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by chiefalchemist 2188 days ago
You decided against Win 10 Pro and WLS? Why?
4 comments

Not parent, but I would have done the same. I transitioned to MacOS from Windows 7 in 2011. When I opened my 2019 XPS with Windows, I got immediate anxiety due to how much Windows has devolved in the last 8 years.

On a brand new system, opening new windows lagged. Multiple popups constantly required my attention and kept getting in my way. I couldn't imagine using the Home version, where you have to deal with Ads on the Start menu on top of all that.

Today I live happily with Kubuntu.

Not OP, but Windows 10 is a spy device that happens to let you do some useful things with it. Also, I think it's great to support FOSS when able and not be apart of Microsoft's Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.
I actually spent a couple of days trying to preserve the Win install so I could dual-boot in case I wanted to test my code under Windows or play games, but I finally got tired of f&cking around and gave up.

I have no interest in running Windows day to day. I live in Emacs, the CLI, and Common Lisp, all of which work best in a Unix-based OS. So it's MacOS or Linux. Plus I'd heard too many horror stories of how difficult it was to turn off all the Microsoft spyware, advertising, and no-choice updates to ever consider Windows seriously.

This was a couple of years ago before WLS was production quality. I might try again if I was doing it today, but only if I could turn off all the Microsoft daemons. Even so, I still find it philosophically distasteful to have to engage in technological warfare against my operating system just to stop it spying on me.

If you don't care about windows then you sacrifice about 20% of performance vs linux on baremetal according to benchmarks on phoronix of ubuntu bare vs ubuntu wsl.
Is that WSL 1 or 2? I'm not sure which I'd expect to have better perf (virtualization vs extra NT ABI), but I'd expect some difference.