I don't even know if windows is good or not now. (lemmy.ca)

submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by rarsamx@lemmy.ca to c/linux@programming.dev

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I see so many people claiming that windows is crap and that's why they moved to Linux.

That got me thinking: I can no longer have an opinion in the matter. I haven't used Windows at home since 2004. I used it at work until the beginning of 2019 but someone else maintained it, since then, I haven't had the need to touch windows.

Whether good or bad, I feel I'm not as knowledgeable as I was.

Well, actually, two years ago I cleaned up and "revived" my dad's desktop which was taking two minutes to boot and about the same time to open the first app. After installing an SSD and a couple of hours of clean-up, it was as fast as new. I guess with proper maintenance it can be good enough. However, isn't it the main criticism about Linux? That you "need to know" to use it?

People complain about Linux drivers, but as far as I remember, it was quite common that new versions of Windows dropped old drivers and your perfectly good printer/scanner/video card/etc. became a paperweight. Is that still the case?

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[-] Kirk@startrek.website 28 points 2 weeks ago

After installing an SSD and a couple of hours of clean-up, it was as fast as new. I guess with proper maintenance it can be good enough.

The reason people say Windows is "crap" isn't the performance, it's the ads.

[-] rozodru@piefed.social 24 points 2 weeks ago

kinda is the performance also though, that's the reason I switched from Windows just over a year ago. My laptop battery was horrible. on win11 I might get maybe an hour out of it. Also for whatever reason Windows insisted on constantly removing my Wifi adapter completely where the only "fix" was completely reinstalling the OS. I had enough and switched to linux.

My laptop battery now lasts 3+hours and haven't had any issues with wifi. Also as an added bonus I noticed better performance/higher FPS with games as opposed to Windows on the exact same machine.

[-] tuckerm@feddit.online 4 points 2 weeks ago

That's definitely it for me. I have one Windows computer remaining, my gaming PC in my living room. And every few weeks, when I turn it on, I get the full-screen "let's finish setting up Windows" wizard, which wants me to subscribe to Office 365 and OneDrive. This PC is six years old; it's set up already. I'm going to install Bazzite pretty soon.

[-] rarsamx@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 weeks ago

I left before the ads era. That's sounds awful. I'll search to see how they look.

[-] dr_robotBones@reddthat.com 1 points 1 week ago

I use linux on my laptop because for some reason windows makes it heat up like crazy and I have to activate the noisy fans, which I'd like to not do at work.

this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2025

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