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As someone who has used Linux (with a few brief stints into macOS and BSD) for quite some time (since about 2012) coming from Windows before that, I don't under

As someone who has used Linux (with a few brief stints into macOS and BSD) for quite some time (since about 2012) coming from Windows before that, I don't understand the people who constantly defend Windows in these types of posts... In principle, the feature set that Windows 10 ships could be useful. I don't find it appealing personally, but if it works well for you then that's great. The issue that I have had is that every version of Windows I have used (from XP up to 10) has had serious reliability and performance problems. As a specific example, it seems that the one Windows machine that I keep around to play games on needs a complete re-install every 6-12 months, usually because Windows tries to update and bricks itself so badly that even "Windows Recovery" cannot salvage the install. This is a relatively nice machine (Haswell i5, 24GB DDR3), and I tend to stay on the happy path of just running the vanilla install plus Steam and a small number of games (never any programming, web browsing, etc.). In cases where I've had to use Windows for work, I've found that most of the built in programs lag and take a long amount of time to respond to keyboard or mouse inputs (in the specific cases I'm thinking of, this was on top-of-the line Dell Precision notebooks at the time). Most of my code seemed to run subjectively much slower natively on Windows than it did in a Linux VM running on the same machine. I'm not trying to be a power user of Windows, as I generally try to avoid using it as much as I can due to the bad experiences I've had in the past. I'm not doing any crazy registry editing or anything like that. Just pretty basic development work and gaming over the years. In that time, I've never had a Windows install where the features reliably worked, and the install remained stable for any period of time. This is all anecdotal of course. It's possible I've just be incredibly unlucky, or that I've had a string of a half dozen machines that have hardware that's somehow broken in a way that only affects Windows. So what I'm wondering is: all you people who keep chiming in on these types of posts claiming that Windows works well for your use case -- what are you doing? What's the secret to having it actually function reliably? I've not been able to replicate any such success.

owenwil 7y ago
I've been using Windows 10 as my daily driver for web (PHP/Node/JS) development for over two years without the need to recover/format/reinstall at all. This is the exception, rather than the rule, at this point: https://char.gd/blog/2019/the-state-of-switching-to-windows-from-mac-in-2019 https://char.gd/blog/2019/the-state-of-switching-to-windows-...
gardnr 7y ago
I subscribe to the conspiracy theory that there is a concerted effort from within microsoft to "engage in the community" where they encourage their developers and customers to respond to online posts that may be considered "anti-microsoft". Read everything with scepticism and check posting history.
- bpyne 7y ago
  Sorry, no, not an MS employee. I use MBP at home and would use it at work if I had the choice. But, the Win10 engineers did a nice job in making the os usable. I haven't once had a BSoD that wiped out my setup while testing software. I can go weeks without rebooting and don't experience a slowdown.
- tapoxi 7y ago
  They don't really need to. Honestly a large chunk of Windows' usage, aside from "mandated by IT" is video games. This is a use case that Apple is disinterested in and Linux supports poorly.
- rcarmo 7y ago
  I’m currently an MS employee and use Macs whenever I can, just as I spend more time inside WSL than anything else on Windows 10 except probably Firefox, and it all works well. We use computers to achieve goals. What they run tends to be, more often than not, merely circumstantial.
- jodrellblank 7y ago
  "Company encourages employees to be helpful" Linux users: "It's a conspiracy!" If it's pushed by your employer, you aren't "conspiring" in any normal use of the word. And even if they are "working together" to respond to anti-microsoft posts, ... what are you suggesting they are conspiring to achieve?
wvenable 7y ago
Whatever you're doing, it's not typical. My main desktop has been upgraded from Windows 7, WIndows 8, 8.1, and now Windows 10. I've never have to re-install in all that time. It's stable and fast. No update issues. This is really the norm. And I'm not particularly easy on Windows -- I have tons of development tools, games, customizations. I've changed hardware.
- charlesdaniels 7y ago
  > This is really the norm. Again anecdotally; most of my friend group (professional developers and CS students) who run Windows seem to constantly complain about performance issues and bugs (UI issues, not sleeping correctly on laptops, etc.). I don't think anyone has ever said "hey guys, come check out this slick new feature" or really anything positive at all about it. > No update issues. <insert anecdote about Windows 10 updates interrupting activity X and taking Y hours> Which has happened to me. And seemingly many others on the 'net. > Whatever you're doing, it's not typical. That's what I'm trying to figure out. I was under the impression that running Steam games (on my personal machine) or Eclipse (in my professional Windows experience) were more or less the happy path for the use cases of gaming and development respectively.
  - wvenable 7y ago
    People who don't have any problems don't shout it from the rooftops. They just go about their day quietly and contently. And if you start looking around, you'll notice that people complain about Mac OS stability and Linux stability all the time too. It's pretty hard to gauge reality this way.
- fhood 7y ago
  It varies. I have two windows 10 machines that I use regularly. My personal desktop, which has been perhaps the most reliable and consistent computer I have ever owned, and my work PC, which recently attempted to update outlook, and in the process fucked my hard drive beyond recovery.
  - 7y ago
krisrm 7y ago
Anecdotally, I've had about the opposite experience. Never have been able to get a graphics card to perform well under any version of desktop Linux I've used, the sleep feature generally hasn't worked, fan control is all over the map, and I hate using terminal to configure everything. Windows has almost always just worked fine for me, as it does for ~80% of anyone using a desktop OS.
- charlesdaniels 7y ago
  I'm not going to sit here and defend Linux on the usability front (from the perspective of usability to a typical layperson at least). Laptop support is definitely hit-or-miss, though it's come a long way in the last few years. But once it works, it generally stays working.
  - beatgammit 7y ago
    That's not necessarily true. I used Ubuntu for a year or two, and each release seemed to break something different (WiFi or sound usually), and while the fix was usually pretty easy, it still required fixing. I got fed up and switched to Fedora and ran into the same problem with release upgrades (and release upgrades seemed to take longer). After a year or so of that, I switched to Arch and have had fewer problems (the only problems I've had were clearly mentioned in the front page, with a working fix) and have used that for several years (5?). Maybe that's because I'm better at using Linux now, or maybe that's because I have better hardware now. My point, however, is that Linux has its share of problems, especially if you do release upgrades. There's a reason LTS versions exist, and I haven't had anything break when staying on an LTS branch. That being said, I've had fewer people since switching to Linux. On Windows, if something breaks, it's a royal pain to find the fix most of the time. Sometimes it's a bad driver, other times software needs to be reinstalled, and still other times a system file got corrupted and I need to figure out how to replace it. I've never had those types of problems on Linux, just configuration issues for hardware that isn't well supported anyway (can be solved by being a little picky about hardware). The difference is expectations. When I pay for Windows, I expect it to work since the hardware all claims to have Windows support. I don't have the same luxury with Linux, so I expect problems. Maybe Microsoft needs a grade for hardware to determine how well it should work, idk, but having issues with "supported" hardware is really frustrating.
bpyne 7y ago
My employer mandates it so I use Win10 at work. At home, I'm macOS. I replied elsewhere in this comment thread that Win10 is the first Windows version that I found usable. I don't game. So, I probably don't stress the os the same way you do. I run Eclipse, an Eclipse-based tool called Anypoint Studio, Netbeans, PyCharm, various developer tools like Git, Toad, etc. Also, I run various MS-based tools due to employer mandate. Overall, it's a pretty vanilla setup but it's all that I need to write software for my employer. We don't run VM's or containers of any kind. My main problem with Windows in the past has been BSoD happening in the middle of testing software, wiping out my entire setup. Win10 hasn't done it even once to me. So, I'm happy with it.
mises 7y ago
I can't figure out why you would need to re-format that often. Perhaps you have some kind of esoteric peripheral with a bad driver? I've never had such issues, even though I tinker with mostly-hidden settings and break things I'm not supposed to. It's not perfect, and I hate the telemetry, but it's not nearly as bad as it used to be.
- charlesdaniels 7y ago
  A GTX770 is the only special peripheral. I guess I can't rule out motherboard issues though, other than that when it used to dual boot Linux, the Linux side always ran just fine.
easymodex 7y ago
I really don't know, but I've done a lot of crazy stuff, including reg editing. I'm using it for all kinds of development, running virtual machines, web dev, game dev, music production, downloading and installing apps from unofficial sources. I use xshell for ssh stuff and cygwin (I don't like the regular cmd and powershell). The only time I had to reinstall it in the last 4 years is when I wanted to remove some bloat, tracking and uninstalling some default apps. I did it all at once and then restarted and I must've broken something. Other than that it's all good, everything works and I'm used to it. I also have a macbook pro now and it's confusing to me still, but I'm willing to give it a shot. Either way windows 10 is more than adequate, as far as stability goes it's great, I can't say for sure about performance but looks fine to me. Or maybe I just won the win10 lottery or something, "it just works" for me. Either way it doesn't feel like there should be a better or worse OS, they just have somewhat different flows and each has their upsides and downsides.
Osiris 7y ago
Are you comparing Linux reliability to Windows? I have a Linux desktop and a laptop (Linux preinstalled) and resume from sleep works about 50% of the time (usually GPU driver crashed during resume). I've run normal updates that have broken the boot, or cause X to stop starting up. I get more nervous running updates on Linux than Windows. At work a guy changed the password on his LUKS volume and it hosed his entire encrypted partition and he lost all his days. Linux is very easy to break and very hard to fix. Windows is definitely more reliable as a daily driver than Linux, in my experience.
- sjcoles 7y ago
  > Linux is very easy to break and very hard to fix. Funny enough as a Linux admin I feel the opposite. In Windows I'm using EventViewer and Procmon to try to dig through bullshit UIs to try to find events. Hell, lots of times Windows components and applications themselves are schizophrenic about how they log. Either zero logging, way too much logging, non-standard logging, or some other bullshit. Let me grep a text file or use a bpftrace instead! > Windows is definitely more reliable as a daily driver than Linux, in my experience. I support ~50 Linux desktops (you read that right) that are in use 24/7/365 and almost never have to intervene. If I do usually it's because of a change elsewhere that requires updates to a package (looking at you freerdp) or the Kernel needs to be updated. It's not out of the ordinary to see up times of months with no intervention required. On the other hand I am touching the other ~40 W10 laptops multiple times a week.

owenwil 7y ago

I've been using Windows 10 as my daily driver for web (PHP/Node/JS) development for over two years without the need to recover/format/reinstall at all. This is the exception, rather than the rule, at this point: https://char.gd/blog/2019/the-state-of-switching-to-windows-from-mac-in-2019 https://char.gd/blog/2019/the-state-of-switching-to-windows-...

gardnr 7y ago

I subscribe to the conspiracy theory that there is a concerted effort from within microsoft to "engage in the community" where they encourage their developers and customers to respond to online posts that may be considered "anti-microsoft". Read everything with scepticism and check posting history.

bpyne 7y ago
Sorry, no, not an MS employee. I use MBP at home and would use it at work if I had the choice. But, the Win10 engineers did a nice job in making the os usable. I haven't once had a BSoD that wiped out my setup while testing software. I can go weeks without rebooting and don't experience a slowdown.
tapoxi 7y ago
They don't really need to. Honestly a large chunk of Windows' usage, aside from "mandated by IT" is video games. This is a use case that Apple is disinterested in and Linux supports poorly.
rcarmo 7y ago
I’m currently an MS employee and use Macs whenever I can, just as I spend more time inside WSL than anything else on Windows 10 except probably Firefox, and it all works well. We use computers to achieve goals. What they run tends to be, more often than not, merely circumstantial.
jodrellblank 7y ago
"Company encourages employees to be helpful" Linux users: "It's a conspiracy!" If it's pushed by your employer, you aren't "conspiring" in any normal use of the word. And even if they are "working together" to respond to anti-microsoft posts, ... what are you suggesting they are conspiring to achieve?

wvenable 7y ago

Whatever you're doing, it's not typical. My main desktop has been upgraded from Windows 7, WIndows 8, 8.1, and now Windows 10. I've never have to re-install in all that time. It's stable and fast. No update issues. This is really the norm. And I'm not particularly easy on Windows -- I have tons of development tools, games, customizations. I've changed hardware.

charlesdaniels 7y ago
> This is really the norm. Again anecdotally; most of my friend group (professional developers and CS students) who run Windows seem to constantly complain about performance issues and bugs (UI issues, not sleeping correctly on laptops, etc.). I don't think anyone has ever said "hey guys, come check out this slick new feature" or really anything positive at all about it. > No update issues. <insert anecdote about Windows 10 updates interrupting activity X and taking Y hours> Which has happened to me. And seemingly many others on the 'net. > Whatever you're doing, it's not typical. That's what I'm trying to figure out. I was under the impression that running Steam games (on my personal machine) or Eclipse (in my professional Windows experience) were more or less the happy path for the use cases of gaming and development respectively.
- wvenable 7y ago
  People who don't have any problems don't shout it from the rooftops. They just go about their day quietly and contently. And if you start looking around, you'll notice that people complain about Mac OS stability and Linux stability all the time too. It's pretty hard to gauge reality this way.
fhood 7y ago
It varies. I have two windows 10 machines that I use regularly. My personal desktop, which has been perhaps the most reliable and consistent computer I have ever owned, and my work PC, which recently attempted to update outlook, and in the process fucked my hard drive beyond recovery.
- 7y ago

krisrm 7y ago

Anecdotally, I've had about the opposite experience. Never have been able to get a graphics card to perform well under any version of desktop Linux I've used, the sleep feature generally hasn't worked, fan control is all over the map, and I hate using terminal to configure everything. Windows has almost always just worked fine for me, as it does for ~80% of anyone using a desktop OS.

charlesdaniels 7y ago
I'm not going to sit here and defend Linux on the usability front (from the perspective of usability to a typical layperson at least). Laptop support is definitely hit-or-miss, though it's come a long way in the last few years. But once it works, it generally stays working.
- beatgammit 7y ago
  That's not necessarily true. I used Ubuntu for a year or two, and each release seemed to break something different (WiFi or sound usually), and while the fix was usually pretty easy, it still required fixing. I got fed up and switched to Fedora and ran into the same problem with release upgrades (and release upgrades seemed to take longer). After a year or so of that, I switched to Arch and have had fewer problems (the only problems I've had were clearly mentioned in the front page, with a working fix) and have used that for several years (5?). Maybe that's because I'm better at using Linux now, or maybe that's because I have better hardware now. My point, however, is that Linux has its share of problems, especially if you do release upgrades. There's a reason LTS versions exist, and I haven't had anything break when staying on an LTS branch. That being said, I've had fewer people since switching to Linux. On Windows, if something breaks, it's a royal pain to find the fix most of the time. Sometimes it's a bad driver, other times software needs to be reinstalled, and still other times a system file got corrupted and I need to figure out how to replace it. I've never had those types of problems on Linux, just configuration issues for hardware that isn't well supported anyway (can be solved by being a little picky about hardware). The difference is expectations. When I pay for Windows, I expect it to work since the hardware all claims to have Windows support. I don't have the same luxury with Linux, so I expect problems. Maybe Microsoft needs a grade for hardware to determine how well it should work, idk, but having issues with "supported" hardware is really frustrating.

bpyne 7y ago

My employer mandates it so I use Win10 at work. At home, I'm macOS. I replied elsewhere in this comment thread that Win10 is the first Windows version that I found usable. I don't game. So, I probably don't stress the os the same way you do. I run Eclipse, an Eclipse-based tool called Anypoint Studio, Netbeans, PyCharm, various developer tools like Git, Toad, etc. Also, I run various MS-based tools due to employer mandate. Overall, it's a pretty vanilla setup but it's all that I need to write software for my employer. We don't run VM's or containers of any kind. My main problem with Windows in the past has been BSoD happening in the middle of testing software, wiping out my entire setup. Win10 hasn't done it even once to me. So, I'm happy with it.

mises 7y ago

I can't figure out why you would need to re-format that often. Perhaps you have some kind of esoteric peripheral with a bad driver? I've never had such issues, even though I tinker with mostly-hidden settings and break things I'm not supposed to. It's not perfect, and I hate the telemetry, but it's not nearly as bad as it used to be.

charlesdaniels 7y ago
A GTX770 is the only special peripheral. I guess I can't rule out motherboard issues though, other than that when it used to dual boot Linux, the Linux side always ran just fine.

easymodex 7y ago

I really don't know, but I've done a lot of crazy stuff, including reg editing. I'm using it for all kinds of development, running virtual machines, web dev, game dev, music production, downloading and installing apps from unofficial sources. I use xshell for ssh stuff and cygwin (I don't like the regular cmd and powershell). The only time I had to reinstall it in the last 4 years is when I wanted to remove some bloat, tracking and uninstalling some default apps. I did it all at once and then restarted and I must've broken something. Other than that it's all good, everything works and I'm used to it. I also have a macbook pro now and it's confusing to me still, but I'm willing to give it a shot. Either way windows 10 is more than adequate, as far as stability goes it's great, I can't say for sure about performance but looks fine to me. Or maybe I just won the win10 lottery or something, "it just works" for me. Either way it doesn't feel like there should be a better or worse OS, they just have somewhat different flows and each has their upsides and downsides.

Osiris 7y ago

Are you comparing Linux reliability to Windows? I have a Linux desktop and a laptop (Linux preinstalled) and resume from sleep works about 50% of the time (usually GPU driver crashed during resume). I've run normal updates that have broken the boot, or cause X to stop starting up. I get more nervous running updates on Linux than Windows. At work a guy changed the password on his LUKS volume and it hosed his entire encrypted partition and he lost all his days. Linux is very easy to break and very hard to fix. Windows is definitely more reliable as a daily driver than Linux, in my experience.

sjcoles 7y ago
> Linux is very easy to break and very hard to fix. Funny enough as a Linux admin I feel the opposite. In Windows I'm using EventViewer and Procmon to try to dig through bullshit UIs to try to find events. Hell, lots of times Windows components and applications themselves are schizophrenic about how they log. Either zero logging, way too much logging, non-standard logging, or some other bullshit. Let me grep a text file or use a bpftrace instead! > Windows is definitely more reliable as a daily driver than Linux, in my experience. I support ~50 Linux desktops (you read that right) that are in use 24/7/365 and almost never have to intervene. If I do usually it's because of a change elsewhere that requires updates to a package (looking at you freerdp) or the Kernel needs to be updated. It's not out of the ordinary to see up times of months with no intervention required. On the other hand I am touching the other ~40 W10 laptops multiple times a week.