I just can't grasp why people suggest Windows is easier than Linux...
 

Today I got a bright idea. I'd make my gaming easier by going back to Windows and using Linux in a vm. My Linux specific stuff just doesn't need the raw muscle i've got. I installed Windows 10. Copied my files as needed, downloaded and installed what I needed. Sounds simple.

No matter what I did. I tried everything I could google. I spent over 2 hours TRYING to get Minecraft java to use my graphics card. It refused. Countless adjustments, guesswork, googling, reboots... nothing. In Linux of near any distro I usually get 70-80fps on my RX570 and it does it itself, I don't have to screw with ANYTHING to get that. On Windows I was lucky to break 8 fps. According to the task manager it was routing through the iGPU.

2 hours for a game that they provide now through their windows store. 2 hours and it never worked once.

The funniest part to me. The majority of "fixes" involve using something that simply doesn't exist in the OS that I could find. I made sure the guides for for Win 10 and not 11... What they told me to do flat out doesn't exist. Not an option. I'm so confused.

I'm restoring my Arch from Timeshift right now. I'm simply dumbfounded... Once you've gotten to understand a few basic concepts Linux becomes so much simpler and you don't realize that even with the amount of potential customization and settings you can do so many little things are more automated and more user friendly than Microsoft could ever dream of.

The worst part is I paid $120US a few years ago for the privilege of owning the damn thing... One born every minute

I just can't grasp why people suggest Windows is easier than Linux...
 

But in Windows you can click stuff.

Windows is what they are used to, probably what they grew up with.

Linux is not harder, but it's different, and different can seem harder.

Well, there doesn't seem to be a standard in the Linux world (200+ distros). With Windows and Mac, things like drivers/peripherals generally are easier to get going.

Example. While the scanner part of my HP LaserJet printer worked for years, with a recent update to Ubuntu 22.04 lts, I can't find any program to make the scanner work. Linux users often have to do more tinkering, like with command lines in terminal, to fix things.

The general public doesn't want to do technical tinkering with the operating system to get things to work. While peripherals and such have become much easier to get working with Linux, one like myself, still needs to do so to get a scanner to work.

Just my opinion....

OP gave an example where this isn't true.
Have you tried VueScan? Download, extract & run. It should auto-detect every scanner on your local network. https://www.hamrick.com/ I have no affiliation with that company, apart from being a customer who has found that their software makes scanning problems in Linux go away.
That's an odd statement from someone calling themselves "kernelhead." As a long-time Linux user, I'd make the argument that anyone not comfortable using the command line should probably not be using Linux. Don't get me wrong, I work in the GUI... but when the chips are down I open a terminal.
I'd agree with this. Ego can get in the way of relearning how to do stuff they "already know."

Thanks for your reply. I couldn't get VueScan to detect the scanner either...

p.s. I have another thread open to address my scanner issue (so as to not confuse things in this thread or hijack this thread):
https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...ts-4175715308/

Yet you don't actually own it, but are renting it (through the license) and usually it is only one instance you can install and use.
I agree with the post above that the dominance of microsoft in the home computer market is the reason people use windows, they grew up with it and are familiar with it. I expect someone who has never used a computer would find Linux simpler. I've always wondered why people complain about using a terminal. It simply requires the ability to read/write and the willingness to do so. A recent post asked how user remember all the commands used in Linux. They don't. agaom they know how to read/write and keep files with the various commands.

What were the updates you installed?

What tool or function "simply doesn't exist?"

But it goes up to 11. Plus one. (This is why people spontaneously combust all the time)

The youngest persons are not even learning Windows, they're learning Smartphones.

I wrote a blog post on this around 7 years ago Windows & Linux, Sometimes you have to put some effort in to your computing., based on a post on this forum: This Post in this thread.

Many of the points in that thread and blog post are still relevant today.

Linux (& BSD) give the owner choice - MS Windows & Apple don't - their attitudes are to lock you in! :D

I always figured some people are driver/mechanics, others are just drivers, and some are just passengers.

The tools (and options and functions and features) available in Windows 10 vary depending upon exactly which version of Windows 10 you have.

According to the Windows 10 wikipedia page, there have been 14 versions of Windows 10 since 2015.

With each of those releases, there is the possibility that an option or function in the instructions you're trying to follow has been changed and therefore something which was there 6 months ago may have been removed.

In addition to that, there are several editions of each version: Home, Pro, Pro S, Pro for workstations, Enterprise, Education, etc. Each of those have different options and features available as well.
Yeah, absolutely.

There was a saying which I heard from someone who had served in the military a long time ago: "You have to be smarter than your equipment."

I try to stick to that wherever possible.

The majority of guides suggested using the graphics settings thing and selecting "universal app" or some such. That wasn't even an option on my screen so I don't know where they got that from. It just didn't exist. Either it doesn't exist or something was seriously screwed with my installation. I tried tracking down the exact javaw.exe and setting that, still nothing.

My impression was that Microsoft was finally getting rid of Windows "versions" and just doing one. To me, those "editions" always just sounded like a nightmare for the company and confusion for its users: no benefit to anyone concerned.

Admittedly, theirs is a very complex system. It has many tightly intertwined layers of complexity. However, if you view Windows as "the foundation technology behind Microsoft [Office ...] products," it begins to make sense. They have also devoted a lot of attention on the efficient remote administration and provisioning of "thousands of machines." Which you can actually do!

Linux, through the initiatives of companies like Red Hat and Canonical, has made great strides with some of these "corporate deployment" concerns, but it still doesn't quite have the "polish" that Windows does. Nevertheless, if you need to run Unix/Linux based software and still co-exist in a "Windows world," they most certainly can do it. Companies today routinely have a healthy mixture of platforms – Windows, Linux, MacOS (OS/X) – all somehow co-existing and magically it all works.

Microsoft simply copied a betting-card from IBM when they strived to construct a technology stack which basically consists entirely of "their stuff." And, Microsoft Windows is the basement layer which ultimately runs that "stack." Companies buy into that stack because it is ... "damned good software." Yes, it is. Really.

Microsoft's designers were seminally influenced by the PDP-10 that they were all used to at that time (and CP/M), not Unix of any kind. But their system really does also work. I don't prefer their system, but, "they came by their successes honestly."

Everybody sitting by you is mostly using Windows or Android and if you have a question.

Just turn and ask. There is certain comfort in that. That is all I can figure. Besides. I equate running linux in my area as ukranian only speaker in a neighborhood of latino and english speaking residents.

No wonder they roll their eyes when I mention what I am running. Then the neg. stuff of what I can't do that they can do stuff.
A lot of it is in their heads.
That is when I roll my eyes.

Don't care really what you run. But. I don't answer mac, android, or windows questions anymore.
That is others turf that I know little about. Yeah. I admit my Chromebook and Samsung phone overwhelm me sometimes.

Direct from the horse's mouth:
1. https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/wind...are-windows-11
2. https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/micr...-11-enterprise
3. https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/educ...oducts/windows

There are at least 8 (eight) editions of Windows 11 mentioned on Microsoft's own website:

Windows Home
Windows Pro
Windows Pro for Workstations
Windows Enterprise E3
Windows Enterprise E5
Windows Enterprise E3 in Microsoft 365 F3
Windows Education
Windows SE
Bit of revisionist history there.

1. DOS = Microsoft didn't design it. They bought it.
2. Windows NT (the foundation for modern Windows) was written by a guy called Dave Cutler whom Microsoft poached from DEC. He used the architecture of VMS as the basis for his design.
Do you remember the phrase, "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish"?

Windows, Mac, Linux, Chromebook, Android ... they all overwhelm me all the time.:(
I worked in IT ... IBM AS/400.

Wow. I guess that I hadn't looked closely at this nonsensical marketing strategy. I thought that they had finally abandoned it, but obviously I was wrong. (I pity them ...)

Yes, the original Windows-NT architecture ... and many characteristics of the present system ... are drenched in "VMS lore," this being one of many legendary operating systems that I actually encountered and used for many years. Microsoft Corporation used DEC computers, and very complicated macro systems, to produce all of the various platform-specific "BASICs" which were their initial bread-and-butter.

@leclerc78: The "AS/400" was the "legendary operating system" that I encountered the least, and used the least, and it still baffles me. :) (Including the simple fact that "it is still around," despite the extraordinarily-versatile hardware capabilities of the modern "iSeries." After all these decades, "we still seem to have 'RPG' ..."

That a DEC employee gifted MS with the means to create Win NT is just a smoke screen only possible because though he was bound by an NDA, DEC was in the process of bankruptcy and was no longer in a position to litigate. The true source of most of NT was MS work on IBM's OS/2. To this day in 2022, older forms of the NT file system are often detected as HPFS, the file system of OS/2. MS obviously contributed a lot toward OS/2 so they did have a legitimate interest in ownership but naturally wanted to avoid years of costly litigation to prove it. IBM WAS most definitely in a position to litigate, but they failed to realize ol' Billy Boy basically majored in poker at Harvard and conveniently forgot he had hoodwinked them with DOS.

Back in the day when desktop computers were still fairly new, a bunch of scientists got together and tested non-users against learning one of MS, MAC & Linux (GUIs).
The results showed that they were all pretty similar in terms of effort.

However back then and still now, MS dominates the desktop /laptop mkt & that's the way most commercial companies wrote/write SW: MS then maybe Mac and then (if you were very lucky) Linux or open src it.

So, as others have said, it's what you are used to, plus SW+HW avail for that platform.

These days Mac is a bigger percentage of the mkt, but realistically, the desktop mkt for Linux is still miniscule by comparison .
Servers on the other hand :)

Yes they did, from a court declared thief in a civil suit he brought himself. Evans' book is excellent for people interested in such things, very little of it is related to IT.

https://www.theregister.com/2007/07/...suit_resolved/

Not sure what point you're trying to make with that statement. Ubuntu has had 16 since 2015, Redhat 24 since 2015 across 5 major versions.

Did you read the whole post? Or are you just taking that part of it out of context?

It should make sense to you if you read it with the sentences immediately before it and immediately after it.

It was IBM who handled the cake to Bill, they did not think the microcomputer platform would make a serious dent in the marketplace.
Admittedly we have to give credit to Bill that he has the capability to predict and manipulate the future.

From post #6 in this thread, perhaps this problem with getting my scanner to work is a good example of the point I'm trying to make - particularly that Windows and Mac OS are much closer to being standards than the over 200 distros of Linux (although there are f

From post #6 in this thread, perhaps this problem with getting my scanner to work is a good example of the point I'm trying to make - particularly that Windows and Mac OS are much closer to being standards than the over 200 distros of Linux (although there are far fewer Linux envirnoments - especially as time goes by).

Currently with Linux, besides my current scanner issue, I once had an issue that I was willing to pay $ to someone to help me on the phone, or even mail my box to, to have the problem solved). Back then, I could not find either solution via Apple Care (and it wasn't a system 76 purchase) - previously I could find neither solution on the phone (or online).

My point(s) may be wrong. However, my point is that when really really in a bind, I could resort to calling for help, such as Apple support, & at least paying to get a problem fixed/rectified. Back when I was a paying member, I even actually had Apple Support show up and fix hardware issue(s) by switching out component(s).

Now, with Linux, I actually have the knowledge to do hardware repairs myself. Now, with Linux, I know to go to one of my 2 go to web sites to get help - most always via being told what to do with the command line in terminal. Etc, etc, etc ...

What I'm getting at, & I think most here realize, is answering the original OP's post, which is that Windows/Mac is easier to fix. Many, if not most, slightly older people dislike computers. Other than perhaps the past 2 recent generations, they do not like to use computers, find them difficult to deal with, and may even cringe at the thought of trying to fix either software or hardware issues. It's certainly due to a generational gap. Furthermore, they certainly are hard workers and strive to make every dime stretch, but nevertheless would be willing to pay a shop to fix their computer issue(s). But for those on the fence, I certainly believe those willing to do so, would much rather deal with a PC or Mac when trying to get a scanner to work...

I 'fixed' my Brother DCP-7020: XP in VirtualBOX.
I have a habit of copying all the Driver CDs to my HDD Backup Drive.
XP, Windows 7, Windows 10 as VMs protect my collection of hardware old and new.

That's Freedom with a capital F!
Until they're not... in which case it can be quite difficult to resolve an issue because of the proprietary nature of those OSes.
I plug it in. It works. What's hard about that? Linux comes with more drivers and better hardware support than any other operating system.

The fact that one person cannot get a device to work doesn't really prove anything. If it were thousands of people with the same problem, it might. If you get one of the Linux OSs at no cost, you can't expect much support. You can get support if you pay for it which is what Suse, Red Hat and Canonical do. I 'think' Apple support is probably better but the price you pay is also quite a bit higher.

On post #1:

I've had a similar experience here. People know windows is trouble, but it's familiar (to them) trouble. And it reinstalls well - it has to.

Linux has scores of distributions, a steep learning curve at least a dozen window managers. All the variety scares folks, and the CLI certainly scares them. People don't know what to google, That's what frightens them most. You want an answer5, and don't want to be treated as an idiot. Windows users DO want to be treated like idiots - and they are :D

EDIT: @rtmistler(post #10): Yes, windows does go up to 11. I had 10 installed, but it decided to update itself because it was downloading the update quietly in istallments and sprung that on me.

It reminded me of the volume knobs in the movie "This is Spinal Tap". Some dweeb thought that because his volume control was graduated to 11 that he had more volume :rolleyes:.

What a post. I appreciate the ideas and views shared.

Eleven. Exactly. One louder. :hattip:

I have the 'one louder' windows 11 now. I had to google how to shut it down :eek:

Right click on the 'start' menu, whose icon looks like a program. It's on the left. I'm not rushing back.

Microsoft Corporation came by their billions honestly. We have to give them that.

Windows is the foundation layer of a software "stack" that contains some truly excellent products. They have also lavished attention on the issues which face companies who own and must manage thousands of computers. They unabashedly followed IBM's business model in setting up their system: you will pay a lot of money to them in company-wide license and support subscriptions, but you will then get what you pay for.

Windows and Linux and MacOS (OS/X) are actually not in "competition." If you want to run a particular piece of software, you invest in the foundation which does it best – or, as the case may be, the only foundation which does so. It's entirely normal for enterprises to run all three platforms at once.

You really like revising history, don't you? https://www.justice.gov/atr/us-v-mic...-findings-fact

EDIT: But I will say that what is now being done with some of that money is highly commendable.

The government never succeeded in finding that Microsoft had "monopoly power," because the nature of the industry is such that no one can actually secure it. As we all saw, when one day when a college student spent a cold nordic winter writing source code. :)

The entire "open source" concept blossomed from there, and did what "monopolistic industry" could never have done. Which is why today we have technologies that we never could have "afforded" to produce, had the effort been required to sustain itself through proprietary revenue streams. "A rising tide lifts all ships," and every proprietary company has benefited.

But, Microsoft's (and IBM's, and Apple's, and Oracle's, and ...) business model does remain valid. They still offer proprietary things that are actually worth buying. They will never have "monopoly exclusivity," but they will still compete and win.

The US Government in the GW Bush administration unilaterally dropped the case despite opposition from many of the states in volved in it who opposed this action. The Bush Administration continued to severely limit regulation of the industry.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-...010-story.html

Microsoft has a justly deserved reputation for dishonesty and abuse of its monopoly power in the industry having over 90% of the computer market, still at that approximate level on personal computers. Microsoft has been involved in numerous lawsuits, the link below being the tip of the iceberg.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_litigation

Probably the best 'job' Gates ever did was outsmarting IBM, Patterson and Kildall in 1980. His actions since have proved that he is a shrewd businessman and that he would do pretty much anything to achieve his avowed lifetime goal of being rich.

Recently he has been giving a lot of his ill-gotten gains away to organizations that are deserving so he has to be complimented for that.

Windows is absolutely the best, easiest, fastest thing out there as long as all you want to do is run Microsoft stuff. I do not mean exactly things WRITTEN for Windows, but actual software written BY Microsoft. That is what it really is excellent at, and I have found no other good reason for it to exist.

The other good reason might be that it (re)installs well, which it has to. It's easier for a luser to reinstall windows knowing he will be finished the same day.

There you go again. Have you ever worked at the Ministry of Truth?

"The Court held that exclusionary contracts with Internet access providers violated the Sherman Act... The Court determined that inter alia, the appellate court’s finding of monopoly power was not error. Except for one license restriction prohibiting automatically launched alternative interfaces, all the original equipment manufacturer license restrictions were market power uses unredeemed by legitimate justification. Exclusion of the company's Internet browser from a program removal utility and commingling of browser and operating system codes was exclusionary conduct."

Source: https://www.lexisnexis.com/community...microsoft-corp

The outcome is somewhat beside the point, though. If you read the Findings of Fact in the DOJ link I posted above, you'll see that the company most certainly did not earn it's billions honestly. All of their questionable, immoral, unethical and outright illegal business practices are listed there in black and white on public record for you to see with your own two eyes. I'll remind you that these are findings of the court... not some baseless rumours from the press.
I'd argue that he's currently doing his best work.

Windows is specifically designed for simple minded people doing simple tasks.

that's the fun part. too many people don't look at computers as a way to have fun.