[MostlyStable]

The idea that Windows doesn't have it's own weird, mysterious, issues is hilarious to me. For months my windows 10 install would take nearly 5 minutes to start up after a full shutdown sequence. This was with the install on a fast SSD. I tried a whole bunch of things and never figured out what the issue was. Then, one day, it just....went away.

I'm not trying to make much of a point other than that: anecdotes aren't going to get you very far.

My problems with linux have nothing to do with the quality of the OS itself (which I personally haven't had many issues with), but rather with software support from companies that don't want to put the engineering effort into making their linux version as good as the windows version. And I can't really blame them, but some software I just need.

[happytoexplain]

>The idea that Windows doesn't have it's own weird, mysterious, issues is hilarious to me.

That's not what the author said. And anecdotes are perfectly fine - in fact, they are literally are all we have to write about.

In this case, everything I've experienced and heard from others suggests that the author is correct. Linux distros are amazing, and their issues are generally fixable with experience, but the problem is that their issues are usage-blocking. Windows issues are much more common, but they are just fucking annoying. They are either solvable without a comp sci degree, or (and this is the important part) simply ignorable while still being able to use the computer (albeit with varying degrees of misery).

[teo_zero]

> > The idea that Windows doesn't have it's own weird, mysterious, issues is hilarious to me.

> That's not what the author said.

It is exactly what the author said. TFA makes a point that Windows' issues are well known and predictable. And the author would rather endure the daily nuisances infliced by Windows than fix the sporadic breakages that Linux might throw.

[worthless-trash]

Known consistent breakages, than maybe sometime breakages..

make it make sense.

[Telaneo]

I've found Windows issues to be just as usage-blocking.

I tend to have better luck with google-fu when it comes to Windows problems, just though the user base being so much larger, so it's much more likely that someone's written a guide or an explanation of my exact problem, while on Linux, it's much less likely that someone's written an exact guide, but general knowledge goes further (but you need more of it to fill in the gaps).

One additional issue I've found is that in the cases there is a guide or a Stackoverflow question regarding my exact problem, the solution is 6 years out of date and may be non-functional or less than ideal, while on Windows, that solution would still work.

[nsvd2]

I usually find the exact opposite, where for Windows I can sometimes find a few SEO optimized pages with vague instructions, but for Linux I'm much more likely to hit a wiki or forum with in-depth technical information to solve my problem.

[wormius]

"Hi I'm Mohinder from MS MSP, MSVP, SUPERSTAR ASSIST, Can I have you restart your computer... once you do that, please report back if that fixes the problem"

ms.com "support" pages.

Meanwhile, Archi Wiki? That is like... the best thing and should be a national treasure.

[Telaneo]

> I usually find the exact opposite, where for Windows I can sometimes find a few SEO optimized pages with vague instructions,

It's been a while since I've had to look up Windows problems to be fair, so my experience on that front is a year and a bit out of date (and probably more, since most permanent issues would have been solved on my desktop install years earlier).

> but for Linux I'm much more likely to hit a wiki or forum with in-depth technical information to solve my problem.

That's part of the problem, at least in my experience. When I ran Windows, I'd find someone's article called 'Solution for $Error in $Program when doing $Thing', or a forum thread or whatever else along those lines, and it would in the best case be accurate and fix my problem, and in the worst case help me figure it out from there.

On Linux, that wiki page or forum won't have a solution for my exact problem, but it will help me figure it out. Linux's default case has often been equivalent to Windows's worst case when looking for solutions, but both of them very rarely ended in a true worst case (not finding a solution at all). Linux's solution will more often than not be transferable to other situations, so the knowledge gained is useful, while on Windows, the equivalent solution is bespoke and won't be useful in any other case.

[vrighter]

"run sfc /scannow"

"that didn't work. That has never done or found anything"

"I'm just going to close this issue as solved"

Most support posts

[throwaway2037]

I agree about google-fu with Windows before two years ago. "Free" LLMs, like ChatGPT, are now excellent at fixing your Linux problems. When I have a problem with my Linux box now, I just describe the issue to ChatGPT... we do diagnosis together, then it suggests some fixes. It has not failed me in more than one year, and continues to get better. (I know, I know: This damn post reads like a shill/submarine advert for ChatGPT, but I sure other LLMs are just as good at this point.)

[newdee]

> They are either solvable without a comp sci degree, or (and this is the important part) simply ignorable while still being able to use the computer

If this were true there’d be no need for IT/tech support services.

[aworks]

I have a computer science degree yet continue to use Windows. Is it because I have 30 years of experiece knowing what to ignore?j I do also use WSL for the command-line.

[marysol5]

I mean, how much "CompSci" do you apply to your OS on e day-to-do. Or even to diagnose an issue?

I feel that was half of this article...The author did ZERO investigations

[ErroneousBosh]

> Windows issues are much more common, but they are just fucking annoying.

Apart from the ones that are completely 100% usage-blocking.

[nuancebydefault]

I find that a very weird thing to write. I think the last BSOD i had was 10 years ago and when a laptop didn't work anymore, it was usually because some of its hardware broke. It's true though that over time laptops become too slow or have too little resources to run a recent (and secure) windows version over time, but that goes for most software in general.

[ErroneousBosh]

Okay, but it's more that there are a lot of things you simply cannot do in Windows. It's got extremely poor hardware and software support.

[throwaway2037]

    > Linux distros are amazing, and their issues are generally fixable with experience, but the problem is that their issues are usage-blocking.

This is a great point. Years ago, when Microsoft Windows was much less stable, I noticed that Windows felt like you constantly had some small nagging issues, but you could still boot and workaround it.

[chii]

is it better to have a thousand paper cuts, or a limb injury? I guess it depends on the person...

[whyagaindavid]

> that their issues are usage-blocking

What?

Sure - if one has some weird hardware? or need to use some specialist windows only software/workflow.

> they are just fucking annoying

> are either solvable without a comp sci degree,

with that argument - even ChromeOS is great. Just works. Especially for all the school kids without compsci degree or even Amazon staff (that use a modified form of chrome OS).

[ivell]

Frankly nowadays Windows is rage inducing. Dark patterns, annoying pop-ups, mandatory single sign-on.

[greatgib]

Something I noticed with long term windows user is that like victims of stockholm syndrome they are very often encountering weird unsolvable issues with windows but when you ask them they will tell you that everything is working well for them. They don't see any issue.

Like mouse or printer will not work when you are at home but will at work. So you live with it.

The funniest is you see the user use the computer and at regular occurence there are weird error popup showing up but the user is trained to click ok mechanically without even reading.

The worse is if like the author you use ms365 or outlook. You are in a world of pain and things suddenly breaking or with lot of unexplainable frustrations. For example when you used outlook with an account/user and add a second one. And then delete the first one. And somehow there would be an email account associated with your whole computer that outlook is using in shadow. And like you would receive emails but sending will not work. And the only working solution in the end is to nuke everything and start again.

[fabian2k]

I switched to Linux again because on this PC Windows suddenly just doesn't run stable anymore. Even a complete reinstall didn't fix it, I assume it is some driver issue or something like that.

It took me a while to convince myself it wasn't a hardware defect. I had very frequent single tab crashes in any browser I used. And regular bluescreens, sometimes multiple a day. But it runs entirely stable on a parallel Ubuntu installation with the same hardware.

If you're unlucky, you can run into weird issues that are hard to impossible to fix as a regular user.

[finghin]

I recently noticed the bloat building and building. It came to the fore when I tried to install Kerbal Space Program on my T14s gen 2. I don’t really play video games, and I thought the incredibly slow performance and crashes were down to my hardware, since why would a 5 year old mid-range notebook be able to play this (probably badly optimised) 3D game?

As an afterthought I downloaded Steam and played on Debian. Worked out of the box. No crashes. Minimum of 30fps, most of the time around 50-60. It was more than playable, enough to be pretty fun.

[pixl97]

>But it runs entirely stable on a parallel Ubuntu installation with the same hardware.

This mostly means nothing because the hardware drivers between the 2 OSs are totally different.

For example you could have bad memory and Linux isn't sticking anything important there, whereas Windows is. Same with things like video drivers and storage drivers.

As someone that's salvaged a lot of old machines, sometimes some particular hardware is bad in a particular OS and replacing it with a non broken card of the same kind fixes the issue.

[marysol5]

It's funny that Windows is well known for the "BSOD", to the point it became a meme in itself.

The BSOD where the computer shits itself so much, that it gives you a nonsensical "error", which you have to use another machine to look up. Or if you want to deep-dive, you have to use 3rd party software to deal with.

Meanwhile a Linux Kernel Panic will dump out (while very technical) everything it knew at that moment...

And things like memory errors are picked up, and you can test your memory, BY STANDARD

[amanaplanacanal]

At least for me, the BSOD is way less common than it used to be. I don't think I've seen one for years now.

[projektfu]

The static checking of drivers has been a big benefit to Windows. Nowadays, a bsod is probably due to memory corruption or a hardware fault.

It's been a long time since I've seen a kernel panic in Linux, and it's been my daily driver for years. I don't use any exotic hardware on either system.

Things that are mere "annoyances" to other people are blocking to me because distraction is blocking. If I have everything set up a certain way and Windows restarts overnight, I lose my place completely. If I'm working and stupid ads pop up uninvited, or Windows takes a moment to tell me about the great new AI feature I'll never use, it throws me off. I'll take the risk that Linux won't support a piece of hardware over the guarantee that Windows will shred my attention and concentration.

[marysol5]

Hell, MS's own "official" documentation for long-standing issues in Windows is to "disable this random key in the registry, we don't know what it is, but it 'works'"

Or "Disable IPv6".

It's so nonsensical when it comes to Windows World that people put up with that shit

[arvid-lind]

I'm glad it wasn't just me... the nice thing about those mysterious issues on Linux is usually you can actually fix the issue. With Windows I needed a hacky solution just to move the stupid taskbar, or wait for Microsoft to fix it.

[marysol5]

And diagnose too, without having a "USB of tools", like the types on LTT talk about all the time.

Mysterious binaries from shady websites, great.

I can attach a debugger to a process, I can look at the CPU/IO/Network transactions. I can see where stuff is waiting and being blocked by any of them, all with basic GNU tooling that comes with every distro, even the most minimal!

[badc0ffee]

> For months my windows 10 install would take nearly 5 minutes to start up after a full shutdown sequence.

I know you're not asking for tech support here, but I wanted to share that a friend's laptop was doing this, and the problem turned out to be a massive amount of files in %TEMP%. So many that I had to write a little PowerShell script to remove them all.

[cmehdy]

Powershell is a great scripting language, but when you want to massively delete stuff I strongly suggest you use "robocopy /MIR" with an empty folder as source to be "mirrored". Much faster, better multithreaded performance, decent logging. It will save you a ton of time if we're talking about large and/or numerous files.

[pixl97]

/MIR /MT:16

Kick those threads way up.

[soco]

Historically, when my Windows was getting slow first thing I'd empty the thrash. Often it was the answer.

[marysol5]

Which in the grand scheme of things, shouldn't "slow down" a system. But this is Windows where it burns IO for no reason

[nijave]

I've had similar issues with Linux. Usually it's either put up with things breaking in mainline but use latest hardware or sit on LTS on older hardware with better stability.

Windows Performance Analyser and Windows Performance Recorder are pretty easy to use to troubleshoot boot performance and have a nice, simple GUI. For fairness, there's also systemd analyze on Linux

I haven't used Windows in ~5 years but at least with XP to 10 it used to be fairly well documented and not terribly hard to troubleshoot assuming you're willing to do some learning and leg work.

I'd say macOS is the worst in that department--things randomly break just like Windows and Linux but it's largely a blackbox.

[veidr]

So true.

I had this gaming PC — and once a year doing excel and dropbox exchanges with my accountant, but other than that, gaming PC — and it never had an issue, from 2020 or 2021 to last month.

So I decided to move it to the living room, and connect it to our big TV, instead of the small TV — same LG manufacturer, same 4K res, mind you — and now it just freezes every 3-4 days. And freeze means just, the screen still shows whatever it was showing when it froze, no USB mouse or keyboard does anything, cannot be RDP'd to cannot be pinged... hold-down-power-button only answer.

(I have swapped all the cabels, just to be sure.)

The only differences: moved it 20 meters physically, connected it to a slightly newer TV. ¯\_(ಠ_ಠ)_/¯

macOS and Linux also do suck, but both are AFAICT way more predictable, and less random

[mrb]

TBH your problem sounds like a hardware issue. Maybe the PC's new location is warmer due to a more enclosed space, triggering more unrecoverable hardware faults.

[veidr]

I agree it sounds like that, but (having that same thought) I kept the temp in the living room 20℃ or less for a week but nah

My best guess at this point is the 2025 LG TVs have some different HDMI ARC something something compared to the 2019 it was plugged into before.

But also my point is that there's no way a human with 3 kids and job could ever know... it either starts working or I get a PlayStation or a different PC or whatever.

Or just tell my kids, "Hey, Death Stranding works on your Mac now, so shut the fuck up until you finish that whole game." ¯\_(ಠ_ಠ)_/¯

[Our_Benefactors]

You could look into EDID settings, lots of weird quirks around that spec.

[steve1977]

> macOS and Linux also do suck, but both are AFAICT way more predictable, and less random

macOS maybe as long as you're only using Apple hardware. As soon as you use 3rd party peripherals, you're in for very interesting bugs that are not getting confirmed by Apple and suddenly disappear again with a macOS update (if you're lucky).

[veidr]

yeah — i have my kids on Macs, bc I'm lazy, but just the ones with only two USB ports and nothing else — otherwise never-ending, unresolvable nightmare unless it's just some Apple thing you're plugging in

[thewebguyd]

> For months my windows 10 install would take nearly 5 minutes to start up after a full shutdown sequence.

Funnily enough, I have that exact issue but the opposite. It takes nearly as long to shut down. Which I do often because still, in 2026, even on the Snapdragon surface laptop, I can't trust Windows to actually sleep when I close the laptop lid.

I've had less issues with Linux, even sleep, than any modern windows box, and even less issues (pretty much none at all) on my daily driver MacBook Pro (plenty of annoyances and quirks here too though)

[aqme28]

Haven’t used Windows in a while, but I remember hating the seemingly completely random “restarting in 5 minutes for a system update.” Usually at the least-opportune time

[marysol5]

We're forced onto Windows at my employer (mostly for MDM/management reasons) and yeah, every time we're doing something, or in a meeting. Someone will drop because it want's to reboot.

I get "You need to reboot for these Dell Updates" daily...

Meanwhile in Linux world, you can switch out the entire kernel live...

[BLKNSLVR]

Even if Windows didn't have those weird things, there are a bunch of intended behavior things that make Windows a more frustrating experience than the occasional weird things a Linux system may do.

[repelsteeltje]

Yeah, like key bindings in IntelliJ that might make sense on Windows or Macintosh, but conflict with Linux defaults. I switched to Linux couple of decades ago, but this second class treatment of Linux desktop is one of the reasons I'm still doing most of my work in the terminal.

[Moomoomoo309]

To be fair, for IntelliJ, just switch the keymap to the gnome or KDE one (yes, it comes with them ootb) and that problem is fixed.

[nijave]

If you're like me and never use the Gnome/KDE shortcuts, just disable/switch those

[tcoff91]

Seriously! On my windows desktop, I have to let the computer sit a minute after booting before i touch the keyboard otherwise it completely wigs out and becomes partially unresponsive due to some weird issue with the AMD chipset drivers. I can see my mouse move, i can move windows around, but nothing responds to clicks and i can't open anything.

[ChoGGi]

DDR 5 memory training and a new BIOS that enables Memory Context Restore by default?