this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023
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The guy before isn't exactly wrong.
Many things that "just work" on Linux are things you just don't do on Windows. E.g. swapping the DE or theming/customizing the whole thing usually works great out of the box. But on Windows you just don't do that.
On the other hand, getting e.g. legacy Nvidia drivers working correctly and setup so that it automatically switches between the power-consuming dGPU and the power-saving iGPU is a major pain in the rear. On Windows that just works. Mostly Nvidias fault, but to the user who has to deal with the situation it doesn't matter who is at fault.
And in general, if you come from Windows with a lot of Windows experience and then have to dive into Linux, you mainly notice the things that don't just work on Linux.
Also, fixing problems in Windows might take you through the registry or arcane wizards. But you hardly ever get into CLI and never into config files. So if you swap over to Linux, where almost any help you find online will go straight into CLI and config files (even if a GUI solution would be available), that can be pretty jarring.
I've been using Linux professionally for ~15 years and privately for ~5. But I still remeber getting into it very vivdly.
Very good points. I remember the drama of trying to get simple things like USB, Bluetooth and even WiFi working on Linux quite a few years ago. However, even though those could be problematic, I did learn a ton about how drivers interacted with various chipsets. That, in turn, led me down the path of how to apply specific patches and build my own kernel modules. It was absolutely a double edged sword.
It really is a shame that most GPU vendors haven't spent more time developing better drivers for Linux, but in some ways, I feel their pain. (I am leaving out the open vs closed source debate on that.) Windows does provide consistency, through all of its shortcomings. Linux can be very .. eh.. interesting between different distros, for sure.
But yeah, I didn't rush to downvote the above commenter as they were speaking from their own perspective and experience. No shame in that.
Uh, Wifi drivers in the 2000s on Linux... That was painful. I remember one specific Wifi USB stick, where the Linux driver just came as source code. I mean, good for them for making an open source driver, but back then I was just a teenager with very little coding experience, and they had no guide on how to compile it at all. Also it was written for an older version of gcc than what I had, and gcc threw a ton of errors because that. So I had to go through the whole driver source and fix all these compiler errors, even though I had no C++ experience at all. Just to get a dumb Wifi stick to work.
In Windows, back than, it was just "plonk it in, double click the driver on the CD and be done". I don't miss those days.