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
- Adobe
- 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.
- Games ( a big one although steam is helping bridge the gap)
- Many torrented apps, most of these are Windows specific and thus I won’t have any luck installing them on Linux.
- 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?
- I have applications which launch from terminal eg:
vlcwould open vlc (no questions asked, no other stuff needed, just type vlc) - 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.
- I can basically automate most of my tasks and it has a good integration with my apps.
- I can create desktop launchers.
- 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.
- Create custom panel plugin.
- 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.
Update the OS and all installed applications using a single command.
Also, none of this “stop what you’re doing, Microsoft is doing updates now” bullshit.
Just the other day I woke up my windows laptop, but instead of the lock screen I get several minutes worth of confirmations and check boxes after a surprise update. All of these screens were asking me in various ways to send all of my data to Microsoft and tie up my entire machine in their data harvesting and ad platforms.
Make posts and comments about how much better it is to spend a ton of effort.
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.
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.
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.
unlink
Specifically the operation of removing a file from a path without requiring the file to be unused. Open references to the file can still exist by processes.
Good think. AFAIK when all programs are closed file is deleted automatically.
It’s not that it’s deleted automatically. If you define deleting as “not being referenced by the file system,” then it’s deleted as soon as it’s unlinked.
Fun story - create a big file, and hold it open in an application. Unlink the file. Then compare the output of du and df for the mount point the file was on. It will differ until the app closes and the inode of the file is finally freed.
By deleting I mean marking space as free on disk.
Du counts filesizes, df counts fs usage.
In a nutshell:
- Have (real) user control.
What a great way too summarize all the garbage I was thinking to spew. This is really it. Freedom and control. Or “whatever I want it to”.
Yup. I can completely destroy my system with a single command, and that is a good thing.
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This is the actual answer why i use linux.
It’s simple answer, my Linux (Arch Linux) is my OS with my choice what of app I have, faster, privacy (very important), just my, not from Windows or Apple, it’s my choice what I will delete, install, use, how look my desktop… And my comp is ten years old and working like new.
Install software updates when you want, and not lose half the day while they install.
Use the command line to do everything instead of using mouse clicks for everything. It’s so annoying how much mousing you have to do on Windows even for stuff only admins/programmers would touch.
PowerShell makes that a lot better these days. It’s still not perfect, but a lot better.
My hands hurt just thinking about typing the long-ass commands in PS.
Yep and the tab auto complete takes forever
Find my hosts file without googling where it is.
???
dir hosts* /s
Personally I don’t care so much about the things that Linux does better but rather the abusive things it doesn’t do. No ads, surveillance, forced updates etc. And it’s not that linux happens to not do that stuff. It’s that the decentralized nature of free software acts as a preventative measure against those malicious practices. On the other side, your best interests always conflict with those of a multi-billion company, practically guaranteeing that the software doesn’t behave as you. So windows are as unlikely to become better in this regard as linux is to become worse.
Also the ability to build things from the ground up. If you want to customize windows you’re always trying to replace or override or remove stuff. Good luck figuring out if you have left something in the background adding overhead at best and conflicting with what you actually want to use at worst. This isn’t just some hypothetical. For example I’ve had windows make an HDD-era PC completely unusable because a background telemetry process would 100% the C: drive. It was a nightmarish experience to debug and fix this because even opening the task manager wouldn’t work most of the time.
Having gotten the important stuff out of the way, I will add that even for stuff that you technically can do on both platforms, it is worth considering if they are equally likely to foster thriving communities. Sure I can replace the windows shell, but am I really given options of the same quality and longevity as the most popular linux shells? When a proprietary windows component takes an ugly turn is it as likely that someone will develop an alternative if it means they have to build it from the ground up, compared to the linux world where you would start by forking an existing project, eg how people who didn’t like gnome 3 forked gnome 2? The situation is nuanced and answers like “there exists a way to do X on Y” or “it is technically possible for someone to solve this” don’t fully cover it.
Others have already answered your specific points, which are all (sort of) possible on Windows. I would like to present a quick list of things are not possible on Windows, this is split in 3 parts: Truly impossible, Possible but so convoluted it might as well be impossible, and possible but much harder than what it should.
Truly Impossible
- Choose your preferred program for things. Sure you can do it for simple stuff like text or video, but what about my graphical interface backend, my file explorer or my DE.
- Choose your disk format. Again you can use an incredible array of (I think) 3 formats, and while I also only use ext4 on Linux I know BTRFS is there for me if I ever want to switch to a modern filesystem.
- Customise your system. Again people are going to claim that this is possible on Windows via regedit, but it’s not on the same level, I can’t have a Windows version stripped of controller support or wireless support if I know I’ll never plug a controller or a wireless card on the machine.
- Upgrade every single component of your system in one go. Because the way programs are installed on Windows you need to upgrade each one on its own.
- Fix issues with the system, say you found a bug on Linux if you have the expertise you can 100% fix it, on Windows the best you can do is report it and hope for the best.
Almost impossible
- Using a tiling window manager
- Virtual desktops that actually work
Harder than what it should
- Customise Super+ commands
- Prevent auto updates
You’ve hit all the critical ones.
Headless may be the biggest one for me. I run multiple VMs in the cloud on tiny servers entirely without GUI bloat. I can, and do, automate anything that I do more than a couple of times, which I can do because there are decent command line interfaces for most things.
With Linux, it’s possible to replace every component except the kernel - for example, Chimera Linux even replaces the GNU tools with FreeBSD ones. A wide variety of filesystems, init systems, window managers, display managers (well, two) - and nearly everything is free.
Which is another thing that is impossible on Windows, that you can do on Linux: use this enormous library of software, legally and without piracy, for free.
You can also replace the kernel though.
You didn’t mention the ability to mount different drives and partitions to different directories. For example, I always keep
/homeon a different partition so I can reinstall my OS without worrying about data loss. You also can use tools like LVM to combine volumes into a single storage volume. Have a lot of games and want to install them all to one place? You can set up multiple large drives to act as a single volume. I guess you can do this with RAID utilities or something in Windows, but it’s really not the same.NTFS has supported mounting drives to folders for decades. The Windows LVM equivalent would be LDM (which powers the deprecated Dynamic Disks), or Storage Spaces.
Soon with Plasma 6 and Wayland, you can let your Desktop crash but still keep all your Windows after the new Desktop spawned. This also means you can replace your KDE desktop with Gnome, XFCE Hyprland and some others whithout needing to logout or close applications.
Additionally you can save current states of the application with Wayland. Shit is getting so interesting right now.
Source: https://m.youtube.com/watch?si=sAlIcn5meSCDKq3K&v=jlDhpFjBWiw
Use a system that’s not a personalized ad billboard
It’s not only what you can do, but what it won’t do to you.
Using your computer is not wrong. You shouldn’t be punished for it.
Using your computer is not an imposition on someone else. You don’t owe anyone for the privilege of using it. You have already paid for it. The OS vendor doesn’t have a lien on it; they aren’t paying you to rent ad space on your desktop.
You bought it, you own it, you can break it if you like but it’s not anyone else’s place to tell you what you’re allowed to do with it.
Your computer is yours – just yours – and it shouldn’t be spamming you with ads, filling itself up with junk, or telling you “you’re not allowed to do that because of the OS vendor’s deals with Hollywood”.
I’m not anti-commerce or anti-corporate. My preferred browser is plain old Google Chrome (with uBlock Origin). I buy games on Steam. The game I spend the most hours playing on my Linux system is Magic Arena, hardly an anti-commercial choice. But that’s my choice. I buy computers from Linux-focused vendors (currently System76) and I expect my computer to be mine, not the vendor’s to do with what they like.
I think an important thing to talk about here is that Linux is not Windows. Which I know is an obvious statement, but I’ll elaborate.
Most deskop/laptop users use Windows. Most deskop/laptop software is for Windows. The way that most people know how to navigate an OS is Windows-centric. Windows does what most people expect a computer to do. A lot of what your focus seems to be on is if Linux can do what Windows can. And while the answer is often yes, I don’t really think it’s the right question.
Do you want to use Linux? If so, use it. One of things you’ll have to accept with that is that you’ll lose access to some of those Windows specific pieces of software. Sure, there’s wine and steam/proton and you might be able to get any given thing running. But it’s not a guarantee you will be able to, or that it will continue to run. If you’re really beholden to Windows software, you should probably stick with Windows. If you’re willing to explore FOSS alternatives to the software you’re accustomed to, even if it may not work the way you expect it to, stick around. And you should, because Linux is awesome!
