Gparted
Yeah that’s a big one, tools like that and file system support are almost non-existent on Windows, because companies figured that Windows users are willing to pay for stuff like that.
One thing that I didn’t expect myself to miss is Zathura. Everything else always seems cluttered by comparison.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned package managers yet. I feel like a barbarian when trying to install software on other OSs. Especially macs. I feel like mac software is collectively pulling a prank on me.
Whenever I try to help my newbie friends with computer issues I’ll be like “uh just install
crocand I can give you another command to run”. But then I remember that installing software on a system without a package manager is pain. “Okay you have to go to this random github address, then download this specifically-named package, then extract that to a random directory that you’ll never move it from, then you have to put that directory in your PATH variable.” But wait, modifying your PATH variable needs its own set of instructions!On a related note, if I could just give people on other OSs one-liners to fix all their problems it would fix all my problems. I could absolutely bang out a one-liner to fix your problem, but if we have to do it through the GUI then we gotta screenshare.
The commandline experience. I feel like I can do much more within the terminal on Linux than on Windows. Yes, PowerShell is really powerful and can do almost everything, but it’s just clunky to use interactively. It’s clearly designed for scripting.
Being able to login while being offline. I can’t stand the microsoft account bullsh*t. I just want to access to the machine that’s in front of me, thanks.
If you’re cool with having no MS store, you should try out Windows LTSC. It’s the true successor to Windows 7, because there is no store, less telemetry, less of your computer telling you what to do. Also, you can still set up an offline account in LTSC because that’s something a true enterprise version has to be able to do.
There’s also https://ameliorated.io/ which used to be a custom prebuilt ISO, but now is more like an Ansible playbook that cuts the tumor out of vanilla Windows.
