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For the same reason that I didn't replace my linux at home and at works by windows: because they have different strengths.

Windows has for it:

- the gazillion software, free or crazily expensive, that do not exist on linux

- the hardware compatibility, whatever is built, it is with windows on mind

- the office file formats that are the de facto standart

- the software installation model that is very crap but infinitely better than on linux

- the OS upgrade path also has it's issue but still much better than on linux

Of course linux has its strength also, and you can find it better in some cases on the points I listed



I use both Windows and Linux, and while I agree with your first three points for specific proprietary software depending on your job, the last two seem a bit odd. I thought these are often considered advantages of Linux?


I know that my opinions on these 2 topics are controversial, but they come from decade to usage of both of them as end-user that just want to click and use.

Moreover I think that not only windows' model is bad, and worse what makes it better than linux's model is the monopolistic and proprietary nature of windows.

At first, comparing both model can be thought as a joke: on windows, discovery and installations are manual, update are either manual or have to be implemented by the software developer, uninstallation is a bad joke that can let several gigabytes somewhere on your hard drive without even your knowledge or knowing how to find them (I'm not considering the app store, winget, etc because they are either bad or not well integrated).

But because windows versions last long, that they are very few of them and because the software is decoupled from the OS, installing a software on any windows machine that is less than 10 or 15 years old is downloading one of the maximum two installers, click to install and it's done. To update is just to accept the update for most software, but indeed to check first if there is an update for still many software and repeat the installation step. There is now redeeming the uninstallation: going to the parameter windows, uninstalling the software, and praying everything is properly removed.

In theory, on linux everything is better: click on the app center/use a command and look for what you want, clink install/type a command to install, everything is updated in one click/command, a software is uninstalled in on click/command.

But practice is different: discovery is still manual because you need to have more information and know the alternatives. Installation and update are where the real issue is: at the difference of windows, there is a close coupling of the OS and software. Every software has to be built and packaged for the dozen of distributions and all the versions of each distribution. The work is often duplicated: both the distrib managers and upstream propose their own packages. if you need or want to install from upstream, the dev must have their own repository that you have to add or you have do install the package manually. Update has the same issue: cross your fingers that your distribution and its version is covered either by the distribution or upstream, and that there is no conflict several sources are available. If you installed a package manually, it's not better than on windows. And because of the software-OS coupling, updating the OS means updating the software, and updating the software may mean updating the OS. Uninstallation is much better: afaik the issue of removing the dependencies is mostly resolved, and if sometimes some stuff is not removed, it's either small, not safely removable or easy to find.

For the OS updat, in theory again linux is much better, but in practice and since windows 7, here again because of the longevity of the OS versions and the decoupling OS-software I had less issues under windows


I think I understand where you're coming from, since I used to feel the same way. For system packages, and for Windows installations, I also have plenty of nightmare stories across decades. I haven't had as many issues lately with Linux (running Fedora GNOME), while Windows has become even worse somehow. Flatpak and AppImages address these concerns to a large extent (but has its own problems with disk space, of course), but that's my experience anyway.




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