[nine_k]

I'm afraid you're a bit optimistic saying that Windows is consistent, or has no audio or graphics problems. My Linux laptop (xfce) is way more visually consistent than my wife's Windows desktop, and I had to troubleshoot audio issues on it, and on Windows laptops at work, but never on Linux (pipewire, onboard / USB / Bluetooth audio).

And yes, I run X, Wayland is too restrictive currently. I should give it another try some day though.

[ChuckNorris89]

>and I had to troubleshoot audio issues on it, and on Windows laptops at work, but never on Linux (pipewire, onboard / USB / Bluetooth audio).

Funny, it's always been the other way around for me.

My Ubuntu 22.04 at work keeps randomly switching the default audio output to the headphone jack of the machine and off my Bluetooth headphones leaving me without sound in my headphones until I go to the settings and switch it back to Bluetooth. Never had such issues with Windows, it's always been rock solid in this regard.

Would you mind sharing the exact audio issues you had with Windows?

[nine_k]

Win10, desktop, USB Bluetooth: audio not switching correctly when connecting / disconnecting headphones. Now appears to be fixed by some update. Digging through audio settings to find controls of particular audio interfaces is also fun.

HP Spectre x360 laptop (2020), factory-installed Win10: audio just dies sometimes. The Realtek's control panel (also factory-installed) periodically crashes. Funnily, booting a Linux live from a flash drive gave audio that worked without said problems. The laptop was later replaced with an updated one, when its graphics hardware visibly failed. The replacement did not have the audio problem (IDK if it was a different audio chip revision, firmware, or driver), but the Realtek control panel was still unstable.

(Visually Win10 has at least three UI toolkits that can barely agree on colors, and cannot agree on fonts or the shape of controls. Under X, I have all GTK2, GTK3, Qt5, Qt6 programs use the same fonts and a common theme, with controls, if not exactly uniform, at least having common colors, shapes, and sizes.)

[ChuckNorris89]

>HP Spectre x360 laptop (2020), factory-installed Win10 [...] but the Realtek control panel was still unstable

Well there's your problem, or more precise HP's problem, not Windows's problem. Don't use vendor crapware on your machine.

Always install a fresh copy of windows of a USB drive, not the recovery partition which holds the vendor crapware.

The built in windows audio switcher and audio drivers works just fine no need to use third party apps.

[thewataccount]

> Don't use vendor crapware on your machine

Wouldn't it be installed windows update anyway? I'm pretty sure windows installs whatever software is in it's repo the moment a device is discovered by default?

[ChuckNorris89]

No, Windows update will update it if it's already there from the factory, not if you have a fresh install from the official Microsoft ISO.

On a fresh install Windows update only install the corect drivers, no vendor apps.

The Realtek app is put there by the vendor (HP/Dell/Lenovo) from the factory in their spin of Windows. If you install a fresh vanilla copy of Windows from Microsft's website you won't have any of that nonsense.

[Const-me]

Sadly, this is no longer true. At least, not for modern laptops.

It's possible to achieve what you wrote, but the complexity of doing that is borderline impossible. Need to set up group policies, or use custom software, to block installation of specific hardware devices, and specific Windows updates.

Example: https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Software-and-How-To-Q...

[thewataccount]

I'm pretty sure it runs whatever executable is in their repo?

Nvidia will include it's control panels and stuff, same with intel graphics AFAIK?

A little old but https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/razer-bug-let...

I'm like 95% sure intel graphics does this with integrated graphics

[kaba0]

> Never had such issues with Windows, it's always been rock solid in this regard

I can’t even count the number of times windows reinstalling the sound driver or whatever it does at runtime, requiring a reboot.

I think people are very likely to blame the software layer even when they use subpar hardware — no software will run fine on shitty hardware, and the very inconsistent reports from basically any OS is more than likely the result of some underlying, failing hardware components. This also mostly explains why OSX is considered more stable by some — it is much easier supporting 10 different configs, than all the others.

I think Linux has undergone a huge improvement in this regard and actually has the best, general support for any hardware nowadays — it may happen that a given driver is better/only works for windows, but the mainline has shifted to Linux now.