If you don’t respect the bootloader, you don’t get a seat at the table.
There’s a chance I’d still have a windows install alongside Linux, if windows would just mind its own business.
Windows modified my partition layout after a forced update. I felt violated…
I was setting up some template VMs on a fresh Proxmox VE (VM server) yesterday. Total install and troubleshooting times for each template were as follows;
- Linux Mint Debian Edition - 20 minutes
- Windows 10 IOT LTSC - 3 hours
- Windows 11 IOT LTSV - 6 hours, with the benefit of lessons learned from the Win 10 install.
The amount of obscure configs I had to dig up just to get them going was disgusting. Also, why the fuck are so many drivers not in Win10/11 by default, yet Linux has no issue including them all at a fraction of the ISO size?
I believe it’s due to kernel philosophy.
Linux and Mac are a monolithic kernel, which I understand to mean that the entire OS runs in kernel space to operate the compatible hardware. This has the advantage of making sure the OS is in the drivers seat for resource management, and no individual program is easily able to overload the system and create instability, but it may limit the power of some programs and delay compatability of new hardware and software.
Windows, on the other hand, is a hybrid kernel, which means some functions are managed in user space so that a program has more control over the hardware. This can be useful for pushing gaming to the limit or running experimental/custom programs, but it can lead to instability from resource hungry programs or security vulnerabilities from Trojan horses.
As for why their ISO is huge, I s’pose it’s due to all the extra crap they throw in there like AI, pinball, and data collection stuff.
Apologies if I got something fundamentally wrong—there are plenty of bigger nerds than me on here—but that’s my best attempt at explaining the difference as well as I know it.
Didn’t they remove pinball from Windows?
It’s just like Microsoft to remove the one I might actually want out of those three. More pinball, less data collection!
There’s a Linux port of it on Flathub
Yeah I think it was removed in windows 7 or 8.
Windows, on the other hand, is a hybrid kernel, which means some functions are managed in user space so that a program has more control over the hardware.
Windows and Linux are both monolithic kernels, in the sense that most device drivers run in kernel mode with kernel privilege. They’re not like Mach or Hurd.
Windows outsourced their device driver development early on to the hardware manufacturers, and they encouraged closed-source drivers with separate source trees and builds. To facilitate this, Windows NT developed a system called plug-n-play (PnP) which searches for and loads driver modules (.sys files) from disk into the kernel.
Linux developed a similar system of loadable kernel modules (.ko files), but their system arrived much later. One reason is that Linux’s GPLv2 license mandates that driver source code be licensed under compatible terms. That and Linux has always been pretty open about accepting driver code into their main source tree. Finally, manufacturers were never interested early on in writing Linux drivers, so the driver development was being done by the community, which was already using the Linux source tree.
So Linux didn’t have as much pressure to develop a loadable module system. So they did it later.
To the present day, the majority of Linux device drivers are submitted to mainline Linux and go through the Linux review process. Windows drivers are mainly developed by third parties, but they do have to go through the Windows Hardware Quality Labs review and testing process.
Apple writes all their MacOS drivers internally, because they are also the hardware OEM.
Your standard off the shelf easy to setup Linux ISO (mint for example) is like 4 GB after install, it includes a whole office suite, a few games, screensavers, GIMP, and a whole bunch of software you may not ever realize is on there or even need.
Did you know many distros standard install includes the GNU C/C++ compiler? Do most people need the GNU compiler? No, but the whole OS and all these tools is already smaller than a barebones install of windows since microslop just ships bloat.
Well you see, if there are fewer drivers included there is more room for user friendly features, such as persistent ai intrusion. You probably also gonna update them anyway, might as well download fresh 😇
Don’t worry windows. You may be back as a small virtual machine for some obscure rarely used reason.
Just got my printer working so even my virtual Windows can go away now 🥳
Sadly, I’ll be doing the same because the software I need to configure my mouse, keyboard, and controllers don’t support linux. They run in wine, but they can’t see the peripherals.
I use WinBoat for work. Easy to set up and does what I need. I definitely prefer this over setting up a VM manually.
Setting up a vm is a trivial task for me. I’ll take a look at winboat though
Namely: running software.
(JK JK I swear I’ll switch as soon as I’m not fighting abject poverty and can afford a hard drive, internet, etc.)
A pivotal moment in my life was when I first installed Linux to the entire hard disk instead of a separate partition.
I have done it a few times over the years but never on my main driver. Until last month… I bought a new laptop for my business and immediately installed Linux on the entire drive. I never initialized the win 11 that came with it.
So far I have had a few hiccups with getting some things working. I have also yet to find a basic WYSIWYG editor for my very basic HTML business webpage on Linux. So I am keeping my 6 year old laptop with win10 up and going on my desk for now.
I expected I’d have to go back at least once to transfer all my old files over.
Nope. Linux could read the windows partition and so i just moved them over with a drag and drop.
I did dual booting for a month just to make sure there wasn’t a single use case for windows left. Not ONE use case for me.
I did it for almost a year. Went back over once just to get files I missed moving the first time.
“But I need…” No you don’t. Commit and learn a new way to do the thing you swear you need Windows for.
How do I run my WMR kit on Linux to play modded Beat Saber? I can mod beat saber on Linux but I prefer to sweat in my WMR kit instead of my expensive Index.
I set up dual boot just in case, but I can’t remember the last time I even booted Windows. When I get a chance I’ll probably just nuke it.
My VR set up simply will not work in Linux yet, or at least not correctly. Once that’s fixed I’ll nuke my windows part
Yeah I’d done the same a while back just to play D2 (fucking Battle Eye), but found I just never booted into it and said fuck it I’ll live w/o games that have incompatible anti cheat.
Eh. When ditching W10, I did install on a separate partition; I have one piece of software that I knew would be troublesome.
Then one day I needed space, and just nuked windows. Didn’t boot it in months anyway.
I have a separate drive for windows. I’ve heard tales of how windows can simply break or eat Linux partitions or something. It’s only there so I can run games that won’t run on Linux.
It would wipe the boot loader, might still do that it’s been a long time size I dual booted, and from what I remember would get massively confused if it couldn’t boot in to windows during one of its update/reboot x3 cycles.
Also would eat kittens given half a chance
I did dual booting for a long time, because ✨ proprietary drivers ✨ , To this day I can’t use my wifi (there’s no patch for now) or bluetooth, but it’s acceptable price for not being under microsoft’s feet
I thought about dual booting on my PC when I built it like a year ago, but after reading about pros and cons a little bit I just said nah I’m good, let’s do this, Linux. When my wife recently got a used computer from her sister, they didn’t give us the login password, so instead of calling them and asking I just put my flash drive in there and said bye bye windows. My favorite part about installing Linux is how fast it is. I don’t have to sit and click through a 20-step installation wizard where every step takes 20 minutes to do whatever it’s doing.
I’m dualbooting Linux. Mostly because I’m in the process of switching distros and I’ve been dragging my feet for a long time.
Make the plunge my friend, u could dual lot TWO Linuxi instead ;)
That’s what I’m saying, I’m dualbooting Ubuntu and Debian! I’ve been Windows-free for years.
Oh my bad, swag!! I’m diving head first now, and have been reading a bit about BSD? I’ve heard cool things but also some… weird(?) things too, do u know anything about that?
Nope! I heard that some people really like BSD, but I’ve never looked into it.
I have Win10 IOT installed in VirtualBox, but I haven’t booted it in almost a year. I don’t have any use for it, that Linux can’t handle.
My first ever Linux install, I just went for it. I backed up my media, played around in the live environment for 5 minutes or so, then I wiped the drive and installed. No dual boot, no VM, just bare metal. That was 10 years ago, and I have never looked back.
I switched to Linux the first time couple of months ago. Thinking I would switch between Linux and Windows until I get evertything working under Linux. But after installing Linux, I never went back to windows xD but it’s still installed
