I thought I’d chuck windows on my gaming laptop an Acer nitro 5 from last year, to see how it’s going do some bits I can’t on Linux VR, certain multiplayer games etc.
What a disaster! I’ve spent the whole day brute forcing drivers and generally dicking about trying to get my setup sorted.
Upon installation, Wi-Fi drivers don’t exist, so you cannot use the internet while installing if you’re on Wi-Fi. Mint’s had this since what 2006? But that’s cool, Cortana is here to chat away and not understand any requests. Once finally in the OS after 20 questions that could be considered harassment if it was a person, nothing was ready to go. Every single driver needed sourcing and installing.
People have the cheek to complain about Linux’s Nvidia install, literally two clicks on most distros if it isn’t already baked in. Go to website find driver, download click click click agree click wait more software click click wait.
Plug in my sound card OK it’s a bit old now UA-25 but nothing happens…hmm find obscure video partially install a driver from Vista then cancel the installation program so you can side load a driver from 8,1 but wait there’s more disable core isolation to allow the driver to work reboot into a now slightly more compromised OS.
OK plug in wheel again not new stuff G25 oh it works cool. Oh, no H-shifter OK download driver. “Can’t find device, ensure it’s plugged in”. Windows decided it knew better, downloaded its own driver that blocks the official one and loads a steering wheel as a gamepad…GG cool cool.
I do not understand why we still have this image that Windows is noob friendly, it’s such a convoluted obfuscated process to do anything. It does worse than nothing, it thinks it’s smart enough to carry out tasks on the user behalf and just bork it.
All of these issues are because I don’t have the new shiny things, but it really highlighted why I love Linux now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to install a distro and play on my 20-year-old peripherals
Never trust a rant from a person that can’t install Windows.
I think most people are just used to Window’s BS, so these issues are just expected and they know how to fix them.
Linux has an easier experience getting up and running, but when they have an issue, usually it’s something completely different from what they have experienced before and get frustrated.
This is why mainline OEMs shipping computers with Linux by default will be a huge step forward.
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Yeah I’m skeptical. Having installed windows on a machine that I put together about a year ago, it was pretty straightforward. Yeah I needed to install the drivers, but that didn’t take long. Maybe windows 11 is much more tortured than 10 though, which is what I installed.
Does installing XP count? I might tolerate that.
Can’t bring myself to install the latest few and select “no, do not spy on me” 7 thousand times. They will spy somehow as it’s proprietary - god knows what it’s actually doing.
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Wi-Fi drivers don’t exist
They absolutely exist, but perhaps isn’t part of the installer.
Every single driver needed sourcing and installing.
Windows Update solves 95% of that automatically these days, as long as you have internet it will sort it out for you.
Plug in my sound card OK it’s a bit old now UA-25 but nothing happens.
This an external USB sound card from 2004, Roland has drivers for it working on Windows 98/ME/XP/2000/Vista/7/8/8.1 it is a 20 year old card, it awesome that it works on Linux, but you can’t blame Roland or Microsoft for not supporting a 20 year old device on the latest versions of the OS.
OK plug in wheel again not new stuff G25 oh it works cool. Oh, no H-shifter OK download driver. “Can’t find device, ensure it’s plugged in”. Windows decided it knew better, downloaded its own driver that blocks the official one and loads the steering wheel as a gamepad…GG cool cool.
You are whining about a modern OS not being compatible with a 18 year old steering wheel? You can’t expect indefinite hardware support for every random little device you happen to find, this like the sound card above is on you, not Microsoft.
I do not understand why we still have this image that Windows is noob friendly.
None of the above quoted examples are noob issues, this is like you are talking to a person in old english from the mideval times and being mad that a random guy in the middle of Londing in 2024 can’t understand you.
A noob would realize that their devices were too old and buy new devices.
Windows is noob friendly in that most software have a Windows version, most people use it, it is a known variable.
Like it or not, Windows is the defacto standard, and that means that is it safe in the perspective of a noob user.
I am saying all of this as an IT guy who has worked professionally with both Linux and Windows, I ran Linux as my main OS for a year or two, I LIKE Linux, but this is not fair critisism of Windows.
It’s concerning that you think “just buy new stuff” is reasonable and that Windows should only work on new hardware out of the box.
It’s concerning that you insinuate that 20 year old hardware just works in Linux.
Just because a 20 year old sound card happens to work in your favorite Linux distro doesn’t in any way mean that it will work forever or that there are drivers for all 20 year old soundcards.
Where does it say that it’s not allowed to create a Windows driver for a 20 year old soundcard?
This is the reality of the computer industry, you don’t have to like it, but you have to expect it and work within the reality of the industry.
If OP had complained about how their 10 or 5 year old devices didn’t work, then they might have had a point, but 20 years old? That is unresonable.
Yes, the reality of the computer industry is that the industry changes. That has quite the dual meaning. I want it to mean it changes for the better…ahem…Open Source
If people want to use a working twenty year old device, it is completely reasonable to complain that Windows doesn’t allow that - because that is where Linux STANDS ON ITS OWN MERITS
And still, it is usually possible to get the 20 y/o hardware to run in windows. It might need a bit of trickery but in essence, windows has changed so little under the hood, in the last 20 years…
Recently I acquired a 20 year old film scanner. I had the choice of either buying a new third party scanner software for 100€ or just get the old one working. I found some script that made the old driver identify as something newer and it installed without a problem and has been working since. (Or rather it has worked until recently, when I switched to linux anyways because I want to use the pc for gaming exclusively, since for work related stuff, I have a Mac)
I consider it more like OP was lucky that the devices worked on Linux, and then reality hit when he got on Windows.
I also consider it lucky but that’s not the point. The point is that he has the right to complain about Windows. The point is also that he has the option to ask the Linux community to build a driver to make it work if it didn’t work. The point is Microsoft does not give two shits about what OP wants because it has an extremely large share of the market. It no longer has to do good by its customer because it is no longer neccessary.
The point is… he can complain because he tried doing it with Windows and it didn’t work. Your mileage may vary.
You forget that he’s an “IT guy that has worked with Linux and Windows professionally”. Trust him, bro!
I am NOT going to post my business card or link my LinkedIn to win an internet argument, I have shown that OPs complaints are unresonable expectations, that was my goal.
You’re sure allowed to think you did, and sure as hell I don’t care about your alleged IT professional background. Just like you say that Windows is noob friendly, I say Windows is NOT friendly, period. The OP makes a great case on yet another reason why Windows is complete and utter crap, and I’m an IT guy that has worked with Linux and Windows professionally. I HATE Windows. I’m not sending my business card either, and I know better than to have a LinkedIn profile. That’s hould be enough to tell us apart.
I have been in IT since the mid 90s and in my experience every OS can be a PITA to install. Both Windows and Linux will install smoothly if the drivers for your network, raid controller and mobo components are all supported. If not it is going to suck regardless of OS.
Windows reputation for noob friendliness, and linux’s unfriendliness, is mostly down to familiarity and that most users will never have to install their own OS and deal with problems mentioned in the post. Most will never even think about it because they dont even know what an OS is or that it can be replaced. If Windows gets fucked up they take it to a pro to fix or buy a replacement.
You have, so far, made the most logical address on this subject, out of any of the others, including myself. I am very biased against Windows, for reasons that may be irrelevant, and I’m also very vocal about it, so if I offended anyone, know that is not my intention, although I regularly come across as if it is. Having said that, I’m removing myself from this thread moving forward, just because I dont want to be part of any discord with myself or anyone else. Everyone should use what works best for them, which is why I’ll try to stay away from further “what is is best?” and similar discussions in the future, and will just keep to discussions that bring something positive or beneficial to the table. God bless you all guys, Jesus lives all of us, without exception. Enjoy.
Windows is noob friendly. If you do what noobs do and just buy an off the shelf PC and don’t think about stuff like drivers at all. Now, Linux isn’t much less noob friendly in those cases and just primarily suffers from lack of system integrators using it and, to a much lesser degree, from a lack of software.
Linkedin. How to tell me you’re not linked in by telling me you’re Linkedin.
“Just buy new stuff” is the mindset of the perpetually boring and uncreative. Break shit and build better stuff.
Happy to see lemmy linux community not blindly hating windows and providing facts. Also you can use a package manager like choco to install apps from terminal so you dont have deal with clicking next.
Treating Windows unfairly in these kinds of comparisons is a disservice to Linux as it implies that Linux can’t win in a fair comparison.
Windows/Linux/MacOS are all best at different things and for different persons, let the best OS for the task and person win on a fair test
Treating Windows unfairly? Blindly hating Windows? Microsoft is a corporation designed to MAKE DOLLAZ SON. They aren’t your unfairly treated friend who wants to make sure you have an amazing gaming experience. They are part of a corporate duopoly. Meaning…dun dun dun - One of two shite options. I don’t include Linux in this because it is the exact opposite of this market dominance. It is a free market of choice - which you can choose to better by contributing code, monetarily, or promotional support.
Windows is actively user hostile, actively contributing to planned obsolecence, and overall an ad infested spyware pile of bloated inefficient garbage.
As an IT Professional you should have first hand experience of the waste that comes from technological churn.
Linux standing alone on it own merits… Yeah right. Linux standing up against hundreds of millions of dollars spent in PR, Advertising, and the business practice of embrace, extend, and extinguish. You want better shit? Be a part of a community instead of brainlessly buying a solution.
OP - I salute you and your 20 year old peripherals. At least you are creatively making something you have work rather than buying shit that causes more problems.
I will happily shill for the Linux project and any other open source project - for volunteers trying to make something they want to use.
Microsoft is a corporation designed to MAKE DOLLAZ SON
Yeah? Most companies are designed to make money, is it wrong to want to earn money?
Oh and I am not your son, please don’t refer to me as such.
OP - I salute you and your 20 year old peripherals. At least you are creatively making something you have work rather than buying shit that causes more problems.
To me it sounds like OP had the stuff working on Linux and decided to try Windows, then when some random 20 year old device didn’t work decided to bash Windows to hell and back.
This is like the bicycle meme where OP is biking fine, stops, puts a Windows pipe in the spokes and blames Windows for his issues when he falls over.
This is not being creative to find a way to keep using his devices, they were working, this is not being creative to find a way to do what he wanted to do on Linux, this is going back to the standard recipie with 20 year old ingerdients and expecting to make a beautiful and tasty cake and complaining when it tastes like rot.
@stoy oh the joy of bias. Some random device does not work in linux? Linux is shit.
Some random device does not work in Windows? It’s user’s faultEh, I see it more like this:
20 year old device doesn’t work in Windows/Linux: “Oh, well time to get a new one anyway.”
20 year old device works with Windows/Linux: “Sweet!”
OP took it too far when it didn’t work
OK bro. Just adding some friendly banter to a very serious topic.
Dude. The old “is it wrong to make money argument?” No. I’m stating it is DESIGNED to make money in a way that is making the actual product shittier and shittier (insert tired Cory Doctorow quote here) to the consumer.
Sigh…As stated below… The point is that he has the right to complain about Windows. The point is also that he has the option to ask the Linux community to build a driver to make it work if it didn’t work. The point is Microsoft does not give two shits about what OP wants because it has an extremely large share of the market. It no longer has to do good by its customer because it is no longer neccessary.
The point is… he can complain because he tried doing it with Windows and it didn’t work.
Yes, it is creative as is your tasty cake rot analogy. I will upvote that even though I disagree
The bike analogy is weak tho.
Just add… he got back on bike (the one with the 20 year old handlebars that he loved) after he fixed everything and learned not to stick Windows in his spokes.
I thought the bike analogy was quite apt, but I can accept that OP didn’t actively know about the issues he would see untill he got started with Windows, so I can accept your argument here
Most of the people don’t think about capitalism when they turn on their pc and start a game. They just play their favourite games like cod and have fun. And windows just works. I use windows 11 and I don’t see ads on my pc.
You are a power user yourself, of course you dont see ads. But most of the people will see ones because they aren’t power users.
Yes that is true. But all i did was uninstall one drive and other microsoft apps i dont use from my pc, i didn’t do any reg edits or terminal commands.
Do you think regular people uninstall apps they do not need?
Specially Microsoft apps, you know you can uninstall them, most people won’t remove them by fear of breaking Windows, thinking theses apps are here for a good reason…
I would also prefer not to think about capitalism when shooting people in COD (the irony). No one has to think about capitalism but we all feel the effects of capitalism. Were you on Reddit? Why have you migrated to Lemmy? Does this make you think more about the effects of capitalism? I can agree that we all just want to escape into gaming but these things are there whether we choose to look or not. We chose Lemmy so that doing something.
Linux and jellyfin community is very active in lemmy. Not everyone use lemmy as a reddit alternative. I continue to use reddit.
Sorry, I just assumed you migrated. Yeah, communities that are built for the members are great. Reddit was once like that for sure. Maybe a better example would be - where did you migrate from before Jellyfin? Why choose Jellyfin over Netflix or another subscription service? Has capitalism provided a better service that is designed to benefit the user in those cases?
If one values their software freedom then a fair test is not only how well it performs a task because having unjust power over your computing negates it as an option. If one don’t value their software freedom then it’s more imperative to talk about what’s in their own best interests.
Linux (kernel) fails that test too as it includes proprietary binary blobs.
If one has the luxury of being able to manage with only free software, then I yeah, they should so their damndest to make sure to use free software.
Most people don’t have that luxury (myself included) and for them Windows is fine.
However, if I need a server or need to test something, I will allways spin up a Linux machine first.
You should expect the creator to abandon the device eventually but indefinite hardware support is possible - that’s why it’s important that drivers be open source. If enough people care to use the device then a community can be created around it to support it on whatever OS they want.
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lol.
I’m going to have to place you under arrest, you just fucking murdered that guy. Down to the slammer with you.
That guy had allready made up his mind about me and wasn’t interested in anything but self validation. With his ridiculous criteria for people being IT technicians needing to run Linux on their main machine combined with his insulting attitude there was just no reason to discuss anything with him.
“Don’t argue with idiots, they just drag you down to their level and beat you to death with experience”
old english from the mideval times
That would be Middle English. This is Old English.
Thank you for correcting me (:
Lol you’re welcome. We all have those things that bother us more than they reasonably should. That’s one of mine.
14 days ago I tested Ubuntu. I couldn’t access my Wifi. The network was visible, but it refused to accept the password. (Yes, I quintuple-checked that I entered it right.) When I tried Linux Mint, it worked on the first try.
Moral of the story: Drivers are hit-and-miss on Linux, too.
Only moral I got from this was to never use Ubuntu lmao
all hail latest kernel modules, and akmod/dkms
Yes. There are no reasons to use Ubuntu nowadays. If you are on that track, skip to mint or mx linux.
casually puts on Fedora hat
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Hrm, but shouldn’t Linux Mint, being based on Ubuntu, have basically the same drivers?
That reminds me of an issue I had when I was installing Mint. I tried out a live boot first and everything seemed to work except there was no internet connection. Turns out my WiFi card needs a proprietary driver, but no big deal it installed easily enough just from the boot disk. Internet’s working, all looks good, so I go ahead and install Mint proper, remove the live boot usb, start the system, and savour that new Minty smell. But hang on, there’s no WiFi, I forgot to install the driver! Should be an easy enough fix though, it wasn’t hard last time.
So I go to install the driver and the first thing it says is that it needs the boot disk to get the driver. That makes total sense, can’t install something you don’t have! I plug in the usb again and now it should all be plain sailing, after all it’s just installing a driver that worked 20 minutes ago, right? Sadly no, that would be too easy; for some reason now it’s missing dependencies! Or something along those lines anyway, I forget exactly. But can’t it just install those from the boot disk? Well apparently not, it instead tries to connect to the internet to download them. This obviously fails since I don’t have a WiFi connection, which is why I’m installing the driver in the first place. All I get is a popup saying it can’t install some stuff because there’s no internet connection, fix that to get your internet connection. This is the point where face meets palm. I’m sure there’s some fiddly “proper” way to work around that but the thing is I’m incredibly lazy so I’ll just take the quick option instead. I plug in my phone and use a tethered connection. I run the install again and it finally goes through, at last the system is ready to use! It’s been mostly smooth sailing since then (though I did get annoyed enough at NTFS a couple of months ago that I just reformatted a data drive and wiped a ton of data I probably didn’t need).
Tl;dr: I had to tether to my phone for a minute. Traumatising!
Drivers for desktops are pretty much a non-issue on Windows, in fact, most will be installed via the internet before you even boot the desktop for the first time.
Drivers for gaming laptops are a nightmare on Windows, and you’ll probably have to chase weird slow pages in the manufacturer’s website to perhaps find 4 packages that might contain the driver you want.
I have clean installed windows on a lot of gaming laptops. Most of the time windows updates pulls in every driver for you if windows have the correct wifi driver to begin with. If it doesn’t i just download wifi driver on my phone and transfer it.
Perhaps it’s gotten better since the last time I’ve used a laptop, I really avoid them nowadays. Either way, good to know.
Or upu just download the ryzen or Intel softwsre/chipset drivers and it’s all sorted. Though for gaming laptops chasing down means going to the manufacturer support site for that specific model…
Thanks for the post, interesting.
I do not understand why we still have this image that Windows is noob friendly, it’s such a convoluted obfuscated process to do anything.
Microsoft has been
blackmailingpushing computer hardware companies for a long time to have Windows bundled with computers. Your story has now enlightened me why they did so all these years :)Huh? I’m all for d***riding on Linux but this is a weird case. I’ve not had a single issue with windows on gaming laptops even across multiple reinstalls. They’re all automatically installed soon after you boot. Just need to wait through a few updates.
Yeah I’ve never had a missing driver problem with a windows install since maybe windows 7. I even moved a hard drive with a windows 8 install from an Asus laptop with an Intel cpu to a custom build desktop with a ryzen cpu without having to change any drivers. I did have to reactivate windows because of the hardware change but that’s it.
The included drivers are often providing less performance than updated ones from the vendor though, so it is recommended to download those in some cases, specifically nvidia. But most gaming laptops will have a vendor provided update center to manage all of that for you.
I like Linux over windows for a lot of reasons but this post is a bit silly.
Windows and MacOS are “noob-friendly” for those who use them for simple purposes and out-of-the-box. As soon as you want to do something more advanced, you’re back to googling and installing software from a variety of sources.
Many linux distros are like that too (others are just not noob-friendly at all), but centralized package management and documentation are nice.
I’m really glad to be away from registry editing, 50 app icons in the tray, and navigating my way through settings to control panel so I can actually fix my audio devices or network options.
I’m on Arch now, so I still have plenty of configuration and software, but I know the systems and choose explicitly which ones I use. If something isn’t working or is annoying, it’s my fault.
The pretentiousness is off the scales with this one
accurate tho
i had to manually disable driver updates via windows update because it picks the shittiest possible drivers for everything
Built a PC for my cousin, Windows likes to delete its own Wi-Fi driver among other issues, not to mention using modern Microsoft products feels like a rectal probing with how invasive it is.
I’ve installed Windows on a system I’ve built myself, and I’ve had so many problems…
Firstly, did you know what Windows doesn’t allow you to install it on a partition that isn’t the first one on the drive (under certain circumstances)? It also doesn’t give you sensible error messages that that’s the problem.
I also had to install audio drivers from the disk that came with my motherboard (the ones on the website didn’t work).
I don’t know if this was this system or some other one, but I’ve faced the whole “no network card drivers so can’t download network card drivers” issue.
Recently I made the controversial decision of booting Windows with an external drive plugged in, so it decided to reorder my device letter mappings and break a bunch of shortcuts.
And of course, there’s no resource like the arch wiki, so you’re basically left on your own to fix things.
Windows may or may not be easier to use, but it certainly isn’t easier to install and fix.
Windows and Linux have opposite problems for starters with newer hardware better supported on Windows and old hardware supported on Linux. As Linux gets more popular, it will start to shine because if newer hardware becomes better supported, the experience will truly be that Linux just works and Windows needs drivers for done stuff.
The other big factor is that Windows is already installed. So, you don’t have to do anything or, at most, one or two things. Even if that one thing is hard, you are more likely to blame that one thing than Windows.
Finally, we have to acknowledge that your experience sounds atypical for Windows installs. Most of my hardware is easier to put Linux on than Windows but I doubt any of them would be that hard.
We also have to admit that Linux does not have drivers for everything while Windows basically does ( somewhere ). So, Linux can be the bigger bummer overall. Of course, this is in the x86-64 universe only. Linux has vastly better hardware support when you consider other platforms.
Blame the oems, dell ships dell OS with windows branding.
I often get shattered by windows users how hard it is to install Nvidia drivers or get it to work.
Like. Idk why they are like this or how I should tell them otherwise. But they will give me a response of their experience as proof of how hard it is.
I mean. Its even pteinstalled on some distros so wtf.
This is mostly an Acer issue I think. A decent vendor will have a software package or even their website that will handle updating your drivers.
Surprise! They virtually all do, but they didn’t look.
I can’t say I’ve ever had this experience with installing drivers on Windows. Is it as smooth and centralized as Linux? No, but it’s generally just go to manufacturers website, find product, find support page, locate drivers, download/install, rinse and repeat. Never had to go watch videos that led me to a partial install of drivers for an outdated Windows version. If WiFi doesn’t work, use USB tethering from your phone. The laptop will act like it’s connected to Ethernet (this at least lets you go to the Acer website to find the right WiFi drivers for your laptop).
Also never had Cortana bother me during setup. You can always skip all that extra crap. Last time I installed Win10 was to update my NVidia GPU firmware and it took 10 minutes.
This is very similar to my experience with a laptop from 2020. I wiped it and tried to install windows on it and nothing worked. It couldn’t find a recovery partition (no surprise, the entire disk was wiped) and just refused to continue. I tried everything I could find online to make it work and nada. Partitioning it with linux MBR and GPT, enabling/disabling secure boot, enabling/disabling UEFI, different USB sticks, with a network connection, etc.
The previous experience had been a successful install on another, older laptop but the graphics card drivers were too old and only available from sketchy websites. Experiences before that of reinstalling windows every year or so to keep it fast involved backing up the driver installers and installing them in the right order otherwise it wouldn’t work.
Windows was the most tedious OS I had to deal with.
Actually, both Ubuntu and Mint didn’t have wifi drivers for my late-2014 Mac Mini (Intel based). I had to plugin ethernet so I could actually download the drivers. Also, the version of Windows you might have installed might have been older than your PC, so no drivers would naturally be in it (e.g. Win11 is already 2-3 years old).
Actually, both Ubuntu and Mint didn’t have wifi drivers for my late-2014 Mac Mini (Intel based).
It’s a Mac… the shittiest hardware in existence to try and install anything else but OSX. Until asahi linux, there was no concerted and funded effort to make linux run on the mac.
No, it’s not the shittiest hardware in existence. The wifi in question was just Broadcomm, not Apple. The Apple-based Macs are just PCs, with a modified UEFI firmware, nothing else. Only the Silicon-based ones are more Apple-based.
No, it’s not the shittiest hardware in existence.
Here’s there full quote for you
the shittiest hardware in existence to try and install anything else but OSX
Also claiming macs are “just PCs with modified UEFI firmware” is hilarious. If that were the case, installing other operating systems would be a breeze like on other laptops. We both know it’s not.
