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Once Windows stopped having shit-tier stability, some time around late XP or early Win7, Desktop Linux replaced it as the least-stable and buggiest of the three

Once Windows stopped having shit-tier stability, some time around late XP or early Win7, Desktop Linux replaced it as the least-stable and buggiest of the three GUI desktop operating systems I regularly use. Even before that, it nearly matched it in instability, if you counted X-Window crashes as the same as a bluescreen or kernel panic (and if you're doing GUI work, they're close to equivalent) The kernel might be OK. The GUI & multimedia stacks aren't.

lukeschlather 4y ago
I'm running an MSI laptop on Windows that bluescreens all the time for me. I finally figured out it was bugs in the USB-C/HDMI hotplugging drivers and I know how not to trigger it. In contrast I haven't had an X-Windows crash in years and years. The closest thing I had was on a Dell XPS 13 and it wasn't a "crash" per se but the issue was very similar to the Windows issue I had with the MSI, the machine just totally locked up (ctrl-alt-backspace had no effect) when I plugged a USB-C to ethernet adapter into it. Unplug the adapter everything was fine. On Windows I have to kill explorer.exe because the systray crashes at least once a week. (taskkill /f /im explorer.exe; start explorer.exe is always in my Powershell history.) And that's not the only example of more userspace instability, I could go on and on. There's instability I run into on Xfce but it's usually pretty isolated, this one component has a problem, it's not like Xfce is just randomly locking up all the time the way explorer.exe is. For example I have this issue on Xfce with a logitech wireless keyboard which starts having input issues but unplugging the wireless dongle and plugging it back in fixes it. And that sort of thing happens with most peripherals on any platform.
mrj 4y ago
And yet Windows was successful even when unstable. I would say that's not a hugely motivating factor for people. Many people turn on and off their computer when they want to use it and it's fine. Excessive stability isn't a major factor for most people and being perfectly stable wouldn't by itself make this the year of the Linux Desktop. For this crowd it is important, of course, and I'd be deeply upset if my desktop crashed that often. That's not been my experience though.
- 323 4y ago
  > And yet Windows was successful even when unstable. Everybody had a friend who knew how to fix Windows. And it was a literally a job, there were fliers glued to lamp posts advertising "I install/fix/devirus Windows for a small fee". Also, during this time of unstable Windows, Linux was even worse. It wasn't the nice Linux desktop of today.

lukeschlather 4y ago

I'm running an MSI laptop on Windows that bluescreens all the time for me. I finally figured out it was bugs in the USB-C/HDMI hotplugging drivers and I know how not to trigger it. In contrast I haven't had an X-Windows crash in years and years. The closest thing I had was on a Dell XPS 13 and it wasn't a "crash" per se but the issue was very similar to the Windows issue I had with the MSI, the machine just totally locked up (ctrl-alt-backspace had no effect) when I plugged a USB-C to ethernet adapter into it. Unplug the adapter everything was fine. On Windows I have to kill explorer.exe because the systray crashes at least once a week. (taskkill /f /im explorer.exe; start explorer.exe is always in my Powershell history.) And that's not the only example of more userspace instability, I could go on and on. There's instability I run into on Xfce but it's usually pretty isolated, this one component has a problem, it's not like Xfce is just randomly locking up all the time the way explorer.exe is. For example I have this issue on Xfce with a logitech wireless keyboard which starts having input issues but unplugging the wireless dongle and plugging it back in fixes it. And that sort of thing happens with most peripherals on any platform.

mrj 4y ago

And yet Windows was successful even when unstable. I would say that's not a hugely motivating factor for people. Many people turn on and off their computer when they want to use it and it's fine. Excessive stability isn't a major factor for most people and being perfectly stable wouldn't by itself make this the year of the Linux Desktop. For this crowd it is important, of course, and I'd be deeply upset if my desktop crashed that often. That's not been my experience though.

323 4y ago
> And yet Windows was successful even when unstable. Everybody had a friend who knew how to fix Windows. And it was a literally a job, there were fliers glued to lamp posts advertising "I install/fix/devirus Windows for a small fee". Also, during this time of unstable Windows, Linux was even worse. It wasn't the nice Linux desktop of today.