Fuck Windows and Microsoft really. Today I had a meeting call through Teams first thing in the morning so I start my computer 10 minutes earlier than the call because it takes a like 3 or 4 minutes to boot and for Windows to be responsive. Windows decides to apply some past update so it takes 2 or 3 additional minutes which is fine, I am just in time for the meeting call. Well, 10 minutes into the call a notification in windows appears that the computer will restart in 5 minutes and with no option to postpone WTF. Imagine this was an important sales call, an emergency or something else critical, I might be fucked. The computer restarted I started my linux personal computer and I connect my bluetooth headphones to the it but no, they were connected to the Windows computer while it was restarting so I could not just call from it as the microphone started failing a few weeks ago. (I will just replace it, thanks Framework). So fuck my company for using Windows. Fuck Windows for developing such a nightmare OS with so shitty code. This was for sure a patch for a critical vulnerability, like always. And WTF this is Windows for a business, have a fucking super stable branch that does not need patches every other day. I don’t care about your updates to the shitty weather widget, just have a fucking working operating system that let’s me do my work. Fuck Microsoft monopolistic practices that keeps people and businesses from switching to Linux. There is no better publicity for Linux that Windows itself. Most Linux/GNU distros just let you choose when to update.
The differences in sheer speed and responsiveness is something FOSS alternatives need much more publicity about. When the requirements for one product are “help the user do what they want” and the requirements for another product are “synergize the KPIs of these 53 stakeholders in our trillion dollar conglomerate, monetize our market position in every way possible, and check the minimum viable checkboxes to keep end users engaged with the brand” it shows!
Windows to Linux is of course the most significant and worthwhile. As I like to describe it, even using the most full-featured distros out there (Linux Mint Cinnamon gang represent!) any flavor of Linux is like greased lightning compared with windows. And I mean Windows 10, not even 11.
A few weeks ago I turned on an old secondary desktop PC that had been powered off for a month. It had numerous updates, everything except installing a new named version. Even the kernel. I decided to time it. From the time I opened the software update GUI – including typing in my password, letting it download, letting it install, getting the “yo, reboot when you’re ready,” etc – it was done in 5 minutes. And those were 5 minutes where the computer was totally usable. Running the current version of the full featured Linux Mint Cinnamon 22.1 on a PC from 2011!
My favorite recent example is the switch from Plex to Jellyfin. Now granted, fully self-hosting means more IT admin type stuff for me so that family members and I can securely connect remotely. But god damn if every single app I have tried doesn’t feel like warp speed compared with the Plex versions. Did you know that watching my media using the WebOS app on my LG TV does not have to be dog shit slow? And don’t even get me started on phone apps like Finamp. (it really whips the jelly’s ass?)