I realize this is a Linux community, but I was wondering why you still hate Windows. I mean, I love Linux, but I will not argue that it’s more convenient to the average person in most use cases to use Windows, I recently had to switch back to Windows and I realized how convenient it all was and how I was missing so many things because of my love for Linux. But at this point, Linux is a part of my personality and my self-image and I will not leave it, but I gotta be honest, it’s pretty convenient being on Windows. So, why have you guys chosen to still stay on Linux? Some reasons I can appreciate include

  1. The terrible privacy policies of Microsoft. It sometimes makes you feel like your computer is not owned by you but lent to you by Big Tech.
  2. The community and the spirit of sharing
  3. The joy of “figuring it out” and customizing everything you want to the minutest details
  4. FREEDOM!!! sudo su Kinda ties into the previous points, but still one of the best selling points, the freedom to do whatever you want is liberating. You can run a server on it or you can create a script while knowing you have control over almost every FOSS app there is or just destroy your whole system with one command. Idk, feels good man!

These are the big ones, but one must realize you are sacrificing many things while not using windows too, productivity can be much greater there if you are a normie, it’s really convenient! So yeah! Give me your reasons! Also, how many of you dual boot?

  • @[email protected]
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    921 year ago

    The “we know better than you” attitude Microsoft has. They’ve very slowly removed more and more power user functionality. Almost every customization has to be hacked in with a group policy or registry edit now, or by outright replacing explorer.exe

          • @[email protected]
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            51 year ago

            Although to be fair, WSL fixes that issue to a big degree. Maybe even better than OSX, since you get a real Linux with real userspace. WSL(2) might be the only really cool feature Microsoft added to Windows, that actually brings value for the user.

  • Responsabilidade
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    41 year ago

    I don’t hate. It’s just a piece of software. I just use Linux because I like the privacy and I’m a tech savvy person

    I don’t wanna learn Windows whatsoever, cause I can do everything I need on Linux and it serves me well

  • @[email protected]
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    1 year ago

    Windows, macos, all the same. I want a free device. I love donating to KDE. How could I love giving money to microsoft?

    Microsoft is more difficult for me nowadays because I use it very rarely. I hate that nothing works as expected. I hate that they force everything upon you.

    We are free. We are GNU. We are linux.

    • @[email protected]
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      81 year ago

      I don’t like the fact that even if you have a Pro or Enterprise license, some amount of telemetry is still being sent to MS for any number of nebulous reasons.

      At least with bigger names like Fedora et al, they give you the option up front to opt-in, and you can have a reasonable amount of trust that they won’t do it in secret.

  • umami_wasabi
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    311 year ago

    I don’t know if I “hate” Windows but more like “I’m done dealing it.” I might come and use it time to time, but only when absolutely necessary, and the mental capacity to remove things I don’t need and make sure its removed.

    • Ganesh VenugopalOP
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      61 year ago

      .” I might come and use it time to time, but only when absolutely necessary

      I get that!

  • @[email protected]
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    31 year ago

    I’m typing this from my orange pi zero 3 w/ dietpi installed… aaaaaaand I don’t really “hate”, but more like “not care about it anymore”. Sure, its privacy concerns are truly a nightmare, but eh. It’s good to have options, that’s all. Even if one said “options” can be more harmful than good.

  • @[email protected]
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    11 year ago

    Maybe they are new users who miss Windows, so they are trying to find reasoning to stay on Linux. I as an old user have no more any special emotions about Windows. I play with it form time to time. But the OS is quite conservative because of its market monopoly and I don’t find anything new and interesting in new releases. It is not special about Windows, all consumer OSes are kinda stabilized now, and corporations do not want to experimenting and build new things.

    So, I don’t hate Windows, I just don’t find it interesting for me. I use and will use it on a separate machine for some niche tasks, when they require windows-only software.

  • @[email protected]
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    41 year ago

    Windows is bad and immoral but I can’t say I hate it because I almost never use it. Most of the time Windows is just bad news in my feed which makes me anticipate friends asking beginner questions for their GNU+Linux install.

    I stopped using Windows when it became clear it’s purpose is not to do what I want unless that happens to be what Microsoft wants. It was many things that all added up but I can only remember the last straw which broke the camel’s back. I was trying to get something to work and made an online account in desperation - then I struggled/failed to find a way to revert the change and make the user become an offline account again. Faced with a reinstall I couldn’t go through clicking “no, don’t fuck me” several times to reinstall Windows.

  • Avid Amoeba
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    201 year ago

    I find Windows significantly less convenient than Linux. It took a few years for my mindset to flip but there’s just no going back. Whenever something requires me to use Windows, I reach for a Windows virtual machine. Whenever I’ve been forced to use a Windows or a Mac machine for work, I’ve reached for a Linux virtual machine.

  • exu
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    31 year ago

    I think hate is really too strong of a word, dislike at most for me.
    My biggest issue with Microsoft is a lack of trust. Apart from that, I just like my Linux setup more and find it easier to use.
    Stuff I want to do works how I want to do it and how I’m (now) used to it.
    Regardless, I use Windows at work, manage Windows Servers and Azure. It’s just how it is.

  • @[email protected]
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    141 year ago

    As someone who routinely installs new Laptops for various reasons:

    Installing

    • Preinstalled Windows is unusable, due to preinstalled spyware
    • No torrents
    • No multiple versions
    • No real support for actually chaning the locale, what you download is what you get. Even if that means redownloading 5 GB for every language, even though the interesting parts are just a few language files, which every OS can also replace while running (Note: OSes, not spyware with a program loader strapped to it)
    • No live version
    • Unnecessarily complex/long installation (Locale settings being required two times, circumventing the M$ account with cmd, denying all spying stuff)
    • Installer does not have drivers for many things eg. some Touchpads, special storage setups etc.
    • Installing takes a long time overall
    • Removing bloat, with varying success (sometimes uninstalling Edge is one click, sometimes it requires powershell hacks) takes ages (my hand always hurts afterwards because removing one thing takes three clicks at different locations)
    • Installing stuff is extremely annoying, inconsistent and insecure (VLCPlus …)
    • Everyone loves hunting down 10 different obscure drivers from various websites, each with unique installers, right?
    • Windows fucks itself up within a few days with a non-insignificant chance … eg. by entering S-Mode (halfway) somehow

    Usage

    • It may be in part due to me being used to a tiling WM with dozens of workspaces, but even with KDE I have much better workflow - somehow, Windows’ way to multitask is really strange to me, and I can only use it like a 70 year old with only 10% sight in one eye and 0% in the other: very slow and inefficiently
    • You can’t integrate anything with anything, except if you have dozens of accounts of services, some even with costs, and only use everything exactly like daddy manufacturer wants you to
    • Literally no support. Windows fucks itself up in so many ways, and the only “reliable” fix is a reinstall
    • Even with the dumbed down nature of Windows, users are morons. I’d rather teach my grandparents (including my very loud grandfather and said nearly-blind grandmother) Linux from scratch (yes, also LFS) than teach them the “correct way” to use Windows
    • Even when knowing how to use Windows properly, with all tricks applied, it’s less powerful than a pregnancy test running BASIC
    • Paying 250+$ to get served ads to pay even more, money and data, is obviously stupid
  • @[email protected]
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    1 year ago

    Windows has basically become malware. It does a fuck ton of tracking, and all of its features are about appeasing shareholders over users.

    If we want to get technical: I loathe it because even in the year 2024, it’s the only operating system I’ve witnessed that will absolutely grind to a halt when a third party application stops responding or crashes. There is no valid fucking reason why the parent system should be halted by an application that crashes.

    Also, ads in the start panel. Absolutely not, Microsoft. No way in hell am I allowing that to live on a computer I own. Yes, I’m aware third party apps will address that but it shouldn’t be a thing to begin with.

    Oh yeah, and it decided to automatically update itself to the latest version on my ASUS ROG laptop while the thing was closed and not in use. So upon booting it up and seeing ads in the UI, I wiped the system clean and installed Nobara. Bye bye. 👋

  • @[email protected]
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    41 year ago

    It’s been a long time since I used Windows myself, however one of the big reasons for switching was the inherent instability. At once point I was developing code in Visual Studio and constantly loading/closing quite a few different programs to test things out. Windows just didn’t seem to handle memory-recovery and I would have to reboot every week or two (usually because of the whole OS locking up). In comparison, I run a variety of software on my linux machines which can involve anything from testing code in multiple browsers to image editing to 3D CAD drawings. Sure that tends to drain the memory but when I close something I get that memory back. I’ll frequently get down to the last 100K of RAM, close a couple programs that may be holding large caches (Firefox really hates me having hundreds of open tabs), and then I’m right back up and running again. Reboots may occur about every 6 months.

    I have to support other people using Windows at work, which reminds me how much I’ll never go back to it. My biggest frustration is that Microsoft is constantly changing things. Hell you can’t even directly reach the control panel any more, you have to run searches to find the specific item you want. Want to check the settings of a certain printer? Good luck, that doesn’t seem to be available in the right-click menu any more. It’s just all these idiotic changes making it difficult to actually use or maintain Windows. Why should I have to google how to find something when everything used to be under the control panel or a right-click away?

    • @[email protected]
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      41 year ago

      The hiding of the control panel is just extra pain for the fun of it. I know it’s the same tool they’ve had for many generations now so they’re hiding it because it’s ugly, but it’s the real way to get things done. Hiding it is just making everyone’s life harder, which is basically the Microsoft approach to OS design.

      • @[email protected]
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        31 year ago

        Kinda like dealing with Microsoft Office… You can’t find anything in that “new” toolbar design because so many options are grouped together in ways that don’t make any sense. I’m so glad I never had to actually use that garbage even though I did enjoy the older versions.

  • @[email protected]
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    151 year ago

    I… Don’t? But I’ve used it since 3.11. It’s incredibly usable software, when it works. Switched recently because even I have my limits - that win11 recall even made it as an idea at the table is enough to make me jump ship. The ads in win10 pushed me to the limit, but recall is insane unless they’re literally gonna give away free hardware and software. I paid for that damn computer and bought a license - wtf. It’s not Microsofts hardware to datamine or put ads on. Paid for things with ads in them that also keylog and screen scrape and datamine can fuck all the way off.

    Saw the netbsd video posted on lemmy recently and dude said he was offended at the lack autonomy he had over his own hardware in ms and I kind of get it now.

    • @[email protected]
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      11 year ago

      The ads in win10 pushed me to the limit

      Never seen them. But Microsoft does document how to disable everything you would like to.

      I don’t just don’t get why do the same people who bitch a lot about Windows (not you) are unable to install Windows 10 Enterprise and read the manual BUT they are able to jump between 30 different Linux distros and spend 100x more time customizing their DE and dealing with Wine / virtualization crap. Ironic.