[Rant] I swear to fucking god. Windows is harder to use than Linux. Have any of you ever USED Windows lately? Holy fuck.

PeterPoopshit@lemmy.world to Linux@lemmy.ml – 306 points –

I'm helping a family member build a pc. He wanted to use Windows because "Linux can't play games" despite me having a perfectly good gaming laptop running Linux that runs all my games, even graphically intensive ones.

2 days later, no game has been played yet. We can't even get steam to start. I even installed Arch on a sata ssd I donated just to verify the pc parts actually work (took less than an hour). It took 1 and a half days to even get the Windows 11 installer to get past like the 3rd screen.

Fucking fuck. Dealing with all this fucking bullshit is far worse than not being able to play a few trashy anticheat pay 2 win games. The anti Linux circlejerk is real.

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Can't tell if this is a shitpost or not

There's more linux circlejerk or "windows bad" posts in this community than actual useful ones.

Of all the circlejerks this one is really silly though. You can complain about so many fucking things about Windows but Windows 11 is really damn easy to install and setup and I'm pretty sure you can do it in 30 mins.

The OP's whining about Linux playing all the games feels like bait to me. Linux just doesn't run every game that Windows does and it's not about how graphically intense it is.

Some linux distros are also damn easy to install, easier than windows just try for yourself

It is no competition on whether linux is easier to install when you can run it off a fucking flash drive.

That doesn't make Windows 11 hard though.

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Me neither. Linux is my main Operating System but... We can't generalize one Windows experience just like we can't generalize one Linux experience.

It's a lot easier to do the former than the latter. Windows fixes a lot of things about the experience, but maybe not the exact flavoring / theming.

Linux you can't say anything about the experience besides sweeping generalizations by distro.

I agree with this. I use Linux exclusively at home, but for work I have a windows laptop. It’s really not that bad. I for sure don’t like it as much, but it isn’t atrocious.

Linux users on Lemmy: People who don't run Linux are just bad with computers and shouldn't be using a computer at all!

Also Linux users on Lemmy: Anyone else is unable to install windows from scratch?

😘👌

Linux users on Lemmy: People who don't run Linux are just bad with computers and shouldn't be using a computer at all!

I remember being part of these exact same conversations on other message boards at least 15 years ago.

We're all going around in circles here as history repeats itself.

I have found windows is easier to install every time. This is just another windows bad linux good post. Windows has so many issues, but installation is not one of them. Even my 10 year old cousin installs it fine.

@SloganLessons @PeterPoopshit
Yeah, but by then the "good" version will be available - Windows 12.

Alternatively, if your needs could be met by another os e.g. Linux or MacOS then why not migrate to them?

Windows 12 will be a massive hit, just like google stadia.

In my experience, installation of Win or Lin has been pretty easy. Lin has less options to opt out of (I like) than windows, but windows set everything up just fine. The only time I ever had issues on either is if I try to install without an active ether net connected. If I don't have the os update during install, I run into random driver issues on either os.

Yeah, I genuinely do not understand having used Windows, Linux, and MacOS. They are making it sound like it's trying to decipher some unknown language. Even a quick YouTube would have solved how to install a exe.

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People have trouble installing Windows? You enter a license key and click next a couple times.

You missed the part where you either sign in with your Microsoft account or cut your Internet, remove the webcam, fake your own death, and do the secret tap code in the bios to just have the OS without letting Microsoft into your butthole.

Windows 11 doesn't force you do any of that. Just skip the sign in. Your points were valid in 8/10 era but no more.

It depends on the version, but yes, it does. It's especially a problem on prebuilt machines and laptops. It is incredibly annoying to work with in a corporate environment. Our helpdesk tech comes to me with issues related to this probably three times a week. I gave up with work arounds and we just have a throwaway Microsoft account now.

Rufus has workarounds for the mandatory login.

Who is this Rufus fellow? Is he like Tux?

Windows app for flashing ISOs to your USB. It provides additional options for flashing Windows 11.

He's that chill future guy from Bill & Ted's excellent adventure.

I've seen that before, but when I proposed that as a solution it was shot down due to being unsupported by Microsoft. I just wish they had an OEM option to skip it.

Not true. 11 very much still forces you to use an MS account.

There is a secret command you can do to setup without Internet. But they hide it on the startup command line.

On the “Oops, you’ve lost internet connection” or “Let’s connect you to a network” page, use the “Shift + F10” keyboard shortcut.

In Command Prompt, type the OOBE\BYPASSNRO command to bypass network requirements on Windows 11 and press Enter.

You can just enter a fake Microsoft account and password. When it doesn't work, it gives the option to continue with an offline account (or at least whatever version I installed did)

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I just installed 11 recently. There isn't a skip button anymore. I had to enter fake sign in details for it to give me the "offline" option.

So it seems like their point may still stand.

Someone pointed out that Pro version still doesn't require sign in. I've only dealt with Pro and didn't know it's different than Home in this thing. Sorry for being overly confident.

That's not accurate. The new versions of Windows 11 make you restart the OOBE with a flag to disable the MS login requirement. His points also weren't valid during the 8/10 era, because back then you could just click offline experience at the bottom left. You didn't even need to disable WiFi, just don't connect.

Edit: Seems Pro lets you install without an account, home does not. Most of the laptops I've worked on come with home.

Ah I'm sorry I've installed Win11 on several computers but they've all been Pro version. I didn't know that Home is different.

Nah its understandable. I had no idea it was different either.

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Try doing it on a b650 motherboard that's so new the windows installer doesn't even have the correct ahci drivers

I bought a Ryzen 7 7800X3D and an Asrock X670E, I was upgrading and just transferred my Windows install but still.... No issues.

I'm no huge fan of Windows, but it sounds like you had (No offense) PEBKAC errors.

I’m no huge fan of Windows, but it sounds like you had (No offense) PEBKAC errors.

I think so too and no offense meant to OP as well.

I am an early adopter of all things tech and so I had a Gigabyte Xtreme X670E mobo on pretty much day 1 to go with a 7950X. Everything worked fine on both Windows 11 and Linux despite being a pimped-up mobo and brand new CPU. At this much later date, OP's B650 mobo should be working without a hitch, especially with Windows (and almost certainly with Linux as well).

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I cant tell if people in this thread are trolls, ultra elite linux shills, or just people incapable of following simple instructions...

Like I get it, windows bad or w/e... But to act like it takes longer than an hour or two to install it, let alone 2 whole fucking days is just asinine.

Imagine having enough of a skill issue that it takes you 2 days to install Windows OS. The OS that idiot proofs itself by literally holding your hand on every option and walks you through itself to install.

Im not even joking, I re-install and have installed windows the past few years multiple times on personal devices for myself and my family and friends and even do it for professional devices and servers for my job. It is brain dead easy, enough that my tech illiterate grandparents managed to re-install it before I could make the drive to meet them and do it for them... I can't take this OP or anyone else seriously if they can manage to install a linux based OS but somehow have 2 days worth of trouble with Windows OS...

I was going to say... If it takes you literally 1.5 days to simply install and after 2 days you can't even launch Steam? I'm sorry, but you have extraordinarily fucked up. Whatever the fuck is happening there is not on Windows. OP, I would love to understand what you were seeing or what was happening. And I also wonder if you are using an actual Windows OS image, or what you tinkered with or ran scripts on to maybe "clean Windows up". Unfortunately so many of those scripts are also fucking notorious for breaking some Windows functionality, like the Xbox games and what not.

Don't get me wrong. Windows is becoming worse and worse in both features and performance (AI powered file recommendations in my start menu? get the fuck outta here). But I'm sorry, this complaint in the OP is not it.

I'm sympathetic to a Windows install taking days (I've been there), but you're right that it's not Windows' fault. It's always some 10 year-old hardware with dodgy or no-longer-supported drivers. Maybe you could make an argument that it's partly Windows' fault because they push driver support onto the hardware vendors, rather than use Linux' model of having the kernel developers maintain them.

That's fair. I guess when they mentioned they were building a PC I assumed it was relatively recent hardware. But I've been there when you can't get or find drivers, or Windows tells you the old drivers aren't compatible with newer OS' and things like that.

OP is just wanting to shit on Windows because this is a Linux community.

100%

Lot of problems with the directions windows has gone or is going (cortana finally gone), but people need to chill if they think the OS is unusable or something.

Anecdotally I'm hoping SteamOS continues to progress how it has so there are even more reasons to not depend on Windows.

Yes. I have done so many installs of Windows 10 LTSC in the last few years and even on HDD it doesn't take that much time.

This is a legit troll post. Despite Linux being better in some aspects, Windows totally steamrolls Linux on being easy to install.

Heck W10 LTSC has been super smooth and stable for me for the past 2 years on my work machine which I tend to use more than my Personal Laptop which runs Manjaro.

ROFL windows is the easiest thing ever to install. Same with steam.

Sounds like either you’re terrible with computers or you have some serious hardware issues.

Blaming it solely on windows is a joke.

@Coreidan @PeterPoopshit ah, can you install windows without a microsoft-cloud account nowadays ? Please tell me how.

Yes, I've set up several work computers without internet. You can make a local account on set-up.

It's kinda funny how many people have no problem at all with a cloud account on their phone but get a mild stroke when Windows asks them to create a Microsoft account.

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ROFL, I like Linux, but if you can't install windows 11 easily. The problem isn't win11...

The problem is you cursed somebody out on Xbox Live in 2018 and now your Microsoft account is banned.

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Windows 11's installer is a mess on anything but the most vanilla hardware configurations.

For example, I am unable to install Windows 11 on my PC because, for some infuriating reason, it keeps trying to install its bootloader on my SATA HDDs instead of the NVME drive I explicitly tell it to install onto, and then failing. It doesn't seem like there's any way forward except to physically disconnect all my SATA drives before installing. One of these days I might need Windows enough to go to that trouble, but right now I'm happy enough single-booting Linux.

Never mind the artificial limitations on TPM configurations. I didn't need to edit my BIOS settings to install Linux, but Windows threw a little fit.

Boot into BIOS, disable the controller for the SATA drives, install on nvme, revert BIOS config.

I recall an issue that started with windows 8 and UEFI where the bootloader would get installed on any HDD instead of the SSD where the operating system would live.

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Windows has it's serious flaws, and I would never willingly go back to it at this point, but the installer is too hard? This sounds like a you-issue rather than a Windows one.

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Nice bait I guess. Windows may have bad things, but I have no idea what you're talking about here

it feels like i'm still in /g/ with these types of posts

you went on a tirade about "windows bad, linux (aRcH btW!!!) best" without giving us any relevant information to help you with your "issue", other than the fact that you can game on your linux gaming laptop. you should've told that to your family member to at least try and convince them that gaming on linux is acceptable/good, maybe try to educate them about wine/proton and how performance may not be as good and some minor configurations may be needed, but that you could make it work. But nope.

also seriously, i mainly use linux myself, and i know this is a linux community, but we all know that windows "just works". it is also literally just a point and click on a gui even on the installer, it's that easy. reflash/rewrite the iso, or get another iso. that is my guess as to what you're fucking up

This has got to be bait from that user. The third screen is like the keyboard screen. What the heck are they even talking about. 36 hours to still be in the first three screens.

I want to preface this with noting that I 99% agree with you on this, but to be fair Windows "just works" right up until it doesn't.

What got me off Windows was how frequently all the UWP-powered system apps (like Screenshot Tool, Calculator, etc.) and even core stuff like Explorer would just have some key functionality just break randomly.

Not implying that programs on Linux don't also just randomly shit themselves, but to pretend that Windows just works is a bit silly.

These "Windows bad" posts are the worst thing in the Linux community. I run Windows on my desktop because Games are just far easier and usually run better, and Windows works perfectly fine.

Games just run on my Linux laptop these days. I stopped checking winehq a long time ago.

ProtonDB is the first place I go before buying a game, most of the time games work, but there's a few occasions where I have to change some configurations.

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I don't have any issues with performance, just with anticheat not being compatible with my most played games.

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Yeah, it's a fricken nightmare... Windows is ok in a well managed corporate setup where all the crap is uninstalled

I bought a laptop recently which came with Windows. I was going to setup dual boot because I need Office365 for work... but in the end I just gave up, deleted windows and installed Ubuntu.

I hear lots of people used to using Windows saying "I tried Linux and couldn't get anything to work"... it's not that I don't believe them, but I really struggle to understand it. Windows is so much worse!

I tend to get the kind of Linux issues nobody believes.
Currently my installation "works" but none of the text mode boot up stuff displays at all so I have to dig out a spare screen if it gets stuck there.
Another screen I could never get the display scaling to work no matter what I did - I tried swapping cables, editing the resolution manually, different drivers, different distros, everything I could think of but it would always output 640x480 native pixels unscaled as a tiny square in the middle of the screen.

Windows gives me issues but it usually just works with every screen+gpu combination.

What graphics card do you use, and also what kind of cable? Sometimes when using dvi in hdmi compat mode it cannot read the displays information and defaults to rendering with basic vesa drivers, or just defaulting to the smallest size to at least make sure that you have a picture

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It's a completely different set of problems with both systems. Problems with Linux are usually related to missing drivers, or the whole mess with having 40 kinds of software stores (and it's 2023 and you still can't update stuff like discord without running a command on the terminal).

Problems with windows are usually things like "if I join a call my phones stop playing stereo music", or "there's 50 different programs launching on system startup and it takes 5 minutes to even display my wallpaper".

Folks get used to one of them eventually but when switching to the other all they think of is "I didn't have to deal with this sort of thing there"

Laypeople can and do have problems on Linux, sometimes due to defects or deficiencies, other times of their own making. For people beyond layfolk however, Linux is infinitely easier to troubleshoot and manage. I just came off such a troubleshooting spree I finished on my new corp Ubuntu workstation that would randomly go black screen and wouldn't recover without a reset. Without information on the web, I was able to track down the culprit and come up with a workaround. If that happened to me on Windows:

Is that a thing still? The last 3 companies I’ve worked for didn’t even remove the Xbox apps from windows. The most I’ve seen is disabling the windows store so installing Microsoft terminal and WSL becomes more difficult.

Problem is that without the appropriate GPOs being setup, Microsoft will keep reinstalling the Xbox shit. And they keep changing how it happens so the GPOs need fixed every 6 months or so. It’s quite annoying, easier to just set one of my AV suites to attack and quarantine any games as malware and alert my team so we can have a talk with someone’s manager when they try to download destiny2.

Why, were you too stupid to configure dual boot? I don't imagine you're having a better time with Linux. This is not hard stuff.

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How the fuck does anybody have trouble running Windows these days?

Some OEM's really fuck up Windows, leaving it in a practically unusable state almost out of the box with the amount of shitware that's on there.

Additionally, for Windows, some hardware vendors do a poor job of ensuring working drivers get installed by default. Sometimes the wrong, but similar driver gets installed by Windows on a fresh install and it can really bork things up. The same can happen on Linux, but it's easier to ignore a faulty driver at boot time with Grub and make sure the right one gets loaded. And truthfully I haven't had to do that since like 2005.

This is trolling or the actual issue is an PEBKAC issue.

Windows has fallen far from grace in my opinion, but it is not the incompetent smoldering trash fire you are describing. You guys are doing something wrong.

Three options.

  1. PEBKAC in the extreme
  2. Failing hardware causing serious software issues
  3. Creative writing exercise.

I thought this would be a post complaining about the usablility of windows as a desktop, not the one thing windows does right...

That's the shittiest shitpost ever.

I'm upvoting this because it's hilarious, but on a serious note, installing windows is so easy my granny could do it.

The only thing, and I assume that's where you struggled, is sometimes the formatting of the hd doesn't want to work. In that case, a quick google will help you out, but also just format it quickly with diskpart and continue the installation.

This person is either cursed or idk what they were trying to do. Installing Windows literally couldn't be easier, you don't even need to think about partitions, you can just let it create them itself.

I reinstall Windows every cca. 6 months to clear all the bloat i pick up, it's really not that hard.

I honestly found instaling Linux to be way easier than Windows, also suprisingly nvidia graphic card was easier to set up on Linux rather than Windows, beacuse pop os(And other sensible distros) Just bundle them with the os so it worked out of the box .

It's weird seeing niche comment areas with sensible real experience comments

I've used Linux exclusively at home for the last 10 years. We deploy Windows where I work. This is not normal. Despite my disdain for Microsoft, the setup process on Windows is straight forward and easy. It's one of the things Microsoft gets right.

This idea of OS superiority is pointless. Every major OS has things it does better than the others. We should look at those things to improve Linux in areas where it lags behind.

So I install windows all the time for work but I noticed something. We found an old laptop running windows 7. It has an inferior CPU, slower ram compared to our windows 10 and windows 11 systems. The only thing similar is both use integrated graphics.

The 7, which does struggle to boot, is far more responsive than our enterprise 10 and 11 systems after startup. The search function works much better on the 7. I wasn't served a single ad or suggestion on the 7.

This is mostly an observation and it's completely anecdotal, I just enjoyed the 7 more than the modern windows experience. In fact it felt closer to my Steam Deck which has now pushed me over to just dumping windows at home and trying to go Linux only.

Windows 7 was fantastic. It was the last windows OS I liked. My work is almost exclusively like 10 year old i3 systems that originally ran fine on 7 but after they were updated to 10 are sluggish and barely work.

Windows 7 had basically no bloat, functional search in the start menu, and looked rather nice. 10 is an infested dog by comparison.

What were you doing? The windows 11 install is so simple compared to even the windows 7 one. Where you messing with things to bypass the Microsoft login or something?

Windows has a hell of time with certain hardware, and with the introduction of windows 10 they tried getting you to login to a microsoft account at every turn, it became a huge hassle since half the time I had shitty internet that would drop out for hours at a time. While windows can be easier to use, I break those installations constantly and have to reinstall frequently. I've been using the same /home directory on my arch install for the past 5 years and have only had to reinstall when my new laptop had a smaller NVME drive than the raid 1-0 setup I used before it

Windows 11 also does that. You have to jump to the command line and do some stuff mid-install to get it to install without an internet connection. Boggles the mind

Win key + f10 to get to CMD, then oobe\bypassnro.

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Every day on two machines, I dunno, it's piss-easy. In fact that's my one big argument for Windows ,that stuff that works out of the box.

Yep, if you can daily any linux distro but struggle to install Windows it's an attitude issue. Windows 11 is arguably the most user friendly OS ever made.

It is surprisingly good at finding generic drivers. First time I actually had to get drivers manually for a printer in years was MacOS Ventura. And then for an old PC I had to get some custom drivers that worked on newer kernel for an old Nvidia card due to the generic one causing freezing.

Yes, it's bad

If you're on the happy path all is well. The smoothest shit ever. If you turn onto the unhappy path.. oh boy. Helpful logs? Useful community posts from SMEs? Meh no. Best I can do is a plate of irrelevant copy-pasta on a malware-ridden site, SEOd to the top.

  1. It's not just P2W games that don't have anticheat support, id keep windows for warzone alone but there are a few more that don't work with proton because of anticheat software. Unfortunately mostly the games I play.

  2. How the fuck are you having this much trouble? I mean there's some really easy distros out there like Nobara but if you can install Arch how the fuck have you failed to install windows? Just make a windows 10 bootable and follow the on screen instructions until you're in the desktop.

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I have Linux on my laptop but I have a Windows gaming PC and I'm honestly trying to figure out how could you not get steam to start? Never had an issue with that before..

Windows works fine most of the time. The problem is, when you do have a problem, you are screwed. Either reinstall or live with it. The chance of getting it fixed is like 20%

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@PeterPoopshit this has to be a shitpost this person is either extremely stupid or shitposting. windows install takes 15 mins worst case. no trh install is not great because you sit there for 10 minutes hitting no no no but its not hard

On some linux distros the only thing you have to press is "yes". Sounds easier to me than having to press "no" for 10 minutes

Which edition are you trying to install? Are you using an up-to-date ISO?
I've only ever used the business edition, and it's never given me any trouble.

  1. Head over to the tools section in the megathread at !piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
  2. Grab a clean business editon ISO from one of the listed sources.
  3. Create an installation flash drive using rufus.
  4. Make sure all the legacy CSM crap is disabled in BIOS.
  5. Boot off the flash drive and run the installer.
  6. When you get prompted to sign in with a Microsoft account click "Domain join instead" (or something similar).
  7. Create a normal account but leave the password field blank (to avoid having to enter security questions).
  8. After you finish the setup and get into Windows, hit Ctrl+Alt+Delete and set a password.
  9. (optional) Go into settings and either enter your legally obtained key to activate Windows (it should automagically recombobulate itself into a matching editon) or read through the aforementioned tools section for an alternative 🏴‍☠️
  10. ???
  11. PROFIT You've installed Windows.

Grab a clean business editon ISO

I haven't used windows in a long time, but when I was tinkering with windows LTSC IoT was the recommended ISO because of no bloat. Is this still the recommendation or is there a better version?

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It is not harder, windows is just playing find the config toggles with its users. it's like easter all year long.

That shit absolutely drives me bonkers. And all the non-resizable dialog boxes make me want to scream every fucking time.

I would reccommend you to not install W11, but install W10 instead. It's more stable with all sorts of hardware.

Also this could indicate an issue with the drive you're going to install the OS on. Could you run some checks on the disk itself for failed sectors?

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Strange. I install windows 11 at least 3 times a week at work, it takes about 5 mins and is useable out the box.

Perhaps you could try RevoOS

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Dude windows works like a charm for me unless I start fucking with the drivers I really hope that fixes itself somehow because I do think windows is a pretty decent os and it sucks that it's having that big of an issue

I'm all for using Linux, and I'm considering moving my desktop over from Win 10, but I've never had any issues with the install of Windows. If it's any level of modern hardware, it should mostly work out of the box.

These kinds of rants really trip my BS detector, because it's just not that complicated. If you can handle Linux but can't manage to even install Windows, I have a lot of questions.

Windows 10 and 11 pretty much work in any hardware I've used. The last time I had driver issues was on windows 7, like 10 years ago.

These people are one of these 2: either they're being dishonest, or they are admitting they don't know how to install an OS that holds your hand so much that even my grandma could do it.

Or they're on something bleeding edge / trying to do something non standard with drive encryption or raid / want to avoid using Microsoft account / cut the spyware. Those are all not as easy as they sound.

@dream_weasel my brother in christ, we’re talking about the process of installing windows, not why they should or shouldn’t. On that second topic, you’re preaching to the choir

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It's about familiarity. I didn't know how to install drivers on Windows. I searched and didn't see anything in the settings about firmware updates. I was stumped.

My friend comes over and tells me I have to go to the manufacturer website to download drivers and it was like going back in time.

Its not that bad but the most time you spend on installation is opting out of services. This takes up like 75% of the install time :D

Then come the update/reboot cycles, the drivers then fetching your softwares from their genuine websites and installing them.

I know this is a Linux /c/ but maybe youre just not educated in windows is all. I use Mac windows and Linux and can play games on them all. I don't find any of them hard to use but again I make it a point to use them all so I don't ever have to be apart of the communitys that hate one or the other. I like them all it's fun.

I'm a Windows user at home because there are two games that aren't supported on Linux. However I run Linux on a second SSD as i hope to move away from Windows one day.

Windows just works. When I install Linux it all looks great until I start to use it and find small issues. Like my Yubikey doesn't work so I can't get into certain websites. Once I install another app I get that working and then spend an hour trying to get the Bitwarden desktop client to work. I result in a forum post before being told that security keys are not supported by the application and Linux. It's a Windows only feature currently.
Videos in Firefox lag. I've done nothing special with the OS, this is Firefox that is installed with the OS. I'm yet to fix this but also yet to investigate the issue.

Every time I use Linux I first have to fix things to get it working. I've never had this with Windows. I'm sure people will down vote me to hell, with this being a Linux community, but that's just my experience.

I had the same issue than you with my internet browser and VLC (or other media players). I thought it was due to missing codecs. But even after reinstalling all of them, I got lags on video.

Now, i use flatpak for my internet browser and for VLC, everything works just fine.

I get this feeling, but with iOS. Oh, I want to save a picture I found on the internet and message it. It's incredibly unintuitive to me and I feel like a grandma, even though on any other platform it would be easy.

Not to discredit your experience but I don't find long pressing the image (or whatever other content), then pressing share and whatever app you want to share with hard to find or remember.

The problem is that using the share button will often just copy the link, not the image. I haven't used iOS in multiple years but I remember that being a problem. That being said, the last time I used iOS the files app hadn't been added yet so idk

iOS is pretty unintuitive. There’s lots of hidden gestures you have to memorize to get around. I missed androids back button since it always worked, whereas in iOS every app implements it differently. Is there an X in the upper right? A Close in the upper left? Do I swipe down? Swipe left? Etc. even apples built in apps are not consistent.

At that point, I think it's fair to send said family member to Geek Squad and explain that you can't invest any more time in the project.

Meanwhile, I invested a solid 30hrs over 2 weeks of troubleshooting, researching, and getting help from users in order to have 4k120 on Fedora, something that supposedly works for my configuration. And no worky.

I really really wanted 2023 to be the year I finally migrated, but basic functionality being inexplicably broken just isn't it.

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I'm normally a calm guy but anything involving windows makes me so frustrated. The thing doesn't even install without a wifi connection, and once you have been forced by Microsoft to provide your private, sensitive wifi details to their corporate shit cloud, you have like 20 dialog boxes to click where they want to fuck you over as much as possible.

Now after using Linux for so long, I can't even stand the way Microsoft or Google write to us in their services. The language is so incredibly lame.

It's shitty that they make you do this, but you can actually install windows fine without a network connection by using Shift+F10 to open a command prompt during the startup flow, then typing oobe\bypassnro, which will restart the startup flow with a new option to setup without wifi.

They keep making this more and more difficult. Used to be you could just choose between yes and no. Then they made it so you can only choose between yes and no if you don't have an ethernet cable connected. Now you have to use a hidden key combination and type in a secret command.

Soon you'll only be able to install without an internet connection by downloading a special ISO with a hidden download link. Soon after that they'll restrict said ISO to some insider program.

Wait, so you have to type stuff into a scary command prompt to install Windows? Hilarious!

You don't need internet to install windows, I've done it with no network several times at work. Also all those prompts are defaulted to "no", so you can click through quite fast.

You can finish the install without wifi just fine, I did it when I was making an SD card for my steam deck with windows and didn't have drivers or a dock with Ethernet.

It's not Windows, it's either a firmware or hardware issue. Windows installs very quickly actually, nowadays, but of course it's full of ad tracking etc.

Remove the graphics card and any other extras. Just start with the motherboard, power supply, RAM and hard drive. Try install it. It should work. If not, it may be a motherboard issue. You may have to boot into the bios and see if the firmware can be updated, check secure boot, UEFI etc.

Reset the bios to factory and try again.

Once windows is installed. Install the graphics card driver, then shut it down, install the card, move the HDMI over to the card and boot. It should work.

OP claims to have successfully installed arch to confirm it's not a hardware issue fwiw

This has big "the calculator isn't working" energy.

No sir, the calculator is working fine. The problem is somewhere between the chair and the keyboard.

Doesn't mean it's not a hardware issue, just means they aren't running into it in their Arch install. But honestly this is probably just a bunch of bull.

I'm still using Windows on my gaming rig, and Pop on my laptop, and each have their own quirks.

Avoiding expressions like "fucking god", "fucking fuck", "fucking bullshit", would help your argument.

While I agree with the premise, that Windows is indeed more untidy, clunky and counterintuitive than GNOME and KDE Plasma, still it is not harder to install.

Fuck that fucking fuck. Don't you fucking dare to fuck with my fucks!

That being said, OP is obviously an idiot/troll.

Hey cut OP some slack, they just learned those words from the older kids at school.

I'd say that stuff like this happens less often on windows, but it's also worse when it does because you have fewer resources to fix problems when you do run into them

People think window is easier because that's what they are used to. If all schools in a city were to suddenly drop windows and switch to linux you would see microsoft coming at them with donations and offering free deals. It already happened more than once.

Unless you are literally retarded I can't see how you can have that much trouble with windows.

Right? Steam installs within one click on all my windows PC's and running games is again, a click away. Windows 11 installed on my Surface 7 Pro within 30 mins.

I’m helping a family member build a pc. He wanted to use Windows

Building a PC technically doesn't include OS installation.

Build it, boot your OS of choice from a live USB to verify the hardware all works, then walk away.

I told my friends and family years ago that I will be happy to set them up with a working Linux installation and will support them as needed... but if they want to use Windows they are on their own.

I wiped windows and installed Linux back in 2004 and never looked back.
Now im only forced to use windows in work, constantly asking my work mates how to do this n that on it. I sure they think im sine sort computer illiterate numpty with no clue.

My Windows machine at work is so locked down today I can't do anything anyway. I have to open a ticket every time I want to install something. Just as well. I have zero interest in mucking about with Windows anyway.

You're going to hear a lot of people saying how straight forward Windows is install; I'm avoiding W11 so have my W10 anecdote.

The only way I've ever been able to install W10 is to disconnect every single peripheral except m/kb and one single drive.

Anything else over the years, be it different mobos, HDD,SSD m.2 thingies it's always been the same; anything more than m/kb and one single disk W10 shits the bed.

If you're still struggling, try that.

I use Windows 10 LTSC (the Enterprise edition with long-term updates and way less bloat) for this very reason. It's the most tolerable version of Windows for me and I'm not planning to make the switch to Windows 11 anytime soon.

In addition to the above, If it's a "backup copy" of windows, trying an official iso. I've had bad copies get suck at installed and never work no matter what I did.

There's a way to pull the windows product key from the BIOS using Linux too. Quick search will give you the command. I've bought used lenovo minis for my self hosed k8s env and save the win keys if I ever need a windows VM for something.

Idk what to tell you buddy but you’re fucking up something super simple. I say this as a person who manages an IT department that maintains thousands of windows PCs for the end users to use.

If you’re struggling this hard to install windows and one application, it’s on you

Oh, totally. I've lost count of the times I've helped folks with their computers and most of their problems seem to be from using Windows: "I'm confused about antivirus," "I keep forgetting to check on updates for the program I use so much," "I'm unsure if I'm on the correct site to download an exe file from," "I keep getting ads in my taskbar," "I was going to find a different browser to use but my computer dissuaded me from doing so," and on and on, and I just think "If only you'd simply try Linux."

For the 'average' user you're suggesting to be helping none of these are remotely difficult to address..

"I'm confused about antivirus," Windows handles it

"I keep forgetting to check on updates for the program I use so much," The apps you use will ask to update when you use them

"I'm unsure if I'm on the correct site to download an exe file from," The website for the application

"I keep getting ads in my taskbar," Disabled in literally 3 seconds at install and never think about it again (yeah it's dumb it happens at all, fine)

"I was going to find a different browser to use but my computer dissuaded me from doing so," getfirefox.com. install & run. Click set default browser when it pops up.

If you can't answer a simple one sentence answer to an easy question I don't think it's Windows fault. I say this as somehow who has helped tech illiterate people of all sorts on Windows, Linux, and Unix systems over the past 25+ years.

Oh, trust me, it's the fault of Windows. It's garbage. Linux all the way.

I too have taught tech, to a lot of older people, and with substantial success. And I try to emphasise that "there are no stupid questions" - and that their concerns must be listened to, and understood.

It can be very disheartening to hear these very valid concerns just because they're using an overpriced piece of unethical garbage spyware as an operating system. All of these questions can also be answered with "Use Linux instead." Indeed, a colleague of mine literally emphasises that the only reason she retains access to Windows at all is because our learners are using it still (and she plans to use Linux 100% of the time upon retirement).

Because telling such users that "Windows handles it" with Defender or whatever often doesn't cut it when they've been sold antivirus all their lives and have family and friends tell them they must spend (even more unnecessary) money on "top-notch" anti-virus software. I'd rather say "Linux handles it" than "Let Micro$oft handle it."

Telling them all programmes will make it clear when an update is available is much more daunting for them when they barely trust and/or understand a lot of notifications they get anyway, when they could literally be using a Linux software centre that resembles what they use on their smartphones.

Simply informing them that - rather than said software centre - they need to go to the website for the programme to download an exe file, is unhelpful when they do a search for a programme to use and get different search results.

I wish it took them 3 seconds to disable disgusting ads in their taskbar that they never asked for on their operating system and lends nothing to their user experience, but sadly it takes them much longer, assuming they do of course remember how to do it since last time, seeing as this trash seems to reappear.

Telling them which browser to use without first explaining browsers and enabling them to make informed decisions is, in my view, morally questionable. And yet speaking of which, Micro$oft apps frequently do just that.

And what else I've realised? If we teach so that people can make informed decisions, with patience, in plain language, Linux will have a larger user base.

Because people, at their core, are good. Digital capitalism doesn't sit well with people. They distrust these big data-gathering, closed-source, greedy corporations.

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I'm really surprised at how much people are ripping on Linux here at lemmy. It's completely justified, I agree that Linux still needs some polish in a few areas before it can REPLACE windows, but I would've figured lemmy to be a bit more... I dunno red pilled and biased towards Linux.

I daily Fedora for ALL my games pretty much, save for Metro Redux: Enhanced Edition and SteamVR titles. Games with anticheat that don't work on Linux? I don't play them anymore, if they don't wanna play ball that's fine.

I mean OP is trying to paint Linux as the more user friendly system and I think we can all agree that's BS.

Linux has many advantages. User Friendliness is not one of them

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I'm gonna doubt this one. I've done several installs of various debian-based distros and a full reinstall of Windows 10 recently, and I feel confident in saying that, to have this much difficulty installing Windows, you would either have to be using a corrupt image or damn near tech illiterate.

You can tell them all the pros and cons about it, but in all 38 years of my life, I've only had one person enthusiastically wanted to try something new on their PC, a fellow class mate from back in highschool. People legitimately don't like new things when they think what they already use is perfectly fine.

Ironically this reasoning is exactly why I ended up switching to Linux when Windows 8.0 came out. I hated the new start menu so much and the Linux distro of my choice had a very similar one to Windows 7.

I tried getting used to that tile UI on windows. Doesn't feel natural at all. I gave the new KDE a try after using gnome exclusively, I really like it, the many options out there is the selling point. I think Stardock(?) used to offer different UI options on windows, but it felt very broken.

Sounds more like a hardware issue than a Windows one.

are you trying to do something apecial? windows 11 is a very quick and uninvolved install

I know your struggle. It's not uncommon to experience issues with the Windows installer if the install medium is not created using Microsoft's official Windows installation media creation tool (Use the middle option to download mediacreationtool.exe).

Coming from Linux, I tried writing the Windows .iso directly to a USB drive using dd, this absolutely would not work on any machine for me. Sometimes the install medium would boot, sometimes it wouldn't, but even if it did the installer wouldn't recognize any storage mediums or would fail part way through installing. Using the official media creation tool resolved all the issues I was having.

I do not know why the Windows .iso images do not work on any of my machines, but it sounds like you are experiencing the same issues that I was. Give the official media creation tool a try, hopefully that resolves the issue.

The answert for this problem is Ventoy.

When I first tried Mint, I had to return to Windows because of Adobe stuff and I still didn't feel comfortable with dual booting back then.

No matter what I do I can't get the Windows 11 ISO I flashed with Balena on Mint to work. It boots but when it starts to copy its files to the hard drive it keeps complaining about not being able to read the USB.

I still can remember the burns I got when I cooked my neighbor caldereta for dinner later that afternoon. It was my thank you for him letting me use his Windows PC to burn the ISO to my USB. We sacrifice a lot for Linux lol 😅

Much later I realized that I could've just flashed Ventoy and copied the ISO to the USB. Should've Googled some more before bothering my neighbor 🙃

Right now we're in the "every other" release of Windows, the one that's shit. 7 was good, so 8 was shit. 10 was good, so now 11 is shit. I'm not surprised you're having problems.

Might try using 10 and see if that's any better. At a minimum it's not going to be nearly as picky about what it will or won't install on.

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Wait... You built a computer. Installed an OS on it, one of the easiest OSes to install... And now are having an issue installing steam... And somehow it's the OS' fault?

This is either fake, trying to pirate windows, or your trying to avoid responsibility for not being able to assemble a simple computer. Wtf?

Yeah, if they can't even install steam how the hell do they even deal with getting non steam games to work on Linux, which can be a more involved process than install game and play.

Yeah, I've had issues with it too! I installed the latest Windows 10 on my mom's laptop after replacing the hard drive with an ssd, and it took me way longer than it should have to do something as simple as move files from the old hard drive to the new one! And a week later, she calls me with issues related to the auto backup OneDrive thing, and I had to troubleshoot that from 2.5 hours away. If she didn't need Photoshop and Lightroom, I would have installed some sort of Windows-similar Linux distro for her. I also have had so many issues with Windows 11 for school that I just stopped using it on bare metal and just have a VM for the one program I need for my CS classes.

Windows and Apple both capitalize on most folks lack of minimal tech savviness plus being creatures of habit. So much so, Apple gave away laptops to numerous Silicon Valley highschool classes in the mid 2000's, just to entrench them into the system.

I've been using Linux for a few years now and I still randomly think about what took me this long to switch. It's how an OS should be made. It can simply be installed and used out the gate or it can be tinkered with to make an ideal setup. Not to mention the lack of invasive tracking. Windows is so bad it's more complete monitoring of the users than tracking.

Regardless, August 2023 to August 2024 will definitely be the year of the Linux desktop! /s

I've installed W10 like 2 years ago and it was one of the worst installing experiences in my life, so many unnecessary barriers.

Installing Windows is easy, but once something goes wrong, troubleshooting becomes more challenging. You have an error code? Yeah, well, try these 100+ things that are the same things you gotta try with every other error code out there. None of those things worked? Well, reinstall windows that should fix it.

Granted, I have plenty of experience with linux at this point to where I won't stress when something fucks up but ive dealt with my fair share of windows issues as well. The majority of the time, I end up reinstalling windows...

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Lol I threw in the towel after round 2 of the insider hub with windows 11 beta

Thanks for ignoring literally everyone's demands and removing the core features that made windows usable Microsoft

Been happy on Fedora for 2 years. Never going back.

Hasn't even been stable since windows 7 tbh

I'm sorry, but if Windows was that hard for you to install, you did something majorly wrong. I haven't installed 11 on anything, but 7 and 10 were both cakewalks that practically hold your hand all the way through. It's the last step when building a PC -- after the actual work is finished.

If you have little experience with Windows, you may just be suffering from its "easiness." It lets you do less in order to protect the less knowledgeable user. From personal experience in similar matters, I can attest to how frustrating that can be. You don't want Windows to do it for you, you just want to do it! So you try to find a way to do things your way, bash your head against a wall, get frustrated, and ultimately take much longer to do anything.

Your experience is way outside the norm. Usually it's very straightforward.

Linux still is not a main gaming OS yet. Stop being an asshole; you know this is true.

I use windows as little as possible. I have steam, discord, and Firefox open on it and otherwise try to use my Linux and macOS devices for actual productivity

I will have to disagree but am a sysadmin by trade, so I work with Limux, Mac and Wimdows. I do run Linux and Steam on an HP Omen but was running Win 11 on it before with zero issues. I switched to Linix because all my other machines are Limux and its a bit of a hassle running compatability mode on Wimdows in order to read games saved on Linux. My son and I built his gaming rig and the hardest part for me is ordering the parts from different vendors. I think its all anout expectations. If you start hating Windows, you really wont find anything good with it and just see its faults.

Yeah, Windows' bullshit is what drove me to Linux in the first place. I only have it on my gaming system, and only because Discord's stupid screensharing doesn't transmit audio on Linux, NVIDIA's drivers for Linux suck balls (going AMD next time now that their cards are good again) and there are a couple of games my friends play that have issues on Linux. I've never run into a game on my everyday laptop that Linux couldn't run, and the Steam Deck will take basically whatever you throw at it.

Windows is a barely-functional rat's nest of code spaghetti that falls apart at complete random. Sometimes your audio drivers will just stop working for no apparent reason. Sometimes your computer will just refuse to connect to the internet until you do a clean install. Windows Update apparently runs Prime95 in its spare time and so does the Antimalware Service Executable. I hate using it so much. I wish Windows would just curl up and die.

As someone who helped friends/family build PC gaming rigs multiple times last year (2023) I understand what you're coming from W11 installer is pure dogshit.

Tbh tho, my dad always hated new Windows versions because he didn't want to learn a new UI/UX, which I fine, but the windows experience isnt that hard to learn, even if it is different. Same thing with Linux, if you use GNOME/KDE/i3/hyprland/sway/ for the first time it won't be easy to find all of the settings either.

But the W11 installer in particular sucks ass. There is so many restrictions that try to prevent you from even installing it. The one rescue for me was downloading the Rufus USB ISO tool and letting it download the W11 installer itself and apply patches which removed all the ridiculous restrictions.

I mean, you can even rub that shit in Virtual box if you want. My GF is literally running it on "unsupported hardware" according to Microsoft but windows updates and everything post-install is completely functional.

Only reason Mictorsoft Philips wants the restrictions is to have a tighter grip on the ecosystem and limit end consumers from installing it themselves and pushing that part to other companies or retailers which they can buy finished products (laptops etc) from instead of licenses.

That sucks that it's been such a pain.

I can't say I've ever experienced the same though, windows install is a breeze and very fast, and on W10/11 these days everything just basically works perfectly out of the box for gaming.

I use both Windows and linux daily. I don't have an issue with either.

I recently just reinstalled windows on my gaming pc and arch on my laptop, and I completely agree with you. especially the fact that now windows 11 force you to sign in. I know it can be skipped, and average users probably wont care, but FUCK YOU MICROSOFT!

archinstall is such a breeze, and in general for linux, I can control precisely what to install and configure it to be exactly how I like it, as opposed to windows I had to find some sketchy debloater scripts to remove all the craps, disable the telemetries, and hoping it doesn't break anything.

And if I break anything, linux always have detailed documentations, where as windows...its always some indian guy on youtube teaching you how to run windows troubleshooter and hand you more sketchy scripts

Windows 10 LTSC is the way to go if you absolutely have to use Windows, I'd love to use Linux on my gaming rig but Assetto Corsa + my simracing hardware doesn't play nice at all.

When you get it working it's just so cumbersome to use. I do most of my work on servers and doing anything with a Windows server is a pain in the ass. Want to restart something? Open an RDP session, wait for it to load, open the Services, wait for it to load, filter through thousands of services to find the one you want, fucking right-click on it and pick restart.

Compare this to Linux where you get a snappy SSH shell and restart it with one command.

And then there's the goddamn Windows Event Viewer. Can't have log files being, ya know, files right? No, gotta put them in this application on the server, that you have to view in the GUI, and show it alongside all the other logs so you have to filter by service. Most of the time I just export them to text files just because it's easier to process them on a sane OS.

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my first was 98 and last was xp. Since then i'm on linux. When i encounter 10 or 11 on machines that i need to tweak, it "blue screens" my mind how opaque it became. It is so unnecessarily cluttered i can't find my way to a simple "system" window unless i use the habitual shortcuts 🤷

Did your Debian system stop crashing all the time?

I have almost always used Windows. I have had almost zero issues with Windows functionality. Install is easy, most shit installs automatically. You have to truly fuck up to not be able to make it work. That said, it surely has it's quirks and is a data leech. Not being able to get Windows to run is a user error, not a window error.

Pretty much all OS installs have the capability to go really wrong. Once a Mac user was making fun of me for needing to deal with weirdness installing Linux on an old Windows laptop. He stopped when I asked if I should install OSX instead. 😁

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@PeterPoopshit

Not sure why you are having issues with Windows, but Wine on Linux goes from strength to strength in its ability to play Windows games. I have a Windows 11 laptop that I barely use, I am generally speaking unimpressed by Windows, but can play games on it with no issues.

I tried to change some more advanced setting together with a fairly technical friend on his Windows 10 Laptop recently and it was a fucking nightmare!

That bad?

Last time I used Windows on my own was back in the XP days. I saw some of the early Vista and it was even worse. I can't imagine what the recent versions are like.

I straight up think they did it because they want everyone on co-pilot.

honestly i don't know what you did to mess up a windows install like that, but i agree overall that linux is easier. However there are quirks that can arise for a new user that will eat time or seem daunting.

Windows has improved a lot. I was committed to using Linux before windows 95 and that era was a complete shit show. They couldn't even connect to the internet, play cds or other media without third party software and Windows crashed if you looked at it the wrong way. People thought it was the hottest shit ever. Even after the move to the NT kernel it was a shitshow of instability and massive security flaws for years. I think I could daily drive modern windows if there was no alternative. They have come a long way with stability and a lot of FOSS software is ported.

Windows still benefits a lot from network effects which makes it desirable for some people for the same reason they use Xcrement and Meta. It doesn't bother me what OS other people use anymore than what they do in their bedrooms or churches. Let's not act vegan over an operating system.

I use windows for 2 things - personal pc to play games, work laptop dualboot for excel usage if some super old messy sheets. everything else linux.

“Linux can’t play games”

That is relative to one's personal opinions/tastes (If you REALLY want to be a "competitive sweaty tryhard" then the above is true) but as for me...? I'm 100% fine in "retrogaming" in my orange pi zero 3 and call it a "legit linux gaming experience".

As the old say goes... "If I wanted to see graphics... I'd go outside." :^)

I think they should be able to choose their OS. If they choose something you see as shitty, so be it.

I absolutely hate it. I have to use windows for my job and I'm used to moving and resizing windows with the. "super" key and i press it by instinct on windows the ad tiles viewer rears it's ugly head. I feel like beating it with a stick.

Can not tell if this is satire or not because while Windows has its fair share of issues, I've yet to encounter something that I couldn't fix. Every time I've installed windows it just worked. People keep whining about windows being just absolute dogshit and then there's me who has never understood that shit because windows just keeps working like it should. And I install windows frequently enough to know/notice if anything is wrong. Like how can't you get steam to start? You must be doing sth wrong... Idk man i just can't relate like at all... Wish I could help instead.

(okay i lied where i said "I've yet to encounter something that I couldn't fix". There's this annoying little shit bug that recently cropped up where my 2 desktop icons in the top left get moved when i move a file to for example the middle of my desktop. One of 3 things happens: it puts it where i wanted it to in the middle OR it puts it IN THE TOP LEFT CORNER which moves my icons down one OR it puts it BETWEEN the two icons i have there. AND best of all IT DOESN'T EVEN STAY THERE it like is there for just a second and then it flicks to wherever i wanted it in the first place, leaving my icons MOVED from where they originally were GOD I HATE THIS SO MUCH oh and I also hate how windows handles file transfers of any kind.)

curious but how could anti cheat work on linux

EAC for example has a module you can install on steam. With it installed you can play games that use EAC (eg Apex Legends or Battlebit) on Linux

Using windows 11 is your first mistake, its ab uneven number windows, everyone knows the uneven number ones are bad. Or was it the even number ones? I dunno, windows 10 is better than 11 either way.

I am probably the only person on the planet who never had an issue with either W10 or W11 and their installation. The only Windows that truly sucked in my life were W95, WME and 8. I occasionally dual boot OpenSUSE with xfce for some dev stuff, but Windows has always been my daily driver and I'm so used to it I have bloody tears in my eyes when I look at your KDEs and Gnomes, which are in my opinion absolutely horrible environments. These days I more often than not use WSL2 from under Windows even, might as well just use Linux cli tools if their GUI stuff sucks so bad.

Check out UnixPorn sometime. You might see something that catches your eye.