After 3 years away, I can finally return to Linux

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CyclopsRock@reddit

I learned to live with the inconveniences of Windows, with all the problems it brought me, the blue screens

What version of Windows were you using, ME?

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doubled112@reddit

Hey, the last time I installed Windows (it was 10) on something, I got a bunch of BSODs. I was pretty surprised, usually it isn't that junk.

Ran Linux on the machine for years, no issues. Went back to Linux after and no issues either.

Am I supposed to believe the mouse.sys driver crash was hardware? Or the ones from Windows Update for the Nvidia card?

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Icy-Childhood1728@reddit

Last and only time I had bsod, my CPU was frying (Intel microcodegate) your mouse.sys could fuck stuff because of usb port, bad usb driver, ...

For NVIDIA, that's obviously a troll, you know how bad are NVIDIA drivers on linux don't you ? It feels like a running gag for 15 years now. My first kernel panics were because of that on Kubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope. One does not simply use stock Windows update Nvidia drivers (it's fine enough for most of other hardware though), that's as known as IE was only useful to download another browser.

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doubled112@reddit

They're true stories, but I'm not being too serious. Haha.

If I was going to blame a piece of hardware for the mouse thing, I'd probably toss my cheap 4K KVM out of the window before anything else.

Agreed, Nvidia drivers from Windows update are just like IE - only there to get you to the drivers from the Nvidia website.

I've never really had stability issues on Linux with Nvidia. There was that one time the machines stopped outputting video though. They're not perfect, no, but I just haven't found them as problematic as the Internet would have me believe. I've had a GTS 250, GT 710, 1050 Ti and a RTX 3050 over the years.

I do remember the pain that was trying to get Compiz running on an ATi card with FGLRX back in the day. I also haven't had perfect luck with amdgpu drivers on an RX 570 but I can't remember anything specific. Ryzen onboard graphics have all just worked, which is nice.

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Icy-Childhood1728@reddit

Try having hybrid igpu/GPU work properly on a MacBook pro T2 (Intel 2019) chip

I'm feeling my legs melting slowly with those constant 65/75°C while idle on arch+hyprland I even had to downclock it... It kinda work but it's either a turbo fan, or a heater

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doubled112@reddit

Dual GPU was always brutal. I cant imagine adding Mac difficulties on top.

I had an HP Envy around 2010 where I had to choose between the table melting and having working ports. At least I could turn it off and pretend it didnt exist.

I still avoid anything with switchable graphics like the plague.

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Icy-Childhood1728@reddit

Yeah I get it ...

but that's missing about 20 to 30% of your battery life :/

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rileyrgham@reddit

I'm frequently suspicious of some of the advocacy claims here. It's really not necessary to Windows bash.

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Oricol@reddit

Yeah I manage 700 windows endpoints and we might get 1 unit a month that's blue screening. And generally it's a hardware issue not Windows. Windows sucks but it isn't the unusable mess so many in the Linux community try and claim.

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Ursa_Solaris@reddit

You're quite lucky. Earlier this year we were getting dozens a week. It turns out that for whatever reason after an update our Microsoft Surface Laptop+SurfaceDock combos suddenly really didn't like displayport and would bluescreen on wake.

The code was 0x19c. I'll remember the code for the rest of my life because it was the stupidest thing I've ever seen:

WIN32K_POWER_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT

The WIN32K_POWER_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT bug check has a value of 0x0000019C. This indicates that Win32k did not turn the monitor on in a timely manner.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/debugger/bug-check-0x19c--win32k-power-watchdog-timeout

Yeah. It would BSOD because our monitors turned on too slowly. Replacing with HDMI cables fixed it. No idea why. My boss thought I was insane when I came into her office with my findings, until I proved it to her in person.

Anyways, just wanted to share that story, because in my opinion Windows doesn't get enough hate for how bad it is.

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Ezmiller_2@reddit

And they call us MAGA types conspiracy theorists lol.

I used to get blue screens. I did a memtest for the heck of it. Turned out I had a bad stick. I learned, in my 40 years, that RAM can go bad. Put up with it until I had enough dough to get a new stick and blue screens are gone.

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Ursa_Solaris@reddit

I promise you that dozens of laptops all across the building, and only the ones using displayport mind you, didn't spontaneously develop hardware issues at the exact same time that magically went away as soon as we changed the plug type. It's not a conspiracy theory, I reproduced it on command with all hardware fresh out of the box. Three generations of laptops, multiple monitor models, every time it happened.

I don't know why only DisplayPort triggered it. I don't know why it suddenly started happening after two years of using this hardware layout. I don't know why Windows even has a BSOD code for "monitor took too long to turn on so I crashed myself". I just know that I fucking hate Windows.

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Ezmiller_2@reddit

Hmm, my thinkpad T430 has a DisplayPort that I never use. Never had a BSOD with it.

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Ursa_Solaris@reddit

It only happened to Surface Laptops (confirmed on SL3-5, as that's what we were running at the time) using Surface Dock 2s (not Surface Dock 1, which has MiniDP instead of type-C video out), using either DP-to-C cables or adapters. It didn't happen to any desktops using DisplayPort, or the handful of other laptop models sprinkled around that happened to use DisplayPort. It's very likely that it was a driver or firmware issue with that dock specifically, but support was not helpful and we couldn't find anybody else reproducing this issue at the scale we had.

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Ezmiller_2@reddit

I bet you guys got the bad batch and they thought no one would notice. Linux folks prove everyone wrongs

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lrwxrwxrwx@reddit

I had a laptop I ran Ubuntu on. No issues. Deleted the Linux partition switched it back to windows. It now blue screens at least once a week. It's very possible she fucked it up somehow but still.

I will probably reinstall Linux over winter break when she doesn't need it for college and I guess we'll see.

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mnemonic_carrier@reddit

As someone who doesn't use Windows but it genuinely curious to try it out: Does it really send a lot of your private data back to Microsoft servers so Microsoft can organize your life using AI? I also read somewhere that it takes screenshots every X seconds to feed to an AI so you can "recall" things - is this true or just hyperbole? Does the "home" version really show pop-up ads in your start menu?

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Oricol@reddit

Windows collects anonymized data about your computer applications and services you use.

Windows recall is currently only usable on copilot+ PCs that are arm based and have the ai chip. This takes screenshots every few seconds and keeps the database locally on the pc. I don’t trust MS that they won’t take that data at some point. They are working on it to run on x86 computers.

The start menu ads are not popup ads but pre pinned apps like Spotify TikTok. They are removable. This is on home and Pro versions.

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mnemonic_carrier@reddit

Thanks - good to know. Might take it for a spin on one of my laptops...

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arcanemachined@reddit

I would have replied sooner but my computer forced me to restart after an update.

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Tai9ch@reddit

It's really not necessary to Windows bash.

Necessary? No.

Fun and empathy-inducing? Yes.

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ThemesOfMurderBears@reddit

I swear some of the posts in this sub act like Windows is impossible to use.

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ForceBlade@reddit

Most of the Linux subs are like that. But at the same time a lot of the people saying those things are either 14, young and impressionable (and have a favourite “team” or OS in this case) or 40 and trolls.

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anthrem@reddit

Sewer rat might taste like pumpkin pie but that doesn't mean I am going to eat the motherfucker...

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I_melt_jet_fuel@reddit

”Windows Bash”

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ForceBlade@reddit

Whenever I need to use windows Git Bash is like the first thing I install!

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OculusVision@reddit

I'm usually not one to bash Windows but I had a bsod on Win11 just last week when I full-screened a video and pressed the Start button exactly once. That's it lol. Yeah I was pretty shocked too. Then there was another time when there was a bsod when I launched a python installer.

Other than that it was pretty stable but these two really surprised me.

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ArrayBolt3@reddit

I mean I've hit bluescreens on 95, XP, 7, 8, and 10, though granted most of those were because of hardware issues.

Win95: bluescreened when under heavy load
XP: had one bluescreen that I think was random, also have hit bluescreens there due to a damaged GPU and a hair stuck in a RAM socket
7: Drive was dying
8: Fast Startup decided it hated my very existence
10: Laptop had a flaky electrical connection inside, if you accidentally flexed the wrong spot on the bottom panel you could trigger a bluescreen

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Neratyr@reddit

LOL,

You know an OS was bad when decades later we still slam it... sheesh I don't miss M.E.

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sernamenotdefined@reddit

Windows ME or as we called it in Dutch Windows Meer Ellende.

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InterestingVladimir@reddit

As a non-Dutch what does "Meer Ellende" mean?

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sernamenotdefined@reddit

More misery

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nhaines@reddit

As a German-speaker, I laughed. (Spent time in The Netherlands last month, and frankly, wish I could've stayed another week. It was beautiful.)

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oskich@reddit

Same for a Swedish speaker -> "Mer elände"

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aglobalvillageidiot@reddit

We called it "Mistake edition"

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hashspice@reddit

I really don't understand people's hate towards Windows. I've been daily driving my Windows 10 VM and after Windows 11 VM on proxmox for quite some time now. I've never had any issues, although I did get rid of all the bloat and telemetry. It was always local accounts as well. And I have arch as a VM and uses that for gaming (I know weird, eh?)

Maybe it's because I'm running it as VM. I don't know. Do keep in mind that I use multiple GPUs, and my processor is an i5 13600K. I'm not remoting into these VMs, they are wired directly to two monitors from the GPU. It's fun. So I really don't understand the hate.

I don't know how windows is without the modifications, though, so there's that.

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BurrowShaker@reddit

Work for a year on a company managed windows machine with 3 layers of crap-security-corpoware on top. And probably some antivirus that brings you back to running software onjava in 2000 and hitting GC.

I do find the experience pretty miserable even without the above, mostly due to the lack of coherent package repos.

Not that I'd go bashing it, but my usages are better covered by a Linux desktop.

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Icy-Childhood1728@reddit

Try managing a 10k float of various linux devices with only FOSS softwares and tell me how it goes at the helpdesk after a month.

Windows in corpo environment only go as bad as their sysadmin do them. I have quite a banger corpo laptop, it's sluggish, not because of windows, but because of the 10 agents they deployed (ERP, Inventory, Ticketing tool, EDR, Remote helpdesk, ...) I'm pretty sure it would run 10 times faster on stock W11.

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BurrowShaker@reddit

There are solutions for Linux machines.

I have seen everything from puppet style managed updates to full imaging with local caching on reboot.

Now, user unmanaged machines are not too bad either depending on the user base if you provide clear services centrally. But the expectation is that unmanaged machines are self supported mostly.

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Icy-Childhood1728@reddit

There are solutions for everything,

Now finding the knowledgeable IT team (and not depending on 2 guru for the whole IT of your company) to maintain this solution over the years which is never standard (which has it's pros and cons, you have a solution that really fit your needs, but you'll have longer onboarding). Maintaining proper documentation for YOUR solution, Relying on a product that could stale tomorrow if it's not maintained by a big corpo / community, ...

I'm not saying it's better to rely on one of the GAFAM (living in UE, depending of US jurisdiction, outside of the costs, it's not something I like), I'm saying it's safer (mid to long term use), I'm also not bashing linux for no reason, I love it, really, I use it extensively as much as I can, but I can't expect that throwing linux desktops to end users will end well.

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BurrowShaker@reddit

I am no sysadmin, but I don't believe that a single vendor solution is good in any context.

For the record I have worked two years over the past 15 on windows based workstations, the rest on Linux. The two years on windows, it was a glorified terminal emulator to a Linux server. For a good part of the rest, the Linux workstations were configured just the same as the cluster nodes with a few extra gui related packages.

I don't even know how much the like of redhat or ubunto, say, provide in term of consulting for setting up clean infra. I am pretty sure you can hire someone though.

In a world where most people need primarily a browser, I am not so sure what the big deal is about managing a few simple service on locked down Linux machines, and how it would be harder than on windows.

Don't worry though, there is plenty of work left for win based sysadmins.

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sernamenotdefined@reddit

Lol yeah, thankfully I managed to convince them to give me a developer laptop with admin rights. Still runs some of the crap, but at least I can run any utility as long as I make sure I have a license.

All because I occasionally write some software to automate processes on account of my previous job as a software developer doing HPC.

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hashspice@reddit

Oh yeah, that does make the experience worse. You're right about that. For my personal use, I don't use any anti virus Software or endpoint protection. Just common sense, but that's not the case with everyone. I work at a computer shop and we get a lot of old people with malware on their PC. My boss loves to sell the anti virus, very much scamming them.

I do love using Linux primarily, but Windows without any Microsoft crap and anti-virus is a very good experience. I guess my experience with Windows is very different from other people.

Worst part is my work uses everything Windows. There's literally nothing that's Linux there, which piss me off all the time. For an average user, Windows (mod) is good enough. I still don't know why my boss is adamant about Windows.

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PhukUspez@reddit

without the modifications

That's the fulcrum right there. Vanilla windows, which anyone forced to use it is experiencing, is shit. Sure, it has the widest range of hardware compatability there is and it's "THE" first-party for practically all software, but that doesn't mean it's fun or even smooth to use. In other words, "functioning as designed" doesn't mean "good".

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Cheap-Protection6372@reddit (OP)

It was 11, but to be honest, I didn't face many blue screen problems, except when my video drive crashed rarely, reinstalling the drive usually stopped it (which was already a pain in the ass). But yesterday I faced a blue screen again, I looked at the log and it seems to have been caused by WSL, something that was disabled and I didn't understand why it would break my system even though it was disabled, that was the last straw.

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Icy-Childhood1728@reddit

99% of BSOD are hardware or driver issues which translate 99% of the time in kernel panics if you try the same hardware or an equivalently bugged driver on linux

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ionburger@reddit

im aware that it cant possibly be this bad for most people but my windows experience has been genuinely miserable. bluescreens, driver issues after updates, ive never seen it get the time right first try no matter how often i tell it my timezone, worse gaming performance then wine on linux.

w11 on a nvme ssd on a 12600k+6800xt system

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credomane@reddit

We go through spurts of laptops suddenly blue screening. Always "Inaccessible Boot Device". Windows boots up fine for months but restart it and BOSD "Inaccessible Boot Device" is in your future. Like wtf did you do to yourself windows!?

We literally have an internal wiki page dedicated to recovering from this particular BSOD. The basic flow is something like boot off a usb drive then use diskpart to mount the efi partition. Once mounted you format the efi partition, yes, format it. Clean slate that fucker. Then run 2-3 other commands to detect and re-add the windows install located on C:. Reboot the latop and remove the usb drive. Hope it worked. If it didn't remove the ssd and start backing it up because faster to reimage it now. If it did work then reboot and shutdown a few times to make yourself feel better about the problem being fixed.

We have discovered that failure to format the EFI partition will lead to the problem coming right back after 1-2 reboots or the commands to detect and re-add the install will fail to see the install entirely.

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GroundbreakingMix607@reddit

I'm also being forced to use windows for reason after using linux for around 1.5 years and now using the pc just feels like torture. I can't even make a fucking bluetooth device work properly on this piece of shit. Even if I had any problems on linux I could eventually find the cause and most probally fix that but here

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Shadow1zero1@reddit

Join this group to learn carding, hacking, spamming, updates on carding and free cc drops @kelvinsecuritychat I’m just a Good Samaritan thank me later

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ImaginAqua@reddit

It really is a liberating feeling. While there's a lot of little Windows annoyances I don't miss, the real thing that keeps me on Linux is the power it gives you to make it yours. It's the difference between using your computer and the computer using you.

If I don't like the way Linux does something, I'm free to change how it does it. And that's damn cool.

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rileyrgham@reddit

What was causing blue screens? I've been dual booting for years and haven't seen a bs since a wonky nvidia driver about 8 years. As a Debian user primarily, I've had way more issues with it than Windows.... But generally my own fault in trying to use newer packages compiled from source.

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pppjurac@reddit

As with kernel panic it is mostly hardware issues. Bad Ram, bad components, overheating.

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studiocrash@reddit

Have you considered using Distrobox, Flatpak, or the Nix package manager for newer packages? I expect you’ll have far fewer issues with containerization.

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reddanit@reddit

Nowadays I think most bluescreens is just hardware issues. Often "stable" a overclock of CPU/RAM. Even if PC can work with no errors for hours under stress tests doesn't mean it won't fall onto its face if it gets just the wrong instruction at wrong time on wrong core. Or drift out of stability with temperature/age whatever else.

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No_Internet8453@reddit

Not OP, but I've been getting quite a lot of blue screens on my win11 dualboot... As it turns out, my ssd (wd sn770) has a known issue that causes blue screens in win11 24h2

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Oricol@reddit

24H2 seems to be a buggy mess of a release. I've stopped deploying it at work from the freezing issues and crashing we've seen with testers.

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Khoraji@reddit

Vscode and vscodium works om linux

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Username_Taken46@reddit

Visual studio is a different thing from vs code though.

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daYMAN007@reddit

The small scripts are one of the best things in Linux.

Over the years i managed to get a huge collection of stuff that would need an api call in windows which can be relatively easily done with just a view lines of bash in linux.

https://github.com/dgalli1/scripts/tree/master/My%20wierd%20Setup

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archontwo@reddit

Depending on the DE you are using you can write a pipewire applet that can switch configs with one click.

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StevieRay8string69@reddit

What blue screens bullshit post

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matt82swe@reddit

Hello I also get daily blue screens in the year of 2024

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Michaeli_Starky@reddit

Blue screens are hardware failures. It's either hardware or a driver problem. Windows is not at fault.

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thelastcubscout@reddit

If it's a Windows driver, and you don't have the same problem with the same hardware in Linux... Then it just became a Windows problem.

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Michaeli_Starky@reddit

And when we have a driver problem in Linux (happens MUCH more often), do we need to blame Linux?

What kind of logic is that?

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thelastcubscout@reddit

Exactly, it's a Linux problem with respect to operating systems.

With respect to the thread, op had blue screens in Windows, and Linux works better. So, they have a Windows problem.

What's illogical is people who say "this is not a Windows problem," when in fact they are really just talking about broader issues (like your "happens more often") than op is.

Op had a Windows problem and solved it. Go op.

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Michaeli_Starky@reddit

Ugh... ok. How old are you?

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thelastcubscout@reddit

Are you trying to get me to admit that I've used Linux since 1996, and Windows since 1989?

Come on now, there's no need to get in some licks because of age difference here... lmao

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ForceBlade@reddit

The Linux subs do a lot of mindless bashing of it.

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Michaeli_Starky@reddit

Exactly. This is a childish and delusional behavior. Linux has its own great strengths, Windows - own. I use both to make most of it.

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prodleni@reddit

Why on earth are people bashing this dude for switching from windows to Linux, on a Linux sub?

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Icy-Childhood1728@reddit

Seems like a skill issue... I made exactly the same script than you in 4 powershell lines and mapped it to a key with whkb.

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Advanced_Lychee8630@reddit

Thank for the update about your personal life.

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Cheap-Protection6372@reddit (OP)

You're welcome, just sharing the feeling of being the owner of my machine again, so as not to make it so personal I will share the script to switch the sound device in use at the end

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Michaeli_Starky@reddit

With little effort you could do the same in Windows. But of course people are not willing to learn...

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ForceBlade@reddit

It’s true. The Linux subs are full of unnecessary bashing of the platform when issues are often as easy to google and fix as Linux’s.

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Michaeli_Starky@reddit

You can do anything in Windows with Powershell scripts.

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kudlitan@reddit

Like change the desktop environment?

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thelastcubscout@reddit

Didn't you know? Windows does that...

...wait, a desktop environment is just an effect, like tiling windows, right?? :-)

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ScratchHacker69@reddit

Just like linux, you can have some nice twms and status bars

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Michaeli_Starky@reddit

What desktop environment?

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McLayan@reddit

Then try to execute a command with admin rights and use its output. Without the sudo preview.

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Michaeli_Starky@reddit

Wut

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aedinius@reddit

My work used tools exclusive to Windows (Visual Studio)

And here I am cross-compiling from Linux to Windows (using mingw)

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prosper_0@reddit

oh, I have a ton of handy little shell scripts in ~/bin , and a highly personalized .bashrc file in ~. My home dir has been with me for two decades now.

It's been forever since I've had to run windows on my own computer. I have a windows laptop that work provides me and administers for me. It's actually not so bad, given that I'm not in any way responsible for admin stuff. I just use it and the applications that I need for my job, and if/when it screws up I log a ticket with IT and they deal with it. Lately, we're using more and more cloud apps, so my work pc is little more than a host for a browser. And I can use my own computer for work stuff more and more.

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DependentOnIt@reddit

Blue screens on windows is a user issue. I guarantee you're able to change the windows sound device using a power shell script too. You're just resistant to something different lol

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dafzor@reddit

You can change sound device on windows too using https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/nircmd.html or many other free windows utilities.

Also blue screen on Windows is usually bad hardware or driver, of which there's plenty on Linux too.

Just use what makes you happy though.

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NoMathematician5553@reddit

Linux is the best indeed

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r0ck0@reddit

For anyone that might happen to want to do something similar re switching audio device on Windows, you can use nircmd.exe setdefaultsounddevice ...

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its-bubble-gum@reddit

i like it how your post made people want to defend windows lmao

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WarnAccountInfo@reddit

What Distro did you pick.

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Cheap-Protection6372@reddit (OP)

Mint

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WarnAccountInfo@reddit

I avoided mint because it’s stability just meant it would drag behind on features that can actually help me especially because it’s still on x11.

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aitorbk@reddit

I like mint. But it is always a bit behind Ubuntu, and "almost ubuntu". Npm/yarn/node were a hassle for me on mint.

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Dist__@reddit

blames windows

@

blue screens everywhere

@

uses 20-lines script on linux

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Cheap-Protection6372@reddit (OP)

🤔

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kosmogamer777@reddit

Visual studio has Linux version

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psychedway@reddit

no it does not

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kosmogamer777@reddit

You can download it from official site or flathub

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OkNewspaper6271@reddit

code.visualstudio.com

thats not visual studio lmao

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psychedway@reddit

thats visual studio code

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Neratyr@reddit

I think you may be mixing Visual Studio, and Visual Studio Code. Which is easy to mix up for many. VS Code is multiplatform and has an open source nature. Visual Studio is the classic MS only suite/product we're accustomed to from MS

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No-Story-1560@reddit

The one for .Net is exclusive to windows

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Cheap-Protection6372@reddit (OP)

Visual Studio is not VSCode. Yes, I know I could have adapted my workflow without Visual Studio before, but as I was just starting out at work, I didn't want to come up with new things that were different from what they did. When I managed to "independentize" my work from Windows I felt comfortable working outside the company standard.

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Cheap-Protection6372@reddit (OP)

Not much customization yet besides some visuals, konsole as the terminal, zsh as shell and some automation scripts like the one mentioned

https://i.ibb.co/wcb6XTY/image.png