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Most experts agree Linux is safer than Windows
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All scientific supercomputers use Linux
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Professional hackers use Linux
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Linux is the undisputed backbone of internet servers
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Critical military infrastructure relies on Linux
Microsoft’s revenue was $300 Billion last year. They have UNLIMITED ressources.
So why is Windows still worse than Linux ?
If windows is worse than linux then why are dev companies holding us all hostage on Windows?
Marketshare
Wdym? In my experience, everything Windows can do, Linux can do better
So why are all these companies holding the majority of the market hostage on windows?
Inertia
And paybacks.
Linux and their users absolutely have reputations that make the mental move more difficult. Plus marketing. If more people, that are continually getting sick of Windows, knew that there was a plug and play Linux distro that’s as easy to use, they’d probably be a lot more likely to move over.
Their main goal is to extract maximum revenue, not to provide good products. Also, they’ve grown fat on the monopoly profits they enjoyed for decades. It’s very hard to pivot back to competitiveness from that and as of now, they’re not really compelled to do that.
Aren’t most for profit companies like this tho?
Not the ones that face actual competition. Younger people have probably never experienced this but markets in general used to be much more diverse and less concentrated.
Oh damn
This is it. For profit companies exit to make a profit, not a product. Any time you ask “why did they do this thing that makes the product worse?” remember that the product doesn’t matter to them, only the money it makes. If a change makes more money, they’ll do it.
Some might think a worse product means worse sales and less profit, but they’d be wrong. Enough people buy products regardless of their qualify that it’s often more profitable to simply make the product as cheap as possible while maintaining just barely enough of the most basic functionality to meet the definition of what they’re trying to sell.
true but to do that they have 100s of layers of variously documented backward compatibility and work-arounds. all their stuff is a mountain of deliberate technical debt that will affect the quality of their software
Because you have a bias?
I think it’s spelt ‘opinion’.
Tomato, tomahto. OP is still presenting it as fact.
This is the only correct answer in this whole thread!
They’re a B2B company first and foremost. What they’re selling is the Microsoft ecosystem to companies, like their Office suite. Companies don’t care if each individual products sucks - just that they integrate well with other products. In particular, companies want good integration with Active Directory (Microsoft’s permission management system). Companies love controlling who gets access to what.
Consumer operating systems is more or a side hustle for them.
For the 4th time in my career, I’m selling something that competes with a Microsoft product or feature everyone purchases in end user license bundles and literally nobody gets configured and working.
Because they are prioritizing data collection over performance.
Windows is no longer about giving customers a good operating system. It’s now a vehicle for Microsoft to collect data from you for them to use and sell to other parties at a profit. It’s why Microsoft hasn’t cared much about pirated versions of Windows much anymore. They’ll do small things to annoy you, but overall, you can still use it and they still get to collect their data.
Microsoft is only starting to be more concerned as Windows loses market share and Linux gains some. The Steam hardware survey has only gone up a few points of percentages but this accounts for thousands of losses and this only shows gamers who use Steam, not all the other use cases.
So Microsoft is finally starting to make some promises to improve performance now that they have some real competition. And they’re only doing that because they want to continue collecting your data.
That is what Windows has become, unfortunately. Your performance while using it is very secondary, if not at all a priority of theirs.
Why worse? It’s not a better or worse race.
SW Compatibility? Windows wins hands down. Try run decade (even years) old binaries on Linux, good luck.
Security and privacy? Well🤣… Maybe here Linux wins by a small tad /s.
And so on.
Microsoft focus is on different aspects than Linux, like monetization, lock in, business apps like office, store apps, and who knows what other crap. Linux efforts are usually focused on what is actually needed for a better quality of usage.
On the long run Linux is doomed to success, because Microsoft like all companies will die one day. Linux will never die because it cannot be killed …
Right, that which is dead can never die.
(I kid, I kid)
Winblows fanboy spotted.
Are you /s or you didn’t read my post?
Try run decade (even years) old binaries on Linux, good luck.
I’ve actually had a case where something old didn’t work on Windows, but was fine on Linux with wine, lol
Well, old software doesn’t run on windows anymore.
Not sure what you mean by old.
10 year old Windows software? Will definitely run.
20 year old Windows software? Will run but might require admin rights or compatibility mode.
30 year old Windows oftware? Might run but probably need a VM.
For Linux the focus is more on improvement, less on compatibility. That’s a deliberate decision.
Not true.
It really depends. And I say this as someone who’s spent years in the enterprise software management space.
In the last few years, older software has become less capable of running on Windows. Tried to run a 2006 app the other day and it won’t even install. So had to run it in a VM of Windows 7.
What is the application you had issues with? It’s very uncommon for a 10 year old application to not run on Windows. And if it doesn’t, it’s usually not the fault of the OS but of some obsolete technology.
Why do you need to run 10-30 year old software? This is a big red flag in my book: if your software can’t be bothered to be upgraded then why would you expect your OS to be?
What is the problem of running 10-30 year old desktop software locally? This is actually very common in some sectors, such as governmental infrastructure or industrial use. It’s not like those applications are reachable from the internet or even contact a server. Windows itself ships with applications that haven’t changed for decades, such as the character map and resource monitor.
Then run it on the relevant (outdated) OS? Why should the OS be constantly held back because the software sucks?
If the developer would just address the issues as they come and recompile for OS upgrades it shouldn’t be a problem — but if you’re using software where the developer can’t bother to recompile after 30(!!!) years I think there’s a more serious problem.
Ideally you want the OS to be updated, because old OS are vulnerable when the computer is networked. In fact most IT departements require every PC to have an up to date OS.
It’s not always a matter of bothering - many applications are customized and made for a specific purpose. An application could have been sold to only one company as a one off, or even developed by a long retired employee. Want an update after 20 years? Sure, after paying another invoice, provided that the developing company still exists and is still willing to support such old tech.
It is just a given that many companies are stuck with some old software somewhere in their process. That explains the policy for Windows.
Windows: “if we stop shipping this 25 year old library 5% of corporate users will experience problems which will cost us money and reputational damage, so we keep it compatible.”
Linux distro: “we are going to replace X with Y because it is better. Things will break and it is partially up to the community to solve it.”
Games comes to mind.
Sometimes software is just… Done. Feature complete and sometimes still just the best way of doing something. It’s a rare thing, but sometimes happens.
I guess a good example is WordPerfect 6.2 for DOS; it’s to this day a great WYSIWYG word processor, and the most feature complete TUI word processor for people who like distraction free writing. There are still proponents meticulously documenting how to get it working and integrated with modern OS’s so that it can access modern printers.
It’s worse than macOS, Linux not so much
Vibe coding.
Enshitification
Capitalism
I think Microsoft has grown too large to deliver a coherent product, and has probably forgotten how to do so. Beyond a certain point, knowledge just completely breaks down, without near perfect knowledge management, senior developers leaving just leaves an understanding gap too big to ever fill. Windows has been around so long that people have had entire careers working on it and have retired and it’s all falling apart.
Individual teams still deliver decent stuff, dotnet, WSL all stuff pushing in the right direction… But no unified approach. The core windows teams seem paralyzed to implement real change. By all reports the code is now a spaghetti mess and no real endeavours to fix anything can get budget approval. Any budget that might exist to fix it is being redirected towards copilot projects
That and layoffs. When someone is with a company for a long time and becomes senior, not only do they have immeasurable value in their institutional knowledge but they are also the “person” for their area of expertise. They know things or know the person responsible for things. When they leave or are forced out, less senior people don’t have a way to bridge the siloes (outside of dealing with layers of management), so problems go unaddressed.
Because with Linux, the software design decisions are made by engineers, not executives.
And the install decisions are made by people with options.
First off, it’s different not just better. Windows comes out of the box usable and compatible with everything. It minimized flexibility and most of it just worked. This is kinda changing recently but anyone who says Linux just works better is selling your something.
Second Linux desktop has only become usable and working on a critical mass of hardware recently. Even 5 years ago Nvidia was broken (still is, less so) along with lots of hardware. Wayland was unstable trash.
Finally, valve is putting in hundreds of millions of dollars into Linux because Gabe has made it his mission to take his 30% cut on Linux.
There is tons of money being spent making Linux usable for normies.
Windows comes out of the box usable and compatible with everything.
Flat out wrong. Microsoft made sure that Windows 11 would not be compatible with older hardware, at this point, there are many more systems that will run Linux than will run Windows 11.
Not to mention, as a recent Linux user, the most profound part of switching, was how easy it was to setup my system. Anyone who has done a clean install of Windows, or built their own computer, can tell you what a pain it is to find and configure drivers for a lot of your hardware. In 5 minutes, Linux had my system up and running, and even setup my networked printer.
…anyone who says Linux just works better is selling your something.
The irony here is that Linux is free, there is nothing to sell, vs Microsoft, a closed source multi-billion dollar company that charges the consumer to have literal spyware shoved into their systems, and you’re out here defending it with “points” that are, in my experience, 100 percent the opposite of what you claim.
I put Mint on my mom’s laptop, because it was easier and safer for her to use than Windows 11, and it has led to a lot fewer (zero really) issues for me to resolve on her computer.
OK, we all know “compatible with everything” was more so software and most hardware. Installing windows is not difficult at all, not like it used to be. A clean install, hit windows updates, 90% of drivers are done this way, no problem. Maybe back in XP days you needed the driver discs and whatnot.
I’m not trying to stick up for Microsoft, but you sound like you just hate the simplicity of it and are looking for the negatives. Windows has long been the “easier is” to use, install, or compatible with software. Most regular people are not going to want to do CLI for software, updates, or other functionality.
Linux is getting easier to install, easier to use (less CLI bs for the masses), and more compatible with applications. So that’s a good thing. Like Mint, you pointed out being very easy, but also it looks functionally similar to Windows which helps with comfort using a new system.
Last thing I’ll touch on. Windows ditched x86 hardware (32-bit) which was necessary, I think, due to RAM requirements. I was a tad disappointed with the 8th gen Intel rule, but that’s easily bypassed even today for older hardware. That’s for the TPM2.0 support, and again, from a security standpoint for the masses, it makes sense.
I just installed Windows 11 in a virtual machine for software development purposes.
- This machine has a valid Windows 11 Pro license, but it didn’t recognize it because it’s running in a VM.
- It installed a bunch of stuff I didn’t need and had to uninstall, because Microsoft assumed my use case.
- I had to log into a Microsoft account that I use for nothing else, using my phone’s two-factor authentication.
- I had to flip a bunch of switches NO to opt (as far as possible) out of Microsoft’s tracking.
- I had to do the updates overnight.
- When it was done, I then began the process of clearing all the crap off the computer and out of the taskbar. That’s ongoing.
Simple!
Installing windows is not difficult at all, not like it used to be. A clean install, hit windows updates, 90% of drivers are done this way, no problem. Maybe back in XP days you needed the driver discs and whatnot.
Not even close. I do a shitload of Windows 11 installs for work. Clean install on most machines involves going to the manufacturer’s site and grabbing drivers. Windows update is horrible about getting them all, and it’s really fucking slow to do it that way. Discs that come with your hardware are functionally useless, by the time you buy the hardware, that software is out of date, most of them just contain update applications to install the latest drivers from the manufacturer’s site. Plus, who is bothering to put optical drives in their machines anymore?
…you sound like you just hate the simplicity of it and are looking for the negatives.
Chances are, I’ve been using Windows longer than you’ve been alive. It’s not simple anymore. It used to be, if your system crashed, you got a nice message telling you why, now you just get a frowny face and a fuck you. Used to be, you could use the control panel to admin your system from a centralized point, now you have fragmented “modern” settings menus that pester you with shit you don’t need, and hide existing tools that work better (printer settings menu in win 11 is fucking garbage.)
It’s not simple. Used to be you had an operating system. Now everything you see is a glorified system hogging web UI. Why make an efficient UI element when you can just load a fucking web browser for every little thing? And they wonder why 8GB of RAM is the bare minimum to use Windows today…
Chances are, I’ve been using Windows longer than you’ve been alive.
Lmao, OK bro… You must’ve used windows before 3.1 then, cuz I’ve been using windows since 3.1.1 with DOS.
Clean install on most machines involves going to the manufacturer’s site and grabbing drivers.
I haven’t had to do that for any PC in probably close to a decade unless I’ve got a Windows USB installer from media creation tool and config offline on older hardware so there’s no chance to really detect anything. On the Dells, Lenovos, and even a few “custom” hardware, it’s not been a problem for me. It certainly can be annoying, at times, but like you said, you’ve been doing it a long time, so have I. It’s a non issue.
I agree on the RAM hogging reworked Edge Webview BS though. It’s obnoxious to try and just web wrap everything. That’s the latest douchification of any software, but I think the real reason behind it is users’ data to track it and sell it. Anything on the web, through Chrome or Edge, now they get detailed insight on what you do and how you do it. They cry “uniform platform and latest updates”, I say it’s “you will own nothing and be happy”
I haven’t had to do that for any PC in probably close to a decade
Then clearly, you haven’t done a proper clean install of Windows on a system in over a decade. I’ve yet to see a system actually install all of its devices from a Windows update. Hell, even Microsoft’s own fucking hardware requires that you download and run the Surface app to get their drivers. I call bullshit. You either haven’t done it, or you’ve recovered from the OEM recovery partition that has the shipped/updated version of the drivers from the previous install.
K dude. Not worth arguing over. I don’t really care that much
👌👍
Too many chefs in the kitchen spoils the hroth
Define worse. For most people’s use cases it’s not.
