Now I Remember Why I Hate Windows

[Mazzspeed]

Except that is not the way it works, ever, but you do Linux a disservice by trying to exaggerate Windows realities. Trying to make Linux look good by making others look bad, hmmmmm....., oh well, if you use Linux, you must work within it's limitations.

It's no exaggeration and as someone that uses Linux I find it fantastic. To quote another Douglas Adams quote:

“I’ve come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:
Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things.”


Which is pretty much the issue we face regarding the bulk of Microsoft users. It's all they've ever known or all they're used to, push hard enough though and in time they'll come to accept change.

 

[Mazzspeed]

You are absolutely correct with this and I knew that instantly, before i even finished his sentence. Now I remember why I hate when people intentionally misinform when they claim they know better. Now I remember why I choose a long time ago to hate no operating systems or computing devices, because it lets me enjoy it all.

And where did I state not to open the command prompt as admin? When you install software via GUI, I do believe UAC kicks in to escalate privileges does it not? Therefore I assumed opening CMD as admin was accepted as normal.

Once again, you're making this personal.

 

[ManofGod]

It's no exaggeration and as someone that uses Linux I find it fantastic. To quote another Douglas Adams quote:

“I’ve come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:
Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things.”


Which is pretty much the issue we face regarding the bulk of Microsoft users. It's all they've ever known or all they're used to, push hard enough though and in time they'll come to accept change.

Pushing someone to change will almost always get you the exact opposite reaction, especially for when people want to just use their stuff and move on. (I loved Windows 8 but, that push to change ended up making Windows 8 a big flop and that is absolutely proof of what I mean.) You find Linux fantastic, I just find it different and have so since 1996, when I first experienced it. Based upon what you just quoted above, all the computing stuff we are using was invented during my time, all of it.

 

[Mazzspeed]

My RHEL 7.7 VM took >2 hours yesterday, hasn't been updated in a few months. Most of that was downloading and I wasn't doing anything else intensive.

I can provide plenty of anecdotes for both...

While the installation process is vastly faster than the same process under Windows with no reboots in many cases. Where there is reboots, boot time is essentially unaffected.

Download times are impacted by a number of factors, something I made clear regarding my experience downloading Windows updates.

 

[Mazzspeed]

Pushing someone to change will almost always get you the exact opposite reaction, especially for when people want to just use their stuff and move on. (I loved Windows 8 but, that push to change ended up making Windows 8 a big flop and that is absolutely proof of what I mean.) You find Linux fantastic, I just find it different and have so since 1996, when I first experienced it. Based upon what you just quoted above, all the computing stuff we are using was invented during my time, all of it.

Not at all.

Change is the natural order of things. People that cannot accept change within business are baggage that needs to be offloaded.

Modern Linux has changed considerably since 1996, just like Windows and MacOS.

 

[IdiotInCharge]

While the installation process is vastly faster than the same process under Windows with no reboots in many cases. Where there is reboots, boot time is essentially unaffected.

Download times are impacted by a number of factors, something I made clear regarding my experience downloading Windows updates.

I do want to say this: even the trashiest machines I deal with aren't as crappy as some of the stuff you've described.

That said, I haven't had Windows upgrades take more than thirty minutes in years. Yes, that's 8GB of RAM or more and SSDs, but I'm also fairly happy with how the OS is running these days.

And with respect to hardware and software support... it's still night and day. I'd happily use Linux for enterprise or server stuff with defined codebases and workloads, but if it needs to be flexible, I'd much rather use Windows. Usually because I'm at the point where figuring out how to fix the Linux install is going to take longer than just reinstalling it, and well, Windows actually installs faster than any Linux distro I've seen recently on decent hardware.

 

[Mazzspeed]

I do want to say this: even the trashiest machines I deal with aren't as crappy as some of the stuff you've described.

That said, I haven't had Windows upgrades take more than thirty minutes in years. Yes, that's 8GB of RAM or more and SSDs, but I'm also fairly happy with how the OS is running these days.

And with respect to hardware and software support... it's still night and day. I'd happily use Linux for enterprise or server stuff with defined codebases and workloads, but if it needs to be flexible, I'd much rather use Windows. Usually because I'm at the point where figuring out how to fix the Linux install is going to take longer than just reinstalling it, and well, Windows actually installs faster than any Linux distro I've seen recently on decent hardware.

Oh well, I have had Windows updates take considerably longer than 30 mins. As anecdotal as your comment I know, but logical considering the way Windows works.

 

[cybereality]

Just booted into Windows to test something. Hmm.. it's very slow.

From login to the point where I can click on Firefox is like 15 - 20 seconds at least. On Linux, as soon as I have mouse control I can basically start opening apps.

Granted, this has to do with the installed apps I have, but on Windows this is a huge drag while on Linux it seems you can have many apps and daemons installed without a monster slow-down.

 

[ManofGod]

Just booted into Windows to test something. Hmm.. it's very slow.

From login to the point where I can click on Firefox is like 15 - 20 seconds at least. On Linux, as soon as I have mouse control I can basically start opening apps.

Granted, this has to do with the installed apps I have, but on Windows this is a huge drag while on Linux it seems you can have many apps and daemons installed without a monster slow-down.

I would need more information to actually know what is going on there? Are you running Linux on an SSD and Windows on a Hard drive? What background software did you install and are running in Windows? I turn on any of my 3 computers and I am at the login screen in 10 seconds, 3 seconds to the desktop and everything I run opens instantly.

 

[Mazzspeed]

Just booted into Windows to test something. Hmm.. it's very slow.

From login to the point where I can click on Firefox is like 15 - 20 seconds at least. On Linux, as soon as I have mouse control I can basically start opening apps.

Granted, this has to do with the installed apps I have, but on Windows this is a huge drag while on Linux it seems you can have many apps and daemons installed without a monster slow-down.

Run both operating systems on a mechanical HDD and this is literally always the case. Ext4 is faster than NTFS in many cases with none of the fragmentation issues, it's that simple. Adding an SSD to a Windows machine is a Band Aid approach to performance that covers up the underlying issues regarding NTFS.

 

[ManofGod]

Run both operating systems on a mechanical HDD and this is literally always the case. Ext4 is faster than NTFS in many cases with none of the fragmentation issues, it's that simple. Adding an SSD to a Windows machine is a Band Aid approach to performance that covers up the underlying issues regarding NTFS.

You just keep saying that and someday..... actually no, no one but you will believe that. It is 2019 and people do not use spinning rust anymore as their primary drive. Windows is optimized to run best on an SSD now, which has nothing to do with NTFS and I can bet also that the existing NTFS and the NTFS of 10 years ago are not the same.

Eh, whatever, you keep going, you will never be convinced otherwise so, have fun......

 

[cybereality]

Both are SSD drives. Ubuntu is on a SATA SSD and Windows is on an NVMe PCI M.2 on the motherboard (which should be a good deal faster than the SATA SSD, at least in theory).

 

[ManofGod]

Both are SSD drives. Ubuntu is on a SATA SSD and Windows is on an NVMe PCI M.2 on the motherboard (which should be a good deal faster than the SATA SSD, at least in theory).

Something was most definitely wrong then and it was not a Windows issue, per-say. Which computer in your sig was this?

 

[Algrim]

It is 2019 and people do not use spinning rust anymore as their primary drive.

My primary system (in sig) uses a single 1 TB Seagate spinning rust drive. That will almost certainly not be true for my next system (which is a ways off thanks to recent pistol acquisitions). I have a 2 TB spinner that I'm going to throw a Linux distro on soon; I'll see how nice Budgie looks on a 55" TV/monitor.

 

[Mazzspeed]

Both are SSD drives. Ubuntu is on a SATA SSD and Windows is on an NVMe PCI M.2 on the motherboard (which should be a good deal faster than the SATA SSD, at least in theory).

Ext 4 is faster than NTFS in many cases without the fragmentation issues, no matter what the drive. However, I know you've already worked this out.

 

[Mazzspeed]

You just keep saying that and someday..... actually no, no one but you will believe that. It is 2019 and people do not use spinning rust anymore as their primary drive. Windows is optimized to run best on an SSD now, which has nothing to do with NTFS and I can bet also that the existing NTFS and the NTFS of 10 years ago are not the same.

Eh, whatever, you keep going, you will never be convinced otherwise so, have fun......

Still making this personal?

Everything's optimized to run better on an SSD if you're talking about TRIM, doesn't change the fact that some file systems are better than others. It's OK though, nothing's worse than HFS/HFS+.

 

[GoldenTiger]

My primary system (in sig) uses a single 1 TB Seagate spinning rust drive. That will almost certainly not be true for my next system (which is a ways off thanks to recent pistol acquisitions). I have a 2 TB spinner that I'm going to throw a Linux distro on soon; I'll see how nice Budgie looks on a 55" TV/monitor.

Even budget notebooks and desktops are sold, and have been for a long time now, with an ssd.

 

[SmokeRngs]

It is 2019 and people do not use spinning rust anymore as their primary drive.

The system in my sig has nothing but spinners in it. My server has nothing but spinners in it. I don't even own an SSD and likely won't for quite a while due to a lack of funds. Computer purchases for myself have been nothing but absolute necessities for years now. At this point I need more storage in my server than I need an SSD.

By the way, OS loading on Manjaro is faster than Win10 and Manjaro has a usable desktop much faster than Win10 and they boot off the exact same drive. Windows has serious speed issues regarding reading from drives compared to Linux. As stated earlier this is covered up when using SSDs but the underlying performance issues have been there for years for anyone to see.

 

[Stanley Pain]

Installing software via CMD is how I get around the issues of Smartscreen incorrectly flagging reputable software on install.


Now you're getting sarcastic and attacking. Not interested in further discussion. Once again, one method of software installation is inherently more secure than the other. The other is resulting in infection issues.

Glossing over facts when it's convenient for you eh?

You're still not getting it. Neither is more secure than the other. They are both bad, from an OpSec perspective, because you are giving implicit trust to something that shouldn't have it.

 

[GoldenTiger]

You can get a 256gb ssd for $30 or less nowadays on sales. How is that expensive? If you really wanted to budget buy I have seen 120gb ones as low as $17. There's no excuse for blaming windows for your stinginess.

 

[Stanley Pain]

You can get a 256gb ssd for $30 or less nowadays on sales. How is that expensive? If you really wanted to budget buy I have seen 120gb ones as low as $17. There's no excuse for blaming windows for your stinginess.

Not running an SSD in ANY system you own is criminal. At the very least a cheap SSD as the OS/Boot drive with HDD storage for other things.

 

[Mazzspeed]

Not running an SSD in ANY system you own is criminal. At the very least a cheap SSD as the OS/Boot drive with HDD storage for other things.

And yet most technically inept users still buy whatever is cheap with lots of storage space with no idea what Windows is let alone an SSD.

 

[Mazzspeed]

Glossing over facts when it's convenient for you eh?

You're still not getting it. Neither is more secure than the other. They are both bad, from an OpSec perspective, because you are giving implicit trust to something that shouldn't have it.

No. One is more secure than the other. The masses use Android, globally it's the most popular OS, and yet it suffers a fraction of infections compared to Windows.

 

[Algrim]

Our gaming laptop has a 256 GB SSD in it; my work laptop and one of the two workstations have a 2 and 1 TB SSD in them. I'm just not invested enough in my current desktop to care about installing an SSD in it. My increased range time has led to a decrease in computer time and some things matter more.

 

[cybereality]

Something was most definitely wrong then and it was not a Windows issue, per-say. Which computer in your sig was this?

It's the Intel/Nvidia system. A top of the line rig (when I upgraded it a year ago) and should not have slow-down.

Well, it was fast at first but gradually has gotten slower. As I install Windows software, every app has a launcher which runs in the background or some BS for Adobe, Autodesk, Epic, etc. It all adds up.

On Ubuntu Linux, most apps are very lightweight and don't have launchers, useless background services, login requirements, etc. which ruin your computer.

 

[IdiotInCharge]

On Ubuntu Linux, most apps are very lightweight and don't have launchers, useless background services, login requirements, etc. which ruin your computer.

So I'll point out the obvious: you're running different software on Linux. A bare Windows machine loads pretty quick, even on spinners.

 

[cybereality]

So I'll point out the obvious: you're running different software on Linux. A bare Windows machine loads pretty quick, even on spinners.

Correct. But on Linux I can run FOSS like Blender and GIMP without background launchers slowing down my machine.

Of course, if I only installed FOSS on Windows (since many of those apps have Windows versions) then I imagine performance would be the same.

But the whole reason I even boot into Windows would be to use software not available on Linux, so we are back at square one.

 

[Mazzspeed]

So I'll point out the obvious: you're running different software on Linux. A bare Windows machine loads pretty quick, even on spinners.

So Windows is great provided you don't install any software. I run a range of cross platform software between machines, and on a spinner Linux is faster. Now if it's faster on a spinner, logic states that it's also faster on an SSD. Just to emphasize, I'm not the only one here making this point.

I have a server here that I sometimes use as a backup desktop running off a 10k SAS raid 10 array and it boots to a usable Linux desktop faster than it boots to a usable Windows desktop. It's a fact that NTFS is a very fragmented file system compared to Ext4, it's also a fact that Linux is optimized for server IO duties so one would expect Ext4 to be faster in many cases than NTFS.

Furthermore, we haven't even begun to address the performance overheads of antivirus software under Windows.

 

[Mazzspeed]

A very interesting read on the two file systems:

https://www.principledtechnologies.com/Red Hat/RHEL6_IO_0613.pdf

 

[IdiotInCharge]

So Windows is great provided you don't install any software.

I was wondering if that's what you'd pick up -- and no.

Windows and Linux are both pretty snappy clean. If you could install the same software on Linux, you might see similar limitations; launchers and the like.

But those don't exist on Linux, like much software. Alternatives are just that and you're not comparing like for like.

 

[SmokeRngs]

You can get a 256gb ssd for $30 or less nowadays on sales. How is that expensive? If you really wanted to budget buy I have seen 120gb ones as low as $17. There's no excuse for blaming windows for your stinginess.

Why the hell would I waste money on tiny ass SSDs like that? A 120GB SSD wouldn't even be enough to run my Windows install much less have enough room for my Linux install. Even worse is that the vast majority of my software would still be stuck on the exact same spinner that it's installed on now. What would that gain me? Jack shit except a little time off booting which I don't even care much about. At the minimum I would need a 1TB SSD to make it worth the time and money to mess with it and that's the absolute minimum. Hell, most software I use regularly wouldn't even start any faster since most of it is cached in RAM in the first place.

Anyway, this is getting quite off topic. The fact of the matter is Windows disk performance is definitely not up to par with Linux performance.

As for a clean install of Windows booting quick, that's effectively a myth. Sure, it's going to take less time than after half your stuff installs launchers and everything else to start up at boot but it's still not fast. Other than absolute necessities I don't allow much of anything to start up at boot and the boot times aren't actually much longer than with a clean install on a spinner. I know because I just did all this a couple of months or so ago. At no point has Win10 come even close to how fast my Manjaro install boots.

Talk up Win10 updates all you want but they're also nowhere near fast or efficient compared to Linux. It's quite likely Win10 has the slowest updating out there right now but my experience is limited to Win10 and a couple Linux distros so I can't speak for others.

 

[Mazzspeed]

I was wondering if that's what you'd pick up -- and no.

Windows and Linux are both pretty snappy clean. If you could install the same software on Linux, you might see similar limitations; launchers and the like.

But those don't exist on Linux, like much software. Alternatives are just that and you're not comparing like for like.

I do install the same software under Linux, as stated, quite a bit of the software I run is cross platform - I even run most launchers using Lutris. Cybereality mentioned Blender, you do realize Blender runs much faster under Linux than Windows and there's plenty of benchmarks proving this claim? Quite a few software packages run faster under Linux than Windows, because Linux is 'faster' in a great many situations.

The only software that really doesn't exist under Linux used by many is Microsoft Office, which is the worlds least compatible office suite marketed as the most compatible, and the Adobe CC.

If you need the Adobe CC, by all means run Windows. But don't make claims that can't be substantiated when the software can't even be run cross platform. As stated by yourself, you 'might' see differences, but there's absolutely nothing to substantiate such a claim and no valid reason why Linux would perform worse than Windows even if you could.

The whole line of reasoning is pointless.

 

[Mazzspeed]

https://www.blendernation.com/2019/09/23/windows-vs-linux-in-depth-blender-benchmark-comparison/

Blender is almost twice as fast under Linux.

 

[GoldenTiger]

I do install the same software under Linux, as stated, quite a bit of the software I run is cross platform - I even run most launchers using Lutris. Cybereality mentioned Blender, you do realize Blender runs much faster under Linux than Windows and there's plenty of benchmarks proving this claim? Quite a few software packages run faster under Linux than Windows, because Linux is 'faster' in a great many situations.

The only software that really doesn't exist under Linux used by many is Microsoft Office, which is the worlds least compatible office suite marketed as the most compatible, and the Adobe CC.

If you need the Adobe CC, by all means run Windows. But don't make claims that can't be substantiated when the software can't even be run cross platform. As stated by yourself, you 'might' see differences, but there's absolutely nothing to substantiate such a claim and no valid reason why Linux would perform worse than Windows even if you could.

The whole line of reasoning is pointless.

Yawn. It is drifting off topic, so I'll leave it at reminding you that any number of apps you could want for a dual boot and each os would fit fine on a 256gb ssd. Media is different and doesn't benefit from an ssd anyways.

 

[Mazzspeed]

Yawn. It is drifting off topic, so I'll leave it at reminding you that any number of apps you could want for a dual boot and each os would fit fine on a 256gb ssd. Media is different and doesn't benefit from an ssd anyways.

What are you talking about? I never mentioned a 256GB SSD and the topic is the OP remembering why they hate Windows, so how is discussing how Linux holds certain advantages over Windows under the Linux sub forum off topic?

 

[GoldenTiger]

What are you talking about? I never mentioned a 256GB SSD and the topic is the OP remembering why they hate Windows, so how is discussing how Linux holds certain advantages over Windows under the Linux sub forum off topic?

Sorry, I meant to quote SmokeRngs.

 

[Mazzspeed]

Sorry, I meant to quote SmokeRngs.

I ran Ubuntu off a 60GB SSD for many, many years without a problem in the world, and Ubuntu comes with software such as an office suite packaged with the OS. As far as install sizes go, Windows isn't as efficient on space.

 

[GoldenTiger]

I ran Ubuntu off a 60GB SSD for many, many years without a problem in the world, and Ubuntu comes with software such as an office suite packaged with the OS. As far as install sizes go, Windows isn't as efficient on space.

True, but while windows does take more space, it isn't so much that smaller than 1tb can't be used. I remember back when I got my 64gb ssd for $500ish on a hot deal . They ran $800ish then normally. I used it for a long time, but I'm glad higher capacities have become cheap nowadays.

 

[Mazzspeed]

True, but while windows does take more space, it isn't so much that smaller than 1tb can't be used. I remember back when I got my 64gb ssd for $500ish on a hot deal . They ran $800ish then normally. I used it for a long time, but I'm glad higher capacities have become cheap nowadays.

I don't disagree with this. 90% of the machines I sell run 500GB SSD's with Windows 10 just fine.

 

[SmokeRngs]

True, but while windows does take more space, it isn't so much that smaller than 1tb can't be used. I remember back when I got my 64gb ssd for $500ish on a hot deal . They ran $800ish then normally. I used it for a long time, but I'm glad higher capacities have become cheap nowadays.

I'm not an average user. I'm also running two OSes. I have software installed for both. I need additional space to install additional software in the future. I need space leftover so the drive isn't actually full. A 256GB drive is not enough for that in the first place. Even then it's about useless because most of the software still wouldn't be on the SSD nor would it even remotely fit. I know exactly what my requirements are and anything under 1TB isn't worth it. As it is a 1TB would be mostly full by the time I was done copying over anything which would be better on an SSD. I've already researched what I would need as a minimum and did it quite a while back.

At one point I was going to purchase a Crucial MX500 1TB SATA SSD. I had almost hit the button to purchase it more than once but for whatever reason I simply didn't do it. Then my monitor died. Thus, the money that was earmarked for an SSD went to a new, very cheap monitor since that was more important. Two hours after hitting the button to purchase the monitor my old socket 775 board died. Let's just say it was a good thing I didn't buy the SSD at the time since it would have been useless at best.