I just have to say, after having booted into Windows, that Linux is so much nicer than Windows when it comes to doing system “updates.”
So, here I am, sitting in my chair for about 20 minutes looking at a mostly black screen and a highly dubious looking percentage number going up very slowly. It tells me that Windows is “updating” and that I should keep the computer turned on. Good thing I have the computer turned on or I wouldn’t know that I shouldn’t have it turned off, right?
Anyway, I start to think about how this experience goes in Linux. In my experience, I do “system” updates about once a month, and I can see each individual package being installed (if I glance away from my browser session, that is). In Windows, I have no choice but to sit here and wonder if the system will even work again.
Windows decides that it wants to update drivers, apparently (I honestly have no idea what it’s doing, which is part of what pisses me off), because it reboots the computer. Then it reboots again. Then, eventually, everything goes back to the familiar Windows desktop. WTF?
How anyone could prefer Windows to Linux is truly a mystery to me.
I ran both an immutable distro (which downloads an entirely new image for every update) and Arch (which if you let it sit for a while basically reinstalls everything in an update).
I have no fucking clue what even takes so long during Windows updates. Both the download and the installation are slow as hell.
As a Gentoo user, I get irrationally angry whenever I see Windows updates around me.
Like when I recompile my entire system, it takes a bit, but the PC is responsive and I get to configure the software before it’s updated.
If I had to guess, it’s because of two things: windows creates a system restore point, which tracks every file the update touches, every time it installs an update (as opposed to something fast like ZFS or btrfs snapshots). Then it also keeps a prior version of anything system related on top of that, these outdated and insecure system libraries live on forever in the WinSxS folder. Imagine keeping an insanely bloated version of every system package installed, forever. I’ve seen WinSxS get to be over 80 gigabytes, of just old crusty shit.
Which immutable distro and what was the user experience like when compared with a traditional one?
Fedora Silverblue, and it was buggy and limiting.
Want to see a really big difference? Try doing updates (or using Windows at all) with “only” 4GB of RAM and a mechanical hard drive. You can do it in a virtual machine if you don’t have a spare system sitting around. Use Windows 10 or newer for best effect. (Good luck if it needs more than a few weeks of updates; you might be waiting and rebooting for quite a while before it finishes.)
One might argue that this is unrealistic, because modern Windows system requirements state up front that such modest hardware isn’t enough, but that’s not the point.
Do the same thing on any modern Linux distro, and notice the difference. Now consider how much more efficient Linux is at making use of your hardware, no matter how much RAM or how fast the disk.
Well that is how the updates work if you install hardly any software. In case you have, every other one hits you with the update by itself, showing random dialogs, opening a browser to download the binary, asking for the elevation etc etc.
How anyone could prefer Windows to Linux is truly a mystery to me.
Easy of use. The “Click here and I’ll do the stuff for you” kind of “easy of use”.
…I mean… Linux CAN be EASY to use – even MORE than Windows. But for that, the user has to dig in deep. Really deep.
You don’t have to dig in that deep to get a good OOTB experience with Linux today, but you have to know and research which box you’re gonna “open”. Which I think is the biggest hurdle for most people that could adopt Linux.
Good thing I have the computer turned on or I wouldn’t know that I shouldn’t have it turned off, right?
Sometimes people have their computers turned on, but then they turn them off. I know, it’s wild.
In Windows, I have no choice but to sit here and wonder if the system will even work again.
I’ve never, in multiple decades of using Windows, and thousands of updates, ever had an update installed and not had my computer work again. I suspect this is most people’s experience, or they wouldn’t use it.
How anyone could prefer Windows to Linux is truly a mystery to me.
Because most people are not system administrators and don’t have the time or knowledge to debug their computers every 5 minutes, or to figure out how to do what they want it to do or run the program they need to run. I’ve used both extensively and Windows is, by a landslide, the easier system to use, regardless of what the reasons are.
