I just have to say, after having booted into Windows, that Linux is so much nicer than Windows when it comes to doing system “updates.”
So, here I am, sitting in my chair for about 20 minutes looking at a mostly black screen and a highly dubious looking percentage number going up very slowly. It tells me that Windows is “updating” and that I should keep the computer turned on. Good thing I have the computer turned on or I wouldn’t know that I shouldn’t have it turned off, right?
Anyway, I start to think about how this experience goes in Linux. In my experience, I do “system” updates about once a month, and I can see each individual package being installed (if I glance away from my browser session, that is). In Windows, I have no choice but to sit here and wonder if the system will even work again.
Windows decides that it wants to update drivers, apparently (I honestly have no idea what it’s doing, which is part of what pisses me off), because it reboots the computer. Then it reboots again. Then, eventually, everything goes back to the familiar Windows desktop. WTF?
How anyone could prefer Windows to Linux is truly a mystery to me.
I ran both an immutable distro (which downloads an entirely new image for every update) and Arch (which if you let it sit for a while basically reinstalls everything in an update).
I have no fucking clue what even takes so long during Windows updates. Both the download and the installation are slow as hell.
If I had to guess, it’s because of two things: windows creates a system restore point, which tracks every file the update touches, every time it installs an update (as opposed to something fast like ZFS or btrfs snapshots). Then it also keeps a prior version of anything system related on top of that, these outdated and insecure system libraries live on forever in the WinSxS folder. Imagine keeping an insanely bloated version of every system package installed, forever. I’ve seen WinSxS get to be over 80 gigabytes, of just old crusty shit.
As a Gentoo user, I get irrationally angry whenever I see Windows updates around me.
Like when I recompile my entire system, it takes a bit, but the PC is responsive and I get to configure the software before it’s updated.
Which immutable distro and what was the user experience like when compared with a traditional one?
Fedora Silverblue, and it was buggy and limiting.
Want to see a really big difference? Try doing updates (or using Windows at all) with “only” 4GB of RAM and a mechanical hard drive. You can do it in a virtual machine if you don’t have a spare system sitting around. Use Windows 10 or newer for best effect. (Good luck if it needs more than a few weeks of updates; you might be waiting and rebooting for quite a while before it finishes.)
One might argue that this is unrealistic, because modern Windows system requirements state up front that such modest hardware isn’t enough, but that’s not the point.
Do the same thing on any modern Linux distro, and notice the difference. Now consider how much more efficient Linux is at making use of your hardware, no matter how much RAM or how fast the disk.
I have a relatively recent ryzen system. With a 2070 super and windows 11. Sitting next to it is an i4790 system with a 1060 and no nvme. I use it daily. Love the hell out of it. It just runs. Windows 11 actually refuses to use the KVM. It’s just a constant pain in the ass. So lately I’ve turned it on maybe once a week at most. One of these days soon I’m going to bite the bullet and get a new nvme drive just for Linux on it. That way I don’t have to risk windows clobbering it for how little I will use it. My most recent heavy use of it was free games off of Amazon games. So that I can install and use them on the Linux system. If there’s no proper Amazon games client for Linux. There is a CLI downloader. But it doesn’t let you clean things Etc or notify you.
Heroic games launcher has prime gaming support
I don’t even remember how updates used to be like in Windows. Except perhaps the nagging associated with manual updates.
How anyone could prefer Windows to Linux is truly a mystery to me.
I doubt most people would base their decision solely on the update experience.
That being said when I used Windows regularly up to the end of last year, installing updates wasn’t really a problem or even something I really noticed. It didn’t really nag me to restart or whatever and just did its thing when I shut the computer down, taking half a minute longer every now and then - but I don’t care because I just wanted to shut down anyway.
Fedora (and I’m sure more distros) apply updates on restart by default if you update via GUI (“Software” in GNOME, “Discover” in KDE). This also requires a “double restart” (I noticed it because you also have to enter your LUKS passphrase twice). Sure, you can update packages in-place, but depending on the update (not just the kernel) this can cause issues/anomalies with the running system. I’ve had some Mesa updates without a restart cause games to stop working or misbehave, also video decoding.
Well that is how the updates work if you install hardly any software. In case you have, every other one hits you with the update by itself, showing random dialogs, opening a browser to download the binary, asking for the elevation etc etc.
