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.

    • Ganesh VenugopalOP
      1•1 year ago

      amen wo/man! I love Linux alright, but for the first few years, it’s a lot of effort. You do learn stuff alright, but yeah, the effort is high.

      • ffhein
        3•1 year ago

        I used Windows exclusively for 10+ years, and I still have to use it at work, but for me the experience is the opposite… Windows regularly causes issues, and it usually takes a lot of effort fixing them because it doesn’t give useful error messages and due to the OS’ proprietary nature. Almost every week some Teams meeting is delayed because some participant’s sound is suddenly not going to their headset. Another frequent problem I have at work is that networking for the virtual machines stops working either fully or partially, and IT’s solution is “just reboot your computer when that happens”. Or when I upgrade my computer, and Windows refuses to authenticate despite me having a valid serial number. At least Microsoft used to have good support that you could chat with, but it seems like they’ve replaced that with some interactive troubleshooter app (which btw. didn’t solve my issue, redirected me to a different online troubleshooter which eventually redirected me back to the first troubleshooter).

        That’s not saying that I never have issues on Linux, but at least for me those are generally much easier to fix.

        • Ganesh VenugopalOP
          2•1 year ago

          I used Windows exclusively for 10+ years, and I still have to use it at work, but for me the experience is the opposite… Windows regularly causes issues, and it usually takes a lot of effort fixing them because it doesn’t give useful error messages and due to the OS’ proprietary nature. Almost every week some Teams meeting is delayed because some participant’s sound is suddenly not going to their headset. Another frequent problem I have at work is that networking for the virtual machines stops working either fully or partially, and IT’s solution is “just reboot your computer when that happens”. Or when I upgrade my computer, and Windows refuses to authenticate despite me having a valid serial number. At least Microsoft used to have good support that you could chat with, but it seems like they’ve replaced that with some interactive troubleshooter app (which btw. didn’t solve my issue, redirected me to a different online troubleshooter which eventually redirected me back to the first troubleshooter).

          That’s not saying that I never have issues on Linux, but at least for me those are generally much easier to fix.

          that’s a very interesting point of view. I have faced the issues you are mentioning before, but I thought it was a hardware issue and it would go away with good hardware. Apparently not. Lack of actual error messages (with good details atleast) seems to be a very valid concern.

          thank you for your comment, seriously, this was an interesting take.