edit: hey guys, 60+ comments, can’t reply from now on, but know that I am grateful for your comments, keep the convo going. Thank you to the y’all people who gave unbiased answers and thanks also to those who told me about Waydroid and Docker

edit: Well, now that’s sobering, apparently I can do most of these things on Windows with ease too. I won’t be switching back to Windows anytime soon, but it appears that my friend was right. I am getting FOMO Fear of missing out right now.

I do need these apps right now, but there are some apps on Windows for which we don’t have a great replacement

  1. Adobe
  2. MS word (yeah, I don’t like Libre and most of Libre Suit) it’s not as good as MS suite, of c, but it’s really bad.
  3. Games ( a big one although steam is helping bridge the gap)
  4. Many torrented apps, most of these are Windows specific and thus I won’t have any luck installing them on Linux.
  5. Apparently windows is allowing their users to use some Android apps?

Torrented apps would be my biggest concern, I mean, these are Windows specific, how can I run them on Linux? Seriously, I want to know how. Can wine run most of the apps without error? I am thinking of torrenting some educational software made for Windows.



Let me list the customizations I have done with my xfce desktop and you tell me if I can do that on Windows.

I told my friend that I can’t leave linux because of all the customization I have done and he said, you just don’t like to accept that Windows can do that too. Yeah, because I think it can’t do some of it (and I like Linux better)

But yeah, let’s give the devil it’s due, can I do these things on Windows?

  1. I have applications which launch from terminal eg: vlc would open vlc (no questions asked, no other stuff needed, just type vlc)
  2. Bash scripts which updates my system (not completely, snaps and flatpaks seem to be immune to this). I am pretty sure you can’t do this on Windows.
  3. I can basically automate most of my tasks and it has a good integration with my apps.
  4. I can create desktop launchers.
  5. Not update my system, I love to update because my updates aren’t usually 4 freaking GB and the largest update I have seen has been 200-300 mbs, probably less but yeah, I was free to not update my PC if I so choose. Can you do this on Windows? And also, Linux updates fail less often, I mean, it might break your system, but the thing won’t stop in the middle and say “Bye Bye, updates failed” and now you have to waste 4GB again to download the update. PS: You should always keep your apps upto date mostly for security reasons, but Linux won’t force it on you and ruin your workflow.
  6. Create custom panel plugin.

  1. My understanding is that the Windows terminal sucks? I don’t know why, it just looks bad.

I am sure as hell there are more but this is at the top of my mind rn, can I do this on Windows. Also, give me something that you personally do on Linux but can’t do it on Windows.

  • JC1
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    9 months ago

    I’ve been an on and off Linux user for a long time, but my main OS used to be Windows. I recently switched to Linux (Arch btw) and I love it.

    For my use cases, here is what I like about windows:

    • Office 365
    • Gaming
    • Onedrive
    • Just works
    • touch screen and touch pad
    • Hardware support
    • Autohotkey (can live without)
    • Software compatibility
    • VR
    • Parsec

    Here is what I like about Linux

    • Dynamic tiling window managers.
    • Customization, I can have my notifications on the top right, the way I like them.
    • Smooth as fuck: very fast!
    • Very clever solutions (looking into NixOS currently for example)
    • Terminal: fun to use and it’s fast!
    • Much more control over my system.

    The things I dislike about windows are mainly that it’s stupid slow compared to Linux and the growing presence of telemetry and ads (though I wasn’t that affected). Also, I can’t replace windows default shortcuts or some functionalities.

    What I dislike about Linux is that there is always something that doesn’t work properly. I currently have issues with DPMS. My laptop has trouble with the behavior if the touchpad, sometimes the gestures work, sometimes they don’t, it depends on its mood I guess. I tried Wayland, but with a nvidia card it has a lot of issues, I had to go back to X which sucks since I really prefer the way wayland works. I’m quite technical, but sometimes the solutions don’t really work.

    I read a few things in this thread that I disagree with though, namely:

    • You can launch apps from PowerShell (terminal)
    • You can have package managers, I used scoop, choco and winget. Every app that I use can be installed and updated with those, from PowerShell.
    • Pretty sure you can update your system from PowerShell, then you probably can make a script to update everything.
    • You can disable auto-updates and auto-reboot in Windows. I never had my computer reboot on me and it stays open 24/7. What I liked is auto-update, but no auto-reboot. I chose when to reboot, only had a notification which was disabled when I was playing a game.
    • There are options for launchers, the windows menu or powertoy run.
    • You can create shortcuts (similar to .desktop) and you can also make a bat script instead of a bash script.

    A lot of comments are about a knowledge deficit, not a capability deficit from Windows.