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
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.
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.
Never trust a rant from a person that can’t install Windows.
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.
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.
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.
Lol right? Windows is beyond simple these days.
Installing an operating system is a process that’s full of potential to be very painful no matter what the operating system is. All 3 major operating systems do their best to make it as painless as possible, but if you stray from the happy path, it requires technical knowledge to fix that most people don’t have. So the bottom line is that the OS which can make deals with manufacturers to pre install their OS with confirmed working drivers will seem more user friendly than the OS you have to install yourself. If you gift a noob a System 76 laptop and ask them to install Windows on it, they’re gonna balk at you the same ways as they would if it’s the reverse.
Well said
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.
you can’t blame Roland or Microsoft for not supporting a 20 year old device on the latest versions of the OS.
Why not?
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.
Why not? Linux development is mostly volunteer, and these things are easily compatible with Linux. It seems like you can absolutely expect support for every device, it’s just that Microsoft isn’t willing to provide it.
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.
Notice that you had to exaggerate a 20 year timespan into a 500 year timespan to make this analogy work?
Why not?
Because it is a paid OS and it’s developers are writing code for financial gain, if they are not being paid to write the code, it doesn’t get written.
Voulenteers write the code because they want or need to, if there are no drivers for a device in on Linux, you need to write it yourself.
Notice that you had to exaggarate a 20 year timespan into a 500 year timespan to make thisnanalogy work?
Yes, that was deliberate. Have you ever noticed how much faster technology develops compared to languages? That is why the analogy works.
The analogy doesn’t even work if we ignore the massive difference in time scale. Languages develop organically, they are not managed. Comparing a managed and developed system and a twenty year timespan to an organic language system over a five hundred year timespan is just ridiculous.
Because it is a paid OS and it’s developers are writing code for financial gain, if they are not being paid to write the code, it doesn’t get written.
They are being paid to write the code. Microsoft is just choosing which code they should write, and it doesn’t include any old devices because they want you to buy new devices.
It’s perfectly reasonable to expect compatibility, and lay blame when there isn’t any. Microsoft simply doesn’t provide it.
I disagree with you, but don’t have the energy to keep arguing, this argument has been going on for days, and I made my point back on day one.
Because it is a paid OS and it’s developers are writing code for financial gain,
No shit. But that only explains why Windows is bad. It doesn’t mean that Windows isn’t bad. We shouldn’t give Windows pity points just because poor Billy Gates is addicted to money.
Ridicolous. You act like this is the first person to realise Windows is jank. How many USB steering wheels have you bought during your lifetime?
None, I was gifted a Sidewinder Forcefeedback steering wheel by my dad when I was 8-9 something, but it used the old gameport.
I don’t see how this is relevant though…
deleted by creator
lol.
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.
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.
I stopped reading when you become condescending and called him son.
Get over yourself.
Yeah, you are probably right. I apologize. The tone was meant to add to the point not make it unreadable. I stand by the points I was trying to make but I agree the tone is off putting to some.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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
Hrm, but shouldn’t Linux Mint, being based on Ubuntu, have basically the same drivers?
That’s the point he is making really. Linux has issues that Linux enthusiasts refuse to acknowledge
If you’re having issues with VR on Linux, I might be able to help you with that, as I’m using Linux to play VR. Took some time to figure everything out but it’s working great for me now. Only important thing is what VR headset you have.
… so what headset do you have?
I’m thinking about the index on linux
I actually have the Index, it’s really great but also really expensive
Yeap. I hate meta that much but also valve does goos hardware.
The knuckles sold me on it. It’s FANTASTIC
The knuckles are easily the best VR controllers by far
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.
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.
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 :)We are improving your experience. Please do not resist.
…you’re using Vista? Even when Vista was new it was terrible. Just get Windows 10. Also if you use old peripherals then yeah, you’re probably gonna have problems. No idea what all these issues with installing drivers is about; it stopped being a problem with newer Windows. It’s like this post was made over a decade ago, lol.
This was 11 I had to use Vista drivers as an attempt to get my ancient hardware working
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.
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.
