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Comment by dividedbyzero | Hacker News Reader

Nah, lots of shops begrudgingly support Linux laptops because a VM is a lot less practical, and the productivity hit would be substantial, probably, and forcing devs to make do with Windows only is bad for hiring.

If WSL really works out, though, it might be the other way around – Linux on Windows might work really well, be able to do things Linux itself can't, like interfacing with Windows-only hardware, using DirectX, and be the superior experience in total for lots of people. It will be much, much harder to justify the expense of buying a whole different set of hardware and support it if the net result is a worse experience across the board. Businesses tend to not care much about freedom of software and the like.

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I think the year of Linux on the desktop will be heralded by Microsoft introducing WSL3 that provides absolute compatibility with all Linux applications. ;-)

Not that most people would want to run most of those, but Microsofts corporate customers are fed up with supporting those Linux laptops and all the problems related to that.

Really afaik the only thing missing from working well with mainline WSL2 now is some UI apps using GL,etc for X11 and iirc that is being worked so no need for any WSL3. Considering i've mostly used win envs to begin with this is already good enough that i see very few reasons to ever bother with installing Linux for myself again and even those are dwindling quickly.

Interesting, thank you!

WSL2 is a VM...

It is but it's an incredibly well integrated VM that's transparent to the user.

I'm genuinely very, very happy developing on Windows with WSL2.

Does it support hardware performance counters needed for profiling yet? Or GPU acceleration?

> Linux on Windows might work really well … and be the superior experience in total for lots of people.

No, it will not and — without massive changes at Microsoft and in Windows — will never be. Source: have a Windows box, am repeatedly amazed at how bad it is. Seriously, it is embarrassing to use Windows. I think the only reason people enjoy it is the fact that they have not gotten a chance to really spend time in a good tiling window manager on X11/GNU/Linux. The GUI is ugly and laggy. The ads are an insult. The shells are either childish or stupidly (emphasis on the stupid) verbose, and gratuitously incompatible.

There seriously is no comparison: in 2020, Linux is head and shoulders above Windows on the desktop.

Most people who are happy with WoL are webdevs who do not really use anything beyond npm and git. So most people do not notice how bad things really are on Windows

Why is this getting downvoted? He's right. Refute his points instead of downvoting him.

> Why is this getting downvoted? He's right. Refute his points instead of downvoting him.

>> I think the only reason people enjoy it is the fact that they have not gotten a chance to really spend time in a good tiling window manager on X11/GNU/Linux

I don't like Windows, but its UI is not that bad, come on.

Moreover, I use GNU/Linux full time but I don't use a tiling manager. My windows are fullscreen most of the time, and the rest of the time the features that allow putting windows on the corners or the sides (with the keyboard or the mouse) are more than enough. Tiling window managers are not for everyone.

I didn't downvote but to me the message shows a lack of observation on how people use computers.

The update manager that popups a notification or a dialog box or reboots in the middle of a presentation or a movie or something and, to add insult to injury, the system taking its time to apply the updates during the next startup? that could be embarrassing.

Convenient UX features from the Linux world lacking on Windows are a thing (selection / middle click paste?), but Windows UI seems excellent. It's just less excellent than Plasma obviously, but it's nothing short of bad or embarrasing.

> I don't like Windows, but its UI is not that bad, come on.

I don't know. I am very OK with Win7 but I tried installing Win10 the other week on a VM in the intent to let it superseed my Linux on the desktop.

The 125% scaling of UI made fonts blurry on my monitor and text inconsistently sized. The "dark" theme lets core apps like Explorer flicker in white then turn dark, like slow Android apps. There are mini ad programs in the start menu. I don't even know where you're supposed to configure settings anymore without search; the control panel vs fancy settings apps vs msc snapins (which are the only parts that still work reliably)?

Their UI is worse than KDE or GNOME now. I had 3rd party applications working perfectly fine which I guess is the point but Windows10 UI is no marvel.

This is a problem because Win7 used to just work, discretely.

What's left is for me to experiment with group policy settings and suchlike (at least my edition permits it) in the hopes of getting my issues fixed. Probably have to throw in a ton of third-party "Windows 10 fix" powershell libraries to clean things up.

I got the Win10 Enterprise license through my company. I would never pay money for this OS, privately.

So to catalogue, your two issues are...

- DPI scaling turned on by default on high dpi displays even though compatibility isn't perfect. Well, GTK DPI scaling certainly isn't perfect either to say the least.

- Not sure where the settings are: Click "start" and click "settings". Forget about the legacy control panel as that is only there for compatibility with old software and for changing the settings of deprecated features used by old software. Forget about MMC unless you have been directed to use it by the documentation, like for example if you are administering Windows Server machines. And I'm sure it goes without saying that Linux systems are certainly no better when it comes to the diversity of methods for adjusting settings.

And these issues are so offensive that while you thought Win 7 was an "OK" OS, you "would never pay money for" Win 10?

I find that it's hard to successfully misrepresent what someone said when the original is right there for everyone to see.

What am I missing? The fact that it "used to just work" and now it's "worse than all the competitors" for no objective reason?

Poster is taking their own experience in regards to their own use cases as The One True Way. The reality is that there are a whole lot of things Windows does better and a lot of people prioritize those things over whatever advantages Linux offers.

Because it would be like me saying that Linux desktop is completely useless because it doesn't have a decent remote desktop solution.

It's true, but just because that makes the Linux desktop dead to me might not make the Linux desktop useless to you.

I did note that the WSL2 push might finally mean Linux gets proper RDP support, thanks to Microsoft. The irony is not lost on me.

you are being downvoted because kvm is just not capable of being hyper v and it never will be. hyper v is the best software in existance and windows will be fine forever.

My Hyper-V endeavor is basically a failed one, because on the latest version of Windows, running VMs still causes random bluescreens on my Ryzen-based workstation. I wish I could say it was good software, but it's very much lacking for me.

I use VMWare Player on a Win10 host and have never had an issue.

Genuinely surprised to hear that - running a Ryzen 9 3900X on Windows 10 with HyperV and it's been rock solid for months.

Is this sarcastic?

> Linux is head and shoulders above Windows on the desktop

When plug-and-play, drivers, and power management work correctly. When business software is compatible. When you don't have to search through obscure forums or jump on FreeNode to figure out why your wireless card doesn't work. When your filesystem corrupts and won't boot because you didn't shut it down correctly. When your font anti-aliasing and resolution scaling doesn't look like shit. When you have several hours a day to set things up, rather than getting work done.

> When plug-and-play, drivers, and power management work correctly. When business software is compatible. When you don't have to search through obscure forums or jump on FreeNode to figure out why your wireless card doesn't work. When your filesystem corrupts and won't boot because you didn't shut it down correctly.

GP did say "in 2020"; I haven't had any of those issues for years

This is the same canned response we also had twenty years ago.

"Works for me, so it's not an issue."

I agree that my experience is only one datapoint. But your comment was in response to someone who's experience was having more issues on Windows than Linux by saying that you don't have issues on Windows, which is the same thing.

Personally, I run into way more issues when I try to use Windows than Linux; for example, whenever I boot into Windows on my desktop, it doesn't recognize that my ethernet cable is plugged in unless I unplug it and then replug it back in. It also sometimes just doesn't give any audio output when it boots up, and I have to reboot to get it to work. These and other issues I have may not be issues you run into, but they are just as valid experiences as the issues you might have with Linux. My point is that the argument that Windows "just works" out of the box is not as objective as you might think.

> I think the only reason people enjoy it is the fact that they have not gotten a chance to really spend time in a good tiling window manager on X11/GNU/Linux.

I did and switched back to floating. AMA

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