this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2026

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You paid me, a long-time Linux user, to use Windows 11 exclusively for a month: here’s how it went (www.osnews.com)

submitted 22 hours ago by HaraldvonBlauzahn@feddit.org to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[–] WolfLink@sh.itjust.works 1 points 20 minutes ago* (last edited 6 minutes ago)

Sleep/Wake issues

I’ve had plenty of sleep/wake issues on Linux, including on my current setup which is Bazzite (based on Fedora, which the author uses). Currently on Bazzite, some things don’t restart correctly after a reboot (specifically Gnome tweaks and OpenRGB). Not the worst issue but still annoying.

AltGr Dead Keys

This is the default behavior on macOS

A desktop operating system needs to come with a solid, serviceable email client. I consider this non-optional.

The only truly useful email client I’ve used is the default macOS one. I am actively taking suggestions for Linux. I tried one called Evolution I think? It was ok but didn’t support all my different email providers. I tried Thunderbird but it baffles me that I can’t view an email and have the list of emails open on the side.

I honestly think the author might have a better time with macOS. Not that they would prefer it over Linux, but a lot of what they complain about is better on Mac.

Whenever I experienced a short stretch of time where I felt “perhaps this isn’t so bad?”, one (or multiple) of the problems and issues described above would snap me out of it.

This was my experience trying to switch to Linux until very recently (until I started using Bazzite). Even now I still regularly have issues I need to debug, but it’s much, much more stable than previous distros I tried.

[–] ShredderFeeder@shredderfood.net 4 points 2 hours ago

I'm pretty sure nobody has enough money to pay me to give up my Linux...

[–] daychilde@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago

I've been a computer geek since 1987. I started out on dos and spent a lot of my time in Windows, but I've used Linux as well for more than 25 years now.

This article was as useless and as stupid as I anticipated. They clearly are happy in Linux and they were not going to be happy in Windows.

I'm quite happy in both. I like both. I think there's advantages and disadvantages to both. I will definitely say that there are some things I really prefer in Linux. But in recent years, a lot of that I've gotten to incorporate over on the window side things.

I now have bash under Windows. I have the compose key under Windows thanks to a third party utility called wincompose. It's free.

It doesn't take me excessive clicks to do things. In Windows I mean.

And thanks to modern technology, not quite everything is upgraded under Linux with APK anymore.

I've had very few problems under Windows. And I've had very few problems under Linux. As far as system stability.

Use what you like. Use what you enjoy. Use what works better for you. For me, that's both.

[–] MatSeFi@lemmy.liebeleu.de 9 points 7 hours ago (3 children)

He’s completely overlooked the thing that annoys me the most: the unbelievable number of clicks you need to make in Windows/Microsoft to get anything done. – Saving a file to a folder of your choice:

Windows: Click ‘Save’ -> Click ‘Choose a different location’ -> Scroll down to skip all the favourites and default locations -> Click the drive where you want to save the file -> Find the folder -> Click ‘Save’
Linux: Click ‘Save’ -> Go to the folder -> press 'Save'

Not ot mention my recent attempts to rename a Bluetooth device (two devices of the same type were displayed under the same name, making it impossible to tell them apart) 🤮

[–] stealth_cookies@lemmy.ca 1 points 34 minutes ago

Microsoft screwed this up when they tried to make onedrive the default and therefore purposely made saving to disk harder.

Now you need to know the F12 shortcut to bring up the expected behaviour breaking decades of muscle memory.

[–] timochka@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

Be fair though, "saving from a GUI app" is not exactly Linux's strong point either.

Click "save"; wonder which badly written save dialog this app is going to use; is it the one with the save button at the top? Or the bottom? Will it actually appear, or will it pop up below the window for Reasons, making you think the dammed thing has crashed? Maybe it's one with a list of favourite locations in the left maybe it's not... Maybe they're actually my favourite locations, or maybe it's an entirely different set of the developer's. If I'm lucky, there's a way to navigate to my home directory without going all the eay to the root and working up from there, more than likely not...

Best of all, it's one of those Save dialogues that thinks it's smart to enumerate the entire goddamned filesystem, network mounts and all, before it will respond to any input at all, leading to the window manager eventually fretting that maybe the application has crashed... Or perhaps it's one of those ones related to Dolphin that thinks it understands WebDAV mounts better than davfs, except that it actually doesn't and you end up saving to a temporary directory just so you can move the file where you actually wanted it from the commandline...

aaaaaargh

Don't get me wrong, I use Linux on all my machines and have been a Unix user since NetBSD 0.8 (33 years, fml...) But clicking "save" or "open" is one of those things that has me shaking my head thinking "how can it STILL be this bad" every time.

[–] douglasg14b@lemmy.world 5 points 3 hours ago

Wait till you use a Mac!

Somehow they saw that and said "Hold my Beer" and went out of their way to ensure their users get maximum RSI pain.

[–] moendopi@lemmy.world 15 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

I'm gonna ask a dumb question here and hope for a not dumb answer. When the author says "I know UI consistency has been a dirty word ever since the web and then iOS rose to prominence", what exactly are they referring to?

[–] XLE@piefed.social 14 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Best guess : Web interfaces are known for being inconsistent because they don't follow any particular OS-specific design language. And I've seen people complaining about MacOS being really inconsistent, especially in its use of menu icons (what an essay!), and I've seen some people complain the bad UI practices come from iOS.

[–] Ludicrous0251@piefed.zip 7 points 6 hours ago

Going further down the rabbit hole, most software now, if not bundled with the OS, is produced 3rd parties who often have their own established brand and design language.

It used to be if you were making an app for Windows, you somewhat tried to use the existing design language for your app. Nowadays if you're a big company you want your interface to be consistent no matter what is it's running on, so you set your own rules.

Linux still has this as well, but its less prominent because of the general ethos of trying to create an app to do one thing and do it well. Things are shifting as big companies jump on the Linux train though, who knows what it'll look like in 10 years.

[–] bunkyprewster@startrek.website 40 points 15 hours ago

For someone used to desktop Linux, where respect for the user, consistency, customisability, and performance are still held in high regard, Windows 11 feels like an endless string of punches in the face.

[–] HollowNaught@lemmy.world 28 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (2 children)

I've been forced to use windows for some propriety software during uni. I got a laptop from IT with higher specs than my old one and:

It runs worse than my old shitty laptop
It boots up slower than my old shitty laptop
The battery icon was missing from the taskbar for some ungodly reason (I had to get IT to force an update)
The internet it gets is way worse than my old shitty laptop. I do not know why

So yeah I'm not using Windows 11 ever again

[–] Buckshot@programming.dev 4 points 9 hours ago

Yeah i have to use W11 for work and the brand new Dell XPS, upper mid range, they gave me compared to my 2017 i3 with linux and all this is true.

About the half the time i boot it and the network just doesn't connect. Wired or WiFi. Have to unplug the dock and reconnect it. DNS will drop for 10s at random.

There's times my laptop shows it age like i was bulk processing a load of photos, just resizing, and it took several minutes when the newer cpu was probably several seconds but that's the hardware, not the software.

[–] CADmonkey@lemmy.world 6 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

I use windows 11 at work. I run solidworks, which is a 3D CAD/modeling program so my work computer is reasonably powerful with a decent chunk of RAM.

My laptop from 2020 uses mint. It's faster, although I havent tried to use solidworks on it because I'd have no idea where to start on getting that to run.

[–] osbo9991@lemmy.world 5 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Only way I've found to get solidworks to run on Linux is to run a windows 11 VM using virtual machine manager (VMM). Ideally with GPU passthrough, among other optimizations. Kind of runs like shit on my Thinkpad T580 though, which is to be expected for an 8th gen quad core i5 laptop from 2018...

I've tried FreeCAD recently, and it isn't that bad. The latest updates (v1.0 and beyond) have made it much better than it used to be. It helps to watch video guides, as the workflows are a little different. I found this one to be helpful: https://youtube.com/watch?v=9cqs3oTzpac

[–] CADmonkey@lemmy.world 2 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Every time I've tried to use freecad its been basically useless due to nothing working the way it does in pretty much every other CAD program. Every once in a while I give it a shot because someone swears that its been fixed.

[–] osbo9991@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago

Oh FreeCAD definitely works in strange ways, mainly in the UX department, where it still needs work (kinda like GIMP does). Building a model in a broad sense is similar to solidworks (sketches extruded to 3d, cutting off material from there, etc), but understanding which workbench does what and navigating things is kind of a pain, even now.

Then again, it was similarly frustrating when I had to use fusion 360 instead of solidworks for a project. CAD programs are generally complex pieces of software, so it isn't surprising that switching to one you aren't familiar with really slows you down.

[–] Hadriscus@jlai.lu 7 points 14 hours ago (3 children)

God I really hope someone figures out Wayland+Wacom. I cannot wait to escape Windows

[–] heh@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago

I’m stuck on windows for HDR compatibility reasons.

Absolutely sucks. I hate it so much. You can’t do anything with the computer.

[–] Hund@feddit.nu 2 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

X11?

[–] Hadriscus@jlai.lu 1 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

Apparently Wayland has become default in most distros, and actually installing X11 back on some of them is a lot of work (it was straightforward only on CachyOS) and I don't have the tux-fu to wedge it in by sheer hackery.

So there's this end of life situation and the fact that I work with different monitors and do CGI so there's a few more downsides there too (scaling, color management)

[–] cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Wacom tablets should work with KDE and Wayland. They work great with X11 though.

[–] Hadriscus@jlai.lu 1 points 6 hours ago

Yea, I know. Thanks. It's what people told me (users and developers) but it just doesn't work for me. You're right that it works fine with the X11 session. The problems have been the same in every Wayland distro I tried (Debian Trixie, Nobara 42 and Bazzite something) and are consistent between two (very different) tablets, so I ended up ruling out the hardware. At least on the tablet side..., because I have yet to try the same thing on my laptop to rule out any potential signal issue with my USBs

tl;dr it needs a little more investigation on my part to explain why it doesn't seem reproducible for other users

[–] MurrayL@lemmy.world 64 points 21 hours ago (19 children)

There’s a similar incentive to this Windows 11 one, but for macOS. Yikes.

Not sure why that warrants a yikes; macOS is far more usable than Windows 11. I’d go so far as to call it downright pleasant in comparison.

[–] nieceandtows@programming.dev 1 points 7 hours ago

Yeah mac os is the best middle ground. It is a lot more like Linux than Windows will ever be

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