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>Life is too short, and brainpower too limited, to justify wasting either on frustrating software. This is exactly why I switched from Linux to Windows and nev

>Life is too short, and brainpower too limited, to justify wasting either on frustrating software. This is exactly why I switched from Linux to Windows and never looked back.

selfhifive 5y ago
Unfortunately RAM is quite limited too. The idle windows memory consumption is horrifying.
- lillecarl 5y ago
  I'm gonna go wild and crazy and assume you work with IT in some way since you're on HN. How on earth does idle RAM consumption matter to you when a GB of RAM is cheaper than a beer? I'm not a Windows fan, I don't let Windows control any hardware other than a GPU on any of my systems but i do run it in a VM for gaming. I just don't see the problem, more RAM usage could even be better for performance. It's a useless metric.
  - widespace_ 5y ago
    Where do you live where a beer costs 5€?
    - lillecarl 5y ago
      Sweden, a beer in a bar is at least 5€
- macNchz 5y ago
  It's funny you have concerns with Windows using too much memory at idle, I actually have no idea how much memory my daily-driver Ubuntu install uses at baseline, but my #1 issue with desktop Linux is how badly it behaves when low on free memory. Windows and MacOS will at least warn/prompt you to kill programs. On Linux, by default....the mouse just stops moving and you can't do anything. You can fiddle with settings and install tools like earlyoom to mitigate it, but the default behavior is insanely bad for a desktop OS. Despite having 32GB of RAM I still run into it occasionally and it drives me nuts.
  - doublepg23 5y ago
    Fedora now handles this much better by having systemd-oomd by default now https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/EnableSystemdOomd https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/EnableSystemdOomd
    - addicted 5y ago
      The more I am using Linux the more I wish I had gone with Fedora for my personal desktop when I was forced to switch from Windows to Linux a couple of months ago (forced by hardware issues with an unused onboard video controller which I can set Linux to fully ignore but sends Windows in an infinite reboot loop). Don’t get me wrong. Out of the Windows, Mac and Ubuntu machines I have, the Ubuntu one is still my favorite (especially since switching from 20.04 LTS to 20.10) but Fedora is doing things so much more along the lines of what I want. It’s more cutting edge but still very stable and well tested. It doesn’t force snaps onto me. I’d much rather install flatpak software. And it has a cleaner Gnome interface. Even though I kind of like the Ubuntu sidebar dock, it’s not worth all the other awkward behaviors with Ubuntu trying to override Gnome (for example, the existence of the Ubuntu Software store really annoys me since it doesn’t support Flatpak and simply seems to run a lot worse than the Gnome software store that I also have installed).
      - doublepg23 5y ago
        Indeed, I think I'm going to make the jump to Fedora from 20.04. Really hard decision too as I've been an Ubuntu guy for the majority of my computing life. Agree on all points as well - Vanilla GNOME > Unity, Flatpaks > Snaps. The Snap Store is just GNOME Software with some plugins/tweaks FWIW, this is changing (has changed?) soon though. I learned this by investigating a memory leak https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-software/-/issues/942 https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-software/-/issues/942
  - GekkePrutser 5y ago
    I think this is due to memory overcommitting on Linux. It can actually be turned off. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/19750796/allocating-more-memory-than-there-exists-using-malloc#19750809 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/19750796/allocating-more... But I like that about FreeBSD, it just says no when you try to allocate more memory than you have (including swap!)
- kaba0 5y ago
  Unused RAM is useless though. The OS better cache some useful stuff there and evict when something else needs that. If you are low on RAM and on Linux I really recommend getting zram, which will compress memory pages making swapping less needed.
  - lillecarl 5y ago
    I have 40GB RAM (Weird number indeed, 8GB soldered, 1x 32GB stick) in my machine. The problem I have is that even with 2 WDS500G2B0C-00PXH0 NVME in RAID1 it takes awhile for the machine to hibernate and resume from hibernation, It's faster to boot the system cold (but then I don't have state). I've been reading but never really figured out. Can ZSWAP or ZRAM write compressed to disk somehow too? Thanks! :)
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
fsflover 5y ago
For me, it's vice versa: this is why I switched to Linux, because it gets out of my way.
sneak 5y ago
No amount of good UX can justify the tools constantly spying on you. The Windows UX these days is also horribly jankful in other ways, too. I feel like Windows 2000 made a stronger case for "switching to Windows and never looking back" than Win7-11.
- pjerem 5y ago
  Windows 7 was actually pretty clean. It was basically Windows XP with a nice look & feel. Also the last Windows without bloat everywhere (ok, IE) But yeah, 2000 was somehow the apogee. Plasma is pretty nice nowadays but I sometimes miss the simpler times of KDE 3.5
  - usefulcat 5y ago
    For the time, Win 2k was also amazingly easy to install (compared to win95, dos, Linux, WinNT). It really was a revelation. I just realized that I probably used it or win2k3 daily for nearly 10 years.
    - raffraffraff 5y ago
      Not just manual installation but fully automated remote installation too. From a manageability perspective, the 2000 series was a leap forward, with Active Directory and Group Policy. I always found it odd that Apple never even attempted to provide a proper solution for remote management of their OS and just left it to 3rd parties like JAMF. (I know they've made inroads into "enterprise" since then, but this definitely hamstrung them there for a long time)
      - sneak 5y ago
        Apple bought fleetsmith and has full GPO-style provisioning profile support for iOS, TVos, and macOS. You can even do DEP so that certain serial numbers marked as "yours" will autoenroll/provision on wipe, on a blank/fresh OS.
boudin 5y ago
Exact opposite from me. I just cannot use windows anymore. Windows 10 feels like windows xp with adwares pre-installed.

>Life is too short, and brainpower too limited, to justify wasting either on frustrating software. This is exactly why I switched from Linux to Windows and never looked back.

selfhifive 5y ago

Unfortunately RAM is quite limited too. The idle windows memory consumption is horrifying.

lillecarl 5y ago
I'm gonna go wild and crazy and assume you work with IT in some way since you're on HN. How on earth does idle RAM consumption matter to you when a GB of RAM is cheaper than a beer? I'm not a Windows fan, I don't let Windows control any hardware other than a GPU on any of my systems but i do run it in a VM for gaming. I just don't see the problem, more RAM usage could even be better for performance. It's a useless metric.
- widespace_ 5y ago
  Where do you live where a beer costs 5€?
  - lillecarl 5y ago
    Sweden, a beer in a bar is at least 5€
macNchz 5y ago
It's funny you have concerns with Windows using too much memory at idle, I actually have no idea how much memory my daily-driver Ubuntu install uses at baseline, but my #1 issue with desktop Linux is how badly it behaves when low on free memory. Windows and MacOS will at least warn/prompt you to kill programs. On Linux, by default....the mouse just stops moving and you can't do anything. You can fiddle with settings and install tools like earlyoom to mitigate it, but the default behavior is insanely bad for a desktop OS. Despite having 32GB of RAM I still run into it occasionally and it drives me nuts.
- doublepg23 5y ago
  Fedora now handles this much better by having systemd-oomd by default now https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/EnableSystemdOomd https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/EnableSystemdOomd
  - addicted 5y ago
    The more I am using Linux the more I wish I had gone with Fedora for my personal desktop when I was forced to switch from Windows to Linux a couple of months ago (forced by hardware issues with an unused onboard video controller which I can set Linux to fully ignore but sends Windows in an infinite reboot loop). Don’t get me wrong. Out of the Windows, Mac and Ubuntu machines I have, the Ubuntu one is still my favorite (especially since switching from 20.04 LTS to 20.10) but Fedora is doing things so much more along the lines of what I want. It’s more cutting edge but still very stable and well tested. It doesn’t force snaps onto me. I’d much rather install flatpak software. And it has a cleaner Gnome interface. Even though I kind of like the Ubuntu sidebar dock, it’s not worth all the other awkward behaviors with Ubuntu trying to override Gnome (for example, the existence of the Ubuntu Software store really annoys me since it doesn’t support Flatpak and simply seems to run a lot worse than the Gnome software store that I also have installed).
    - doublepg23 5y ago
      Indeed, I think I'm going to make the jump to Fedora from 20.04. Really hard decision too as I've been an Ubuntu guy for the majority of my computing life. Agree on all points as well - Vanilla GNOME > Unity, Flatpaks > Snaps. The Snap Store is just GNOME Software with some plugins/tweaks FWIW, this is changing (has changed?) soon though. I learned this by investigating a memory leak https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-software/-/issues/942 https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-software/-/issues/942
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  I think this is due to memory overcommitting on Linux. It can actually be turned off. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/19750796/allocating-more-memory-than-there-exists-using-malloc#19750809 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/19750796/allocating-more... But I like that about FreeBSD, it just says no when you try to allocate more memory than you have (including swap!)
kaba0 5y ago
Unused RAM is useless though. The OS better cache some useful stuff there and evict when something else needs that. If you are low on RAM and on Linux I really recommend getting zram, which will compress memory pages making swapping less needed.
- lillecarl 5y ago
  I have 40GB RAM (Weird number indeed, 8GB soldered, 1x 32GB stick) in my machine. The problem I have is that even with 2 WDS500G2B0C-00PXH0 NVME in RAID1 it takes awhile for the machine to hibernate and resume from hibernation, It's faster to boot the system cold (but then I don't have state). I've been reading but never really figured out. Can ZSWAP or ZRAM write compressed to disk somehow too? Thanks! :)

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

fsflover 5y ago

For me, it's vice versa: this is why I switched to Linux, because it gets out of my way.

sneak 5y ago

No amount of good UX can justify the tools constantly spying on you. The Windows UX these days is also horribly jankful in other ways, too. I feel like Windows 2000 made a stronger case for "switching to Windows and never looking back" than Win7-11.

pjerem 5y ago
Windows 7 was actually pretty clean. It was basically Windows XP with a nice look & feel. Also the last Windows without bloat everywhere (ok, IE) But yeah, 2000 was somehow the apogee. Plasma is pretty nice nowadays but I sometimes miss the simpler times of KDE 3.5
- usefulcat 5y ago
  For the time, Win 2k was also amazingly easy to install (compared to win95, dos, Linux, WinNT). It really was a revelation. I just realized that I probably used it or win2k3 daily for nearly 10 years.
  - raffraffraff 5y ago
    Not just manual installation but fully automated remote installation too. From a manageability perspective, the 2000 series was a leap forward, with Active Directory and Group Policy. I always found it odd that Apple never even attempted to provide a proper solution for remote management of their OS and just left it to 3rd parties like JAMF. (I know they've made inroads into "enterprise" since then, but this definitely hamstrung them there for a long time)
    - sneak 5y ago
      Apple bought fleetsmith and has full GPO-style provisioning profile support for iOS, TVos, and macOS. You can even do DEP so that certain serial numbers marked as "yours" will autoenroll/provision on wipe, on a blank/fresh OS.

boudin 5y ago

Exact opposite from me. I just cannot use windows anymore. Windows 10 feels like windows xp with adwares pre-installed.