why i can't work with windows

05 Sep 2020 - mrtn

Preface: This is not meant as bashing. I’m aware that lots of people are happily working with Windows every day - and I don’t want to change that. If you like Windows: Good for you! I’m the last one who wants to convert you to Linux. Why? Because I simply don’t care what you are use to get the job done. Almost a year ago, I realized that I had no idea what it’s like to work with a current Version of Microsoft Windows. The last time I’ve used it was with Windows 7 - which is already End of Life (EOL) for quite a while now. So I decided, it’s time to start a little experiment:

Setup my main machine with Windows 10
Use it daily

Oh boy, I did not think it would be that frustrating.

At first, it kinda worked kinda okay-ish… I’m used to a little bit of searching when I want to install some software on a system. I’m also fine, that I can’t install every software right out of the package manager. But not being able to install anything at all from the non-existant package manager. What the Fuck? So the workflow is: search the web - go to the developers website - search for the ‘download’ button - install the software. Updates? Well, the software may or may not check for them.

So the initial setup was a drag. An annoying and ineffective waste of time.

After that crap, the system was ready to use. Fair enough: It was faster, more responsive and even more stable than I though. With the Windows Sybsystem for Linux (WSL), you are actually able to use linux cli tools. After testing it for a while, I used it less and less - don’t get me wrong, i love the command line and it’s tools. Hell, I even write this blogpost in vim and might be able to exit the goddamn thing! But under Windows - it is the tool in itself. You can’t edit any system settings or accesss logs in /var/log/.. Sounds weird - but that is the experience you face ‘over there’.

To do any settings, Windows offers a bunch of total different looking and working GUI applications. Ugh. Nothing beats the adventure of searching for the settings for my bluetooth headset.

After a while, i realized another thing: Somehow I’m creating a big mess of files all over the file system. Some things land in ‘Documents’, some get just dropped in ‘Downloads’ or directly at ‘C:’. Oh, and the focus on physical drives is stupid and I hate it. Y U NO mount?!?!?

The thing that finally broke me and made me format the goddamn thing and put ubuntu 20.04 (old man wanna go LTS) on it again? The annoying updates. The annoying Dialogues that keep popping up and that the fact that I can’t update when I want?!

So yeah - I’m finally back on ubuntu. Brave new world! And it already feels so much better using the damn thing.