A Linux User's Review Of Windows 10

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The alternative OS gurus at Phoronix have taken Windows 10 out for a test drive. What did they think of the latest OS from Microsoft? I'm not sure, what rhymes with "meh"?

Disclaimer: To avoid any sense of potential deception/confusion given that Phoronix is a Linux site, just in case the title is unclear: This is a review of Windows 10 Professional x64 from my perspective, as a user and an administrator who uses Windows and Linux system every day. If you don't care about Windows, stop reading now.
 
Unfortunately, this is very much an upgrade. If you want to do a clean install of Windows 10 you first have to upgrade TO Windows 10 from another Windows version, which will take about 3 hours on an AMD 7850K, Samsung 850 EVO, and a 50mb download speed connection. After you have successfully upgraded to Windows 10 you then have to re-download the installation files, have the installer copy them to the USB-- assuming it can, apparently a lot of people are having problems with that part-- then reboot using that USB, wipe the drive, and have Windows re-do everything it just did, adding another hour and a half or so to the install time. Then you get to set your system back up all over again.
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The level of idiocy is astounding.

-You can do clean installs and you can reinstall windows 10 without upgrading again.
-I did a clean reinstall on a surface 3 pro from a USB stick and it took a little over half an hour.
-You DON'T have to "redownload" the installation files. You CAN download the iso with the download tool and either install, burn or put it on a usb memory.
-You don't need to backup your system if you are upgrading. But you should just to be safe.




That said, the "meh" rating should be considered great coming from a die hard linux user.
 
LOL Linux user !!! ... You can use the reset OS function to clean install the OS. It has been there since win8.
 
Yeah you can do clean installs, and you can buy Windows 10 in stores so.....
 
This is probably how dump Windows people sound trying to explain their experiences with Linux to *nix users :p
 
I'm a die hard *NIX user, and even I think this article is bunk.
If this were Windows 8 (not 8.1), I would have agreed, but everything in 10 has been fixed.

Also, yes, the installations do take around 30-40 minutes, but for it to take over three hours...?
They must have been doing something seriously wrong.
 
I think he's right about Control Panel v settings. I don't disagree about having apps update automatically, but I get around that by using Secunia PSI. IT takes care of it for me (if you want to try it, find version 2. Version 3, IMNSHO is a pig).

I'm also a bit surprised that removing stuff from the menu doesn't cause it to shrink. I think he's probably wrong about 7. If MS has to make changes to 10 to entice businesses, they'll do it, but I'm certain they're going to make sure that when 7 support is scheduled to end, businesses will have moved to 10.
 
That's definitely an interesting take. I think he's spot-on with this comment:
Honestly I see Windows 7 as being the new XP, with Microsoft likely having to extend support for it down the line due to sure volume of people who will refuse to get off of it.
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Honestly, I haven't yet seen a convincing reason for me to move from Windows 7. It does what I need, and does a good job of getting out of my way. There may be some under-the-hood improvements in Win 10 that I'm not aware of, but from a UI perspective, the changes in Win 10 range from "meh, I don't use that" (app store, live tiles, Cortana) to "no thanks, that's worse than Windows 7" (control panel/settings, forced updates, privacy issues).
 
Red Falcon said:
I'm a die hard *NIX user, and even I think this article is bunk.
If this were Windows 8 (not 8.1), I would have agreed, but everything in 10 has been fixed.

Also, yes, the installations do take around 30-40 minutes, but for it to take over three hours...?
They must have been doing something seriously wrong.
Click to expand...

It took about that long to complete the upgrade on my Father's PC which at least has the same processor as his. It's not that the upgrade itself took a long time, it was the transferring his data from the old install to the new. It's mostly is word docs and pictures so it just couldn't be cached to speed it up.

Either way on another similar machine it took probably 20 minutes when I told it to do a clean install.
 
Mohonri said:
That's definitely an interesting take. I think he's spot-on with this comment:
Honestly, I haven't yet seen a convincing reason for me to move from Windows 7. It does what I need, and does a good job of getting out of my way. There may be some under-the-hood improvements in Win 10 that I'm not aware of, but from a UI perspective, the changes in Win 10 range from "meh, I don't use that" (app store, live tiles, Cortana) to "no thanks, that's worse than Windows 7" (control panel/settings, forced updates, privacy issues).
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Other than a free upgrade which translates to extended support? I see this as M$ move to drop support for older OSes asap to reduce the cost of supporting legacy operating systems while unifying their push into the mobile market.
 
ecktt said:
Other than a free upgrade which translates to extended support? I see this as M$ move to drop support for older OSes asap to reduce the cost of supporting legacy operating systems while unifying their push into the mobile market.
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Support periods were already set. This doesn't affect that.
 
nilepez said:
Support periods were already set. This doesn't affect that.
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It still is a cost reduction the quicker they get everyone into one platform. It's a similar reason they are trying to push people to upgrade to IE 11.
 
Ryokurin said:
It still is a cost reduction the quicker they get everyone into one platform. It's a similar reason they are trying to push people to upgrade to IE 11.
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But since everyone isn't going to move to the one platform, they still have to support the old ones. I fail to see how 10 changes that (but I'm interested in why you think it does).
 
It amazes me how many windows "administrators" don't know how to use Windows then get paid to write articles showing their ineptitude. Oh well.
 
nilepez said:
But since everyone isn't going to move to the one platform, they still have to support the old ones. I fail to see how 10 changes that (but I'm interested in why you think it does).
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They have already stated that the biggest reason they had issues with so many bad patches over the past year is because it has become impossible to bug check multiple platforms along with multiple configurations. The more people they can transition to a single platform the more they can check for problems.
 
Ryokurin said:
They have already stated that the biggest reason they had issues with so many bad patches over the past year is because it has become impossible to bug check multiple platforms along with multiple configurations. The more people they can transition to a single platform the more they can check for problems.
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I understand the theory, but now they have another platform. Now they'll have Vista, 7, 8, 8.1 and 10. It's 2 more years for Vista and 5 for 7.

We know that Businesses are going to be very slow to migrate off of 7, just like they were with XP and 2000 before that.

So anyway you look at it, they've got a shit load of OS's to support for security patches.
 
He has some valid points. I especially agree about the Microsoft Store part. I don't understand why they can't put more effort into something that is such a potential money maker. Offer stuff I want to buy at decent prices! I have money I'm willing to give you! Every time I look at the Windows or XBox 360 store offerings I just shake my head. It's like they just don't get it.
 
Mohonri said:
Honestly, I haven't yet seen a convincing reason for me to move from Windows 7. It does what I need, and does a good job of getting out of my way. There may be some under-the-hood improvements in Win 10 that I'm not aware of, but from a UI perspective, the changes in Win 10 range from "meh, I don't use that" (app store, live tiles, Cortana) to "no thanks, that's worse than Windows 7" (control panel/settings, forced updates, privacy issues).
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That's kind of how I feel. And Vulkan should work on Windows 7 so if games target that then meh Windows 10.
 
Climber said:
It amazes me how many windows "administrators" don't know how to use Windows then get paid to write articles showing their ineptitude. Oh well.
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Yeah tell me about it. I read through these articles and it's like reading -

"So I decided to build a house made of bricks. I was told that I would need to use stuff called cement but that sounded like hard work so I just used sand and water. Well after a few hours the whole thing collapsed!

FU bricks!!!!"

OR

"I decided to test the new Ford Focus, I got in the car okay and sat there pressing the gas pedal but nothing happened. This I was told I needed a key! A KEY!!!???? WTF???"
 
Mohonri said:
That's definitely an interesting take. I think he's spot-on with this comment:
Honestly, I haven't yet seen a convincing reason for me to move from Windows 7. It does what I need, and does a good job of getting out of my way. There may be some under-the-hood improvements in Win 10 that I'm not aware of, but from a UI perspective, the changes in Win 10 range from "meh, I don't use that" (app store, live tiles, Cortana) to "no thanks, that's worse than Windows 7" (control panel/settings, forced updates, privacy issues).
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I can't find any reason not to. Specially now that I upgraded my main pc from windows 8.1 and several others from windows 7.

Now, if I had to pay for the upgrade, then NO. But I will buy a new pc with windows 10.

I used windows 7 since the early beta and most of my customers used it since the RC and then RTM. Few moved to 8/8.1 but now they are moving to 10.

So far I only had a problem with a surface 3 pro, the touchscreen doesn't work but MS support told me they would replace it.
 
jwcalla said:
That's kind of how I feel. And Vulkan should work on Windows 7 so if games target that then meh Windows 10.
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Very unlikely if history with opengl repeats.

Even Valve hasn't been able to convince developers to support OpenGL.

Vulkan is still months away, even though it should've had a head start as its basically mantle.

But if android and steam pick up, maybe, just maybe...
 
I call BS on the "AMD 7850K, Samsung 850 EVO SSD took 3 hours to upgrade" My laptop took slightly less than that and that was with an AMD A8 4500M & 1TB 5400rpm HD thats 3 years old which originally had Windows 8, then 8.1 and now 10, but i found Windows 10 to be sluggish took 1 min to boot up from about 20 seconds with Windows 8.1 and Hibernating was longer so bought a SSD and did a clean install that took 15mins to do from a USB stick now boots in about 7-8 seconds really snappy, laptop runs a little quicker than my desktop which is far more powerful, guess theres alot of compressed files in use that might be effecting my OCZ Agility 3 480GB since Sandforce has poor performance with compressed files unlike the Crucial BX100 250GB drive.
 
Stoly said:
I can't find any reason not to. Specially now that I upgraded my main pc from windows 8.1 and several others from windows 7.
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You can't think of a reason not to upgrade to something with no new features for desktop users, identical performace, and the ability to snoop on everything you do? Under the new privacy policy with 10 you give Microsoft permission to see everything you do on your PC.

At this point the only reason I'm seeing to upgrade is DX12, and I'm very skeptical that it will be as great as its been made out to be.
 
david_ said:
Or.. you could just disable all that...
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Yes but it would be nice if MS would have a simple toggle to disable all of that. We know how to do it but 99% of the world probably had no idea. I guess that's the point but still.
 
nilepez said:
I think he's right about Control Panel v settings. I don't disagree about having apps update automatically, but I get around that by using Secunia PSI. IT takes care of it for me (if you want to try it, find version 2. Version 3, IMNSHO is a pig).

I'm also a bit surprised that removing stuff from the menu doesn't cause it to shrink. I think he's probably wrong about 7. If MS has to make changes to 10 to entice businesses, they'll do it, but I'm certain they're going to make sure that when 7 support is scheduled to end, businesses will have moved to 10.
Click to expand...
It doesn't auto-shrink which is lame, but it is easy to click the edge of the menu and movie it in.
 
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