on Windows for which we don't have a great replacement

  1. Adobe
  2. MS word (yeah, I don't like Libre and most of Libre Suit) it's not as good as MS suite, of c, but it's really bad.
  3. Games ( a big one although steam is helping bridge the gap)
  4. Many torrented apps, most of these are Windows specific and thus I won't have any luck installing them on Linux.
  5. Apparently windows is allowing their users to use some Android apps?

Torrented apps would be my biggest concern, I mean, these are Windows specific, how can I run them on Linux? Seriously, I want to know how. Can wine run most of the apps without error? I am thinking of torrenting some educational software made for Windows.



Let me list the customizations I have done with my xfce desktop and you tell me if I can do that on Windows.

I told my friend that I can't leave linux because of all the customization I have done and he said, you just don't like to accept that Windows can do that too. Yeah, because I think it can't do some of it (and I like Linux better)

But yeah, let's give the devil it's due, can I do these things on Windows?

  1. I have applications which launch from terminal eg: vlc would open vlc (no questions asked, no other stuff needed, just type vlc)
  2. Bash scripts which updates my system (not completely, snaps and flatpaks seem to be immune to this). I am pretty sure you can't do this on Windows.
  3. I can basically automate most of my tasks and it has a good integration with my apps.
  4. I can create desktop launchers.
  5. Not update my system, I love to update because my updates aren't usually 4 freaking GB and the largest update I have seen has been 200-300 mbs, probably less but yeah, I was free to not update my PC if I so choose. Can you do this on Windows? And also, Linux updates fail less often, I mean, it might break your system, but the thing won't stop in the middle and say "Bye Bye, updates failed" and now you have to waste 4GB again to download the update. PS: You should always keep your apps upto date mostly for security reasons, but Linux won't force it on you and ruin your workflow.
  6. Create custom panel plugin.

  1. My understanding is that the Windows terminal sucks? I don't know why, it just looks bad.

I am sure as hell there are more but this is at the top of my mind rn, can I do this on Windows. Also, give me something that you personally do on Linux but can't do it on Windows.

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  1. Not update my system

You can't do that on Windows, the updates are forced on you.

You definitely can with Group Policies.

Not sure what Windows version is OP referring to but I was talking about Windows 10 (regular, not enterprise) and based on what I've been reading about Windows 11 I assume it's either the same or worse.

So to give you more details, in regular Windows 10 you cannot block Windows updates. I tried everything - stopping and disabling the service, changing system/WU settings, editing registry, editing group policy, blocking Windows Update with firewall, blocking their domains in HOST file and any other advise available online, even setting the connection a metered - Windows just ignores all of it and downloads and installs updates anyway. Just because some settings exist doesn't mean enabling them will work as you would expect. It's fucking ridiculous. Fuck Microsoft.

I've turned off Updates with group policies and have not had an issue with that ever since Windows 10 got released. Afaik the same can be done with registry when on Windows Home. It will still check for updates, but if set up correctly it should not download nor install them.

I'm not enough of a windows cuck to know what that means. I'm guessing some registry nonsense.