6 ms·

What advantages does Windows offer over Linux other than gaming?

LeoNatan25 8y ago
Software and drivers that consistently work without the need for fiddling. Every year I give Linux a chance, and every year I quickly sober up.
- rangibaby 8y ago
  I have dual booted Ubuntu for ~3 years on my MacBook Pro (13” late 2013 model) and used it as my main OS. I had to install a webcam driver but other than that everything just worked(TM)
  - LeoNatan25 8y ago
    Yes, especially on Mac, high DPI on Linux is still garbage to this day. It's not really good on Windows either, but at least with Windows 10, it is somewhat serviceable. On Linux, support is so abysmal, it is really comical in 2018. Moreover, it seems the dev community still hasn't "seen the light" in high DPI displays, and will often dismiss or backlog required changes for support. In 2018.
    - rangibaby 8y ago
      HiDPI worked / works great in UbuntuGNOME. I spend most of my time in a text editor, terminal or browser, but even things like games for my kid (Tux and Tux Kart) supported HiDPI without requiring any magic tricks. /edit setting a different scalefactor on my external (non-HiDPI) monitor was frustrating in that it worked... sometimes
- tonyedgecombe 8y ago
  For me setting up Linux got easier than Windows a few years ago. There are other problems that stop me using the platform but drivers isn't it anymore.
  - LeoNatan25 8y ago
    That's if you are on supported hardware. If your sound/wifi/disk storage/modern GPU lacks support, you are SOL for a long time and have to resort to experimental drivers that may or may not be stable and may or may not be working as expected. Meanwhile, practically all hardware has Windows drivers.
- dijit 8y ago
  Tired meme, Windows drivers are the only ones you have to "fiddle" with out of band, I can't even think of another OS where going to a third-party website to download an executable is how you install drivers for the machine. (Not OSX, not BSD, not Linux). Buy any desktop in any supermarket in the world and it's going to work out of the box with the latest Ubuntu. This has been the case for 5 years now. If you have some weird hardware that needs a kernel module that isn't enabled by default or packaged as a kms for your distro, then sure I can definitely see some awkwardness there, but for instance I haven't had so much as a wifi problem in 10 years. Definitely a stark contrast to Windows where you have to go to the manufacturer website for each component of your machine if you're not using the bloated OS that comes pre-installed.
  - LeoNatan25 8y ago
    What meme? I was speaking about personal experience. > but for instance I "I" being the key word there. On the other hand, I have had issues with Linux drivers every year.
    - dijit 8y ago
      What distro, what type of machine? Because I’ve been prolific in my purchase of brand new hardware and I have had only the most minute of issues.
- yjftsjthsd-h 8y ago
  I think it must strongly depend on your use case and exact hardware, because those exact reasons in my case are an argument against windows. I have to download and install what in order to get driver support? How many tray icons can one person possibly need? It's the worst in my experience with printers and scanners; "please install this 300MB package which will constantly run in the background and annoy you at the least convenient time to replace your ink - oh, and in three months we're going to completely change the interface and replace it with something that doesn't even support feature that you're using". Or, hear me out, I could install CUPS and xsane (or another sane frontend) and be done. Driver support is indeed hit-or-miss, but when it hits there's absolutely no work at all. (Exception: if your printer isn't already supported, you can often find and download a single small file to add support; CUPS is beautiful)
  - LeoNatan25 8y ago
    I agree with you that a lot of vendor software is garbage. If the hardware you use is supported by your Linux distro of choice, I'd agree it could be a better experience than installing any driver. But at least there is always a driver. That has not been the case for desktops and laptops I have had in recent years. Always something missing in plethora of Linux distributions, and the ways to solve those issues are not straightforward even for a 10-year experience software engineer. That is not something I want to think about when buying new hardware.
soundwave106 8y ago
I think the advantage right now is largely in a few select sectors right now, and mainly due to ecosystem. Music production is a big one from my perspective -- currently, if you are looking at the tools and plugins that are the most popular in the professional world, your practical choice is basically between Macintosh or Windows. The majority of DAW plugin synths / effects currently are not compiled for Linux, and I do not believe many popular DAWs (stuff like Ableton Live, Logic, Cubase, etc.) are currently supported yet either. I have heard that if you keep it light weight, some audio plugins will run just fine under something like WINE. But for a heavy-hitting plugin like, say, Spectrasonics Omnisphere, I have heard that emulation is too slow to be practical. There are certainly native Linux DAWs and plugins out there, you can probably go quite far with Ardour or the Linux version of Reaper, and there's a few plugins too (u-He has some native Linux builds of their excellent synthesizer plugins for instance). It's just that the native ecosystem out there is quite a bit smaller, unfortunately.

Software and drivers that consistently work without the need for fiddling. Every year I give Linux a chance, and every year I quickly sober up.

rangibaby 8y ago
I have dual booted Ubuntu for ~3 years on my MacBook Pro (13” late 2013 model) and used it as my main OS. I had to install a webcam driver but other than that everything just worked(TM)
- LeoNatan25 8y ago
  Yes, especially on Mac, high DPI on Linux is still garbage to this day. It's not really good on Windows either, but at least with Windows 10, it is somewhat serviceable. On Linux, support is so abysmal, it is really comical in 2018. Moreover, it seems the dev community still hasn't "seen the light" in high DPI displays, and will often dismiss or backlog required changes for support. In 2018.
  - rangibaby 8y ago
    HiDPI worked / works great in UbuntuGNOME. I spend most of my time in a text editor, terminal or browser, but even things like games for my kid (Tux and Tux Kart) supported HiDPI without requiring any magic tricks. /edit setting a different scalefactor on my external (non-HiDPI) monitor was frustrating in that it worked... sometimes
tonyedgecombe 8y ago
For me setting up Linux got easier than Windows a few years ago. There are other problems that stop me using the platform but drivers isn't it anymore.
- LeoNatan25 8y ago
  That's if you are on supported hardware. If your sound/wifi/disk storage/modern GPU lacks support, you are SOL for a long time and have to resort to experimental drivers that may or may not be stable and may or may not be working as expected. Meanwhile, practically all hardware has Windows drivers.
dijit 8y ago
Tired meme, Windows drivers are the only ones you have to "fiddle" with out of band, I can't even think of another OS where going to a third-party website to download an executable is how you install drivers for the machine. (Not OSX, not BSD, not Linux). Buy any desktop in any supermarket in the world and it's going to work out of the box with the latest Ubuntu. This has been the case for 5 years now. If you have some weird hardware that needs a kernel module that isn't enabled by default or packaged as a kms for your distro, then sure I can definitely see some awkwardness there, but for instance I haven't had so much as a wifi problem in 10 years. Definitely a stark contrast to Windows where you have to go to the manufacturer website for each component of your machine if you're not using the bloated OS that comes pre-installed.
- LeoNatan25 8y ago
  What meme? I was speaking about personal experience. > but for instance I "I" being the key word there. On the other hand, I have had issues with Linux drivers every year.
  - dijit 8y ago
    What distro, what type of machine? Because I’ve been prolific in my purchase of brand new hardware and I have had only the most minute of issues.
yjftsjthsd-h 8y ago
I think it must strongly depend on your use case and exact hardware, because those exact reasons in my case are an argument against windows. I have to download and install what in order to get driver support? How many tray icons can one person possibly need? It's the worst in my experience with printers and scanners; "please install this 300MB package which will constantly run in the background and annoy you at the least convenient time to replace your ink - oh, and in three months we're going to completely change the interface and replace it with something that doesn't even support feature that you're using". Or, hear me out, I could install CUPS and xsane (or another sane frontend) and be done. Driver support is indeed hit-or-miss, but when it hits there's absolutely no work at all. (Exception: if your printer isn't already supported, you can often find and download a single small file to add support; CUPS is beautiful)
- LeoNatan25 8y ago
  I agree with you that a lot of vendor software is garbage. If the hardware you use is supported by your Linux distro of choice, I'd agree it could be a better experience than installing any driver. But at least there is always a driver. That has not been the case for desktops and laptops I have had in recent years. Always something missing in plethora of Linux distributions, and the ways to solve those issues are not straightforward even for a 10-year experience software engineer. That is not something I want to think about when buying new hardware.

soundwave106 8y ago

I think the advantage right now is largely in a few select sectors right now, and mainly due to ecosystem. Music production is a big one from my perspective -- currently, if you are looking at the tools and plugins that are the most popular in the professional world, your practical choice is basically between Macintosh or Windows. The majority of DAW plugin synths / effects currently are not compiled for Linux, and I do not believe many popular DAWs (stuff like Ableton Live, Logic, Cubase, etc.) are currently supported yet either. I have heard that if you keep it light weight, some audio plugins will run just fine under something like WINE. But for a heavy-hitting plugin like, say, Spectrasonics Omnisphere, I have heard that emulation is too slow to be practical. There are certainly native Linux DAWs and plugins out there, you can probably go quite far with Ardour or the Linux version of Reaper, and there's a few plugins too (u-He has some native Linux builds of their excellent synthesizer plugins for instance). It's just that the native ecosystem out there is quite a bit smaller, unfortunately.