More people will be redirect to Linux, cool.
Sorry for disappoint you. But, normies don’t know what is Linux about? hell even higher than average tech-savvy people know little bit Ubuntu as a Linux.
I’m a sysadmin. We’re a Linux shop, I spend my life deep in the guts of Linux boxes, both server and desktop.
And for my daily-driver both at work and at home, I use windows.
The UI and overall UX are just better. The annoying bullshit I make a living knowing my way around, I don’t have to think about.
For actual development or backend services, of course you want a Linux box. Proper logging, proper tools, build shit, pipe it together, automate stuff and get down and technical when it breaks. Doing that on windows is absolutely hell.
But on windows, the volume control just works, I never have to delete lockfiles to get my browser to open, my desktop login doesn’t terminate if something in .profile returned nonzero, I can play every video game out there without having to fuck around, I can use native versions of real apps, I don’t have package-management dependency hell, all the pieces were designed to work with each other, and the baseline cognitive load needed to just use my computer is zero, which frees up my brain to focus on my actual work, or for playing games and fucking around on the internets.
For UI/UX, you get to choose your DE if you want. Find something you like. KDE is very Windows-like, but with the ability to customize it if there’s things you don’t like.
As for the rest of your issues, literally I have never had an issue with them. Gaming is also perfectly fine without fucking around now, with very few exceptions (like Valorant that wants a rootkit). Also, no all the pieces on Windows weren’t designed to work together. For example, each individual app has to check for its own updates when it runs, which is the worst time to update, and you have to go to a website to download an updater. A package manager just a handles it all for you, because they’re designed to work together unlike Windows.
I don’t know about your actual competency with Linux/computers-in-general. I don’t want to make assumptions, but you really don’t seem to know what you’re doing. If Windows has less cognitive load, then you’re doing something wrong. You should experiment with other options and find what works for you.
I personally find the my cognitive load with Linux is much lower now that I’ve switched over.
First of all, the Windows 11 UI is awful and ugly. The Windows 10 UI was never that great and only looks good as it ended up sandwiched between 8 and 11. I’d have to go to Windows 7 for something that’s decent. Admittedly the polish on a lot of Linux DEs and applications can leave a lot to be desired, but I have a choice between multiple DEs and many of those DEs are highly customizable. I’d have to go back to Windows 7 for something that’s better polished and works as good for me as XFCE does.
Then there’s being in control of my own computer. I control when it does its updates. My computer respects my settings and preferences and doesn’t randomly change or reset them. It doesn’t randomly install unwanted software on it’s own, or reinstall stuff I explicitly removed. It doesn’t place ads in my whisker menu or on my desktop or lock screen. There’s no telemetry being sent home to the mothership. With anything past Windows 8 I’ve never really felt like I’m in complete control and Microsoft can just do whatever the hell they want.
While there are the occasional issues as someone who is familiar with Linux it’s typically not too difficult to track it down and fix it. Though there are exceptions of course. At least if I have to edit some files in /etc they tend to stay that way as opposed to having to edit the registry with regedit.exe only to have Windows randomly undo what I did with the next update. And while PulseAudio is notorious for causing all sorts of havoc, it seems like it’s finally gotten to the point where it finally works and I haven’t had any issues with the volume control for a while now.
As for games it obviously matters what games you like to play, but the amount of tinkering I’ve had to do to play any game in my Stream library beyond enabling Proton so far is zero. Which has been a very pleasant surprise and honestly I’ve been pretty impressed with that.
Does it take longer? It almost always just works for me. I tell my package manager to install the package I want and then it’s taken care of, and updates are automatically managed. There’s no hunting around different websites for the installer and then going to the website to update every time the application launcher detects an update when it runs, which is the opposite of when I want to update it.
I don’t know what issues you’re facing, so I can’t comment on it directly. I’ve installed three different distributions withing the past 1.5 years, all which use different package mangers. Each one was faster than settings things up in Windows. The difference is my Windows install I installed a ton of things over time, most of which I wanted immediately when swapping. I don’t know how long it took in total for Windows, but I promise it was significantly longer.
Also the distro I’m using now, Garuda, has a tool to install a bunch of common applications that runs at start. You just tick the ones you want and it handles the rest. A lot of distros have something similar, which is really fast.
That would be me.
Tried Ubuntu 15 years ago, but couldn’t because Nvidia driver issues, and haven’t tried again
Look, dudes, I’m bootstrapping a small business while trying to manage ADHD. I can barely get two hours of admin work done in an eight hour day. I just need things to work. I’d love to walk away from Windows but I don’t have the mental bandwidth for that shit
And even if I did, my wife and I share a gaming computer/media center. There’s nothing like having her call me in the middle of a workday because my VPN is keeping her from logging into PBS so that she can watch Grantchester. Imagine the headaches if I installed a new OS.
Much like improving my physical fitness, I have the desire, but not the will
I just setup an old friend couple new computer with Windows. We lost a full day as the HP printer didn’t work (yet worked via Android and my linux laptop without installing absolutely anything), Outlook doesn’t save passwords (so we moved to Thunderbird), chrome is a mess (so we moved to Firefox + unlock origin), Microsoft excel is incredibly expensive and refused to open the only spreadsheet they needed (so me moved to libreoffice)…
A fucking nightmare. And everything worked fine with FOSS or on my laptop.
Just stay away from nvidia on Linux and you are golden.
Just gotta spread the word. I got two people to switch from Windows to Linux recently. When they heard about an alternative they got very interested and jumped on the opportunity. People want an alternative, but like you say they don’t know one exists, so we need to keep spreading the word of Linux.
PS. They both are enjoying the ad free experience and don’t have any big issues or problems with Linux. Just learning pains
