
If you must run Windows 10 - _o-O-o_
https://tinyapps.org/blog/201811300700_windows_10_ltsc.html
======
owenwil
I see a lot of angry posts like this, but fail to understand how it's
reflected in reality in 2019—I agree that Windows 10 was a little messy at
launch, but it's come a long way from where many of these complaints seem to
stem from.

Yeah, Windows has a bad rap, but in the last 2-4 years has come leaps and
bounds from where it was—implementing great, thoughtfully designed features on
a regular basis, for free. With WSL2 and the other developer-focused
improvements in tow, most of these are a shitlist of nitpicks, than things
you'll run into every day. I switched from macOS about two years back, and
couldn't see myself going the other way anymore ever again. But, that said, I
can see why people want to stay there! That's the beauty of choice.

These types of posts are based on historical grudges, rather than modern
experiences with Windows. Sure, there's going to be annoying things to change
out of the box, but every machine, with any OS, has that.

~~~
charlesdaniels
As someone who has used Linux (with a few brief stints into macOS and BSD) for
quite some time (since about 2012) coming from Windows before that, I don't
understand the people who constantly defend Windows in these types of posts...

In principle, the feature set that Windows 10 ships could be useful. I don't
find it appealing personally, but if it works well for you then that's great.

The issue that I have had is that every version of Windows I have used (from
XP up to 10) has had serious reliability and performance problems.

As a specific example, it seems that the one Windows machine that I keep
around to play games on needs a complete re-install every 6-12 months, usually
because Windows tries to update and bricks itself so badly that even "Windows
Recovery" cannot salvage the install. This is a relatively nice machine
(Haswell i5, 24GB DDR3), and I tend to stay on the happy path of just running
the vanilla install plus Steam and a small number of games (never any
programming, web browsing, etc.).

In cases where I've had to use Windows for work, I've found that most of the
built in programs lag and take a long amount of time to respond to keyboard or
mouse inputs (in the specific cases I'm thinking of, this was on top-of-the
line Dell Precision notebooks at the time). Most of my code seemed to run
subjectively much slower natively on Windows than it did in a Linux VM running
on the same machine.

I'm not trying to be a power user of Windows, as I generally try to avoid
using it as much as I can due to the bad experiences I've had in the past. I'm
not doing any crazy registry editing or anything like that. Just pretty basic
development work and gaming over the years. In that time, I've never had a
Windows install where the features reliably worked, and the install remained
stable for any period of time.

This is all anecdotal of course. It's possible I've just be incredibly
unlucky, or that I've had a string of a half dozen machines that have hardware
that's somehow broken in a way that only affects Windows.

So what I'm wondering is: all you people who keep chiming in on these types of
posts claiming that Windows works well for your use case -- what are you
doing? What's the secret to having it actually function reliably? I've not
been able to replicate any such success.

~~~
wvenable
Whatever you're doing, it's not typical.

My main desktop has been upgraded from Windows 7, WIndows 8, 8.1, and now
Windows 10. I've never have to re-install in all that time. It's stable and
fast. No update issues.

This is really the norm. And I'm not particularly easy on Windows -- I have
tons of development tools, games, customizations. I've changed hardware.

~~~
charlesdaniels
> This is really the norm.

Again anecdotally; most of my friend group (professional developers and CS
students) who run Windows seem to constantly complain about performance issues
and bugs (UI issues, not sleeping correctly on laptops, etc.). I don't think
anyone has ever said "hey guys, come check out this slick new feature" or
really anything positive at all about it.

> No update issues.

<insert anecdote about Windows 10 updates interrupting activity X and taking Y
hours>

Which has happened to me. And seemingly many others on the 'net.

> Whatever you're doing, it's not typical.

That's what I'm trying to figure out. I was under the impression that running
Steam games (on my personal machine) or Eclipse (in my professional Windows
experience) were more or less the happy path for the use cases of gaming and
development respectively.

~~~
wvenable
People who don't have any problems don't shout it from the rooftops. They just
go about their day quietly and contently.

And if you start looking around, you'll notice that people complain about Mac
OS stability and Linux stability all the time too. It's pretty hard to gauge
reality this way.

------
groundlogic
I've been using Win 10 on my main desktop for the past four years or so. I
almost feel embarassed for saying so.

Microsoft definitely has a systemic "Software Quality Problem".

It does get really embarassing at times. Or, at least I would hope someone
there is embarassed. I'm not sure. Maybe Raymond Chen is the single one
embarassed person and everyone else are new recruits happy to be there?

Really, the only reason I run Windows 10 is that it's the fastest way to use
the web, which is what I do all day long. The browsers are optimized for
Windows in three critical ways:

a) general rendering speed

b) font rendering quality

c) site quality/functionality - a particular browser not working with a
particular site is a much more urgent issue on Windows, where 90% of the users
are than anywhere else.

~~~
oonis
Is this site saying that for 240 dollars I can buy LTSB? I've been trying to
get a hold of a copy but unsure about the legality of those 30 dollar keys
online since I don't understand licensing.

~~~
zamadatix
The site details the process and requirements pretty well, not sure if there
is something in particular you are looking for it doesn't describe?

As for the 30 dollar keys you can find online they will activate Windows but
it won't actually be "legit", the requirements listed in the site are correct
and you need a VL agreement and a CAL.

------
radus
Counter-anecdote: I'm the happiest I've ever been with Windows both as a
development platform and for everyday use. The release of WSL has solved a lot
of daily annoyances, and I'm hoping that the new Windows Terminal app will
soon be usable so I can replace cmder which has been great, but a little
clunky and slow in my experience.

Other new features that I enjoy: Windows Sandbox, new Snip and Sketch, the
current iteration of OneDrive (though I think I still prefer SkyDrive from
many years ago..), Your Phone app for sending messages, emoji keyboard,
clipboard history, local PIN instead of password.. I could go on but those are
all things I use on a frequent basis and they make for a great experience.

~~~
blub
Spying on users through so-called telemetry and the silly games are a fact,
not anecdotes.

I'd suggest that Windows fans should raise their standards a bit, otherwise
for Windows 11 they will get a nice progress bar at each boot "uploading data
to MS for mindcrime verification" and you have to pay for Windows in IAP gems
you collect by playing games and watching ads.

~~~
radus
The bulk of the linked page talks about aspects of Windows 10 other than
telemetry.

If Windows 11 boots up with a progress bar that says "uploading data to MS for
mindcrime verification", and requires me to play games and watch ads to pay
for it, I will reconsider my OS choice. For now, I'm enjoying the OS and have
dialed down the telemetry to a level that I am comfortable with.

------
eberfreitas
There is basically one reason why I use a Windows machine and that is _games_.
I know linux has seen a lot of movement in that area (tks Valve) but I've
tried it, and it works great, but performance is better in Windows for my
machine. So I bought this machine where I can game (it is not anything fancy)
and I would really like to work on it as well.

I have a notebook with Ubuntu installed and if you would ask me I would rather
work on the linux machine, but I'm trying to push the envelope with WSL2 to
develop with RoR... Weird bugs and slow sometimes (better than WSL1 tho). Oh
well...

~~~
twiceaday
The sneaky bit about gaming is that it means your most powerful computer is
reserved for Windows. I'd love to treat my Windows pc as a gaming console and
keep a Mac as my personal computer but that would cost a lot more money so I
just put up with Windows.

~~~
LilBytes
Ironically I do the same, work provide a laptop for us that you're free to
choose within reason and comes with a mandatory MDM (enforce encryption,
remote wiping) and an anti-virus and that's it. Besides that you can use the
laptop pretty close to a BYOD model.

I sold my Dell XPS 13 and now I use my work provided MacBook Pro for nearly
all other purposes besides Gaming. It's my first Mac and I've found developing
on it to be a dream after 10~ years of Windows use.

I'd love to run MacOS on my gaming PC for when I'm not gaming. Unfortunately,
Hackintosh' is possible but seems like a time sink and I'd rather spend that
time you know, playing games, or working on my homelab (e.g. breaking it).

------
throw0101a
This post recommends LTSC because it has been pre-de-crappified (e.e., no
Candy Crush pre-installed).

However in January 2020 Microsoft will not support Office 365 (ProPlus?) on
LTSC. This is because the 'official' LTSC use case is for things like medical
devices, and not "regular" desktops. It's just that many IT sites got tired of
the Windows 10 what-a-mole with non-helpful features, phone home stuff, etc,
that they went with the cleaner version.

Doing a quick search, it seems people are saying "just buy Office 2019" to
square this circle.

Can anyone comment the pro/cons of using Enterprise LTSC or not?

~~~
jiggawatts
I'm facing this decision right now. To LTSC or not.

I have to build a virtual desktop environment for an isolated network that is
almost-but-not-quite a SCADA system. It's the monitoring and management bits,
without the direct control.

It's not ultra critical, but there's a strict uptime requirement, and a
general preference for long-term service releases of everything where
possible. Security and prevention of "data leakage" are also very important.

Windows 10 just. does. not. work. out of the box as a VDI operating system. It
will absolutely massacre your shared storage subsystem (even if it is all
flash!) because every now and then it just "decides" on its own that applying
a 4GB update to Minecraft is the most important thing in the world right now.

For Enterprise editions there's on the order of 200 GPO settings and about 20
PowerShell scripts required to make it "behave", but these settings _will_
break as soon as the next semi-annual release is applied because Microsoft is
actively trying to circumvent customer controls over their own environments.

For example, did you know that they use deliberately misspelled domain names
such as "microsft.com" for telemetry URLs to try and trick hapless firewall
admins? This is to work around their desperate customers who resorted to
blocking "microsoft.com" in order to prevent the endless torrent of
information leakage out of their secure networks. But Microsoft just can't
have _that_. No sir! Got to get that juicy telemetry out, no matter what.

I'm waiting for Microsoft to piggy back telemetry on DNS requests or use some
other method that is indistinguishable from an Advanced Persistent Threat.
It's just a matter of time, mark my words.

Check this horror show out:

    
    
        https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/privacy/manage-windows-1803-endpoints
        https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/privacy/manage-windows-1809-endpoints
        https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/privacy/manage-windows-1903-endpoints
    

Notice that the list keeps changing with each release?

You also can't block everything in those lists, because then legitimate
functions such as Root CA updates will break. Sure, you can override that with
a local Root CA update, but the complete workaround procedure for all such
services is not documented in any one place, so you're looking at something
like 3 months of effort. Enjoy!

Or you can just use LTSC and need only about 10 settings and a couple of
days... guess which one I went with?

Microsoft "suggesting" to their customers that they should use the semi-annual
channel is self-serving crap, and I'm not falling for it.

~~~
user5994461
Actually, there were comments on hacker news the other day about the domain,
the most likely explanation is that is was too cumbersome to provision new
things on microsoft.com so the devs went with what they could get their hands
on instead.

~~~
jiggawatts
Yeah I know, but from the perspective of a customer it sounds absurd.

Personally I'm fed up with single entities such as Microsoft using TLDs for
every damned thing, it makes it very hard to identify what is and isn't
legitimate traffic. It also makes it borderline impossible to configure
"whitelisting" firewalls or proxy servers.

I got to wonder what fraction of this is incompetence ("we can't use our own
domain because of bureaucracy") and what fraction is deliberate ("everyone has
blocked microsoft.com so we used something else")...

------
ocdtrekkie
LTSC is not intended as a desktop operating system. What people should be
looking for is Enterprise: Which has all of the telemetry 0 options and such,
but still works with modern Windows applications.

It's highly likely especially after Windows 7 goes EOL, you'll start seeing a
lot more consumer applications that depend on Windows 10 functionality that's
not going to work in LTSC.

~~~
throw0101a
> _What people should be looking for is Enterprise:_

Does it take more effort to de-crappify non-LTSC Enterprise? Things like
games, Store, Cortana, etc.

Perhaps people are going with Enterprise LTSC because 'regular' Enterprise is
still filled with too much garbage. Perhaps that should be telling Microsoft
something.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
The problem here is your misunderstanding that the store is a problem: Many
drivers and Windows features are now available via the Store (Here's the Intel
Graphics Control Panel:
[https://www.microsoft.com/store/productId/9NDLCLMMTMRC](https://www.microsoft.com/store/productId/9NDLCLMMTMRC)),
and this will continue over time. Literally Notepad is transitioning to
distributing via the store next year. I think even Apple transitioned to
recommending the Store-based install of iTunes on Windows.

Cortana is being phased out of Windows 10 into a separate app, and eventually
a replaceable component. Enterprise should install without any games/ads
AFAIK.

------
secabeen
Look at his list of terrible things in Windows, and compare to MacOS. Other
than telemetry, MacOS is very similar:

* no Cortana (MacOS has Siri on all systems)

* no semiannual feature upgrades (Mac OS upgrades annually)

* not a single tile on the default Start menu (UI difference, mostly personal taste)

* telemetry can be set to 0 (the lowest level) (MacOS has some telemetry, although the specific amount is less, and Apple has been a lot less transparent about what they track)

* no "Show suggestions occassionally in Start" (This is stupid, but easy to turn off)

* despite some misbelief, WSL and Hyper-V work just fine (Apple doesn't offer virtualization at all, you have to buy a commercial product)

* receives security and stability updates for ten years (unlike Windows 10 Home & Pro versions, which reach "end of service" after just 18 months from their initial release) (MacOS only receives security updates for 2 years, approx.)

* no Metro/Windows 8-style/Modern/Windows Store/Universal/Windows apps like Store, Edge, Calendar, Camera, News, Weather, etc. (Apple has all of these apps in the App store too)

* no zombie games like Candy Crush Soda Saga, Bubble Witch 3 Saga, March of Empires, etc. that refuse to die (part of Microsoft's plan for "post-license monetization opportunities beyond initial license revenues" much like the recent Mail app debacle) (Plenty of these in Macos)

All in all, the differences here are pretty minor. Unless you're willing to
run Linux on your desktop, your only options are pretty balanced in the
unpleasantness they offer. MS supports Windows 10 for many years, Apple
requires a full OS upgrade every two years. Both have App stores full of both
good and bad apps. MS does a little more pushing of apps and suggestions, but
it all can be disabled, and with Group Policies, it can be disabled centrally.

The main difference is in the telemetry, and MS gives you plenty of options
(at install, even) to turn those down/disable those.

~~~
musicale
\- macOS gets security updates for 2 previous versions usually, and Macs
themselves get OS updates for 5 years (though sometimes longer)

\- macOS isn't bundled with unkillable freemium games

------
habitue
I feel like there's this continuum:

Linux: Free, Doesn't spy on you

MacOS: Costs money, Doesn't spy on you

ChromeOS: Free, Spies on you

Windows: Costs money, Spies on you

~~~
user5994461
You must be kidding on Linux not spying on you. The ubuntu start menu is
sending everything you type to the internet and filling the menus with ads.

~~~
throwaway-9320
[citation needed]

~~~
jodrellblank
Circa 2012, and disabled-by-default since Ubuntu 16, but still a system wide
toggle instead of a per-use option:

> Ubuntu, a widely used and influential GNU/Linux distribution, has installed
> surveillance code. When the user searches her own local files for a string
> using the Ubuntu desktop, Ubuntu sends that string to one of Canonical's
> servers. (Canonical is the company that develops Ubuntu.)

> [..] Ubuntu uses the information about searches to show the user ads to buy
> various things from Amazon.

[https://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/ubuntu-spyware-what-to-
do](https://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/ubuntu-spyware-what-to-do)

[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/ubuntu-
spyware.en.html](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/ubuntu-spyware.en.html)

------
bhauer
Microsoft needs to realize they are doing their name harm by not giving power
users and evangelist-style technologists an obvious and easily-selected low-
or zero-surveillance Windows version.

If this article is mislead to select LTSC instead of Enterprise as that option
(as is suggested in this thread), the confusion of Microsoft's messaging is
largely to blame. Microsoft should have marketing material aimed at individual
technologists who want a premium Windows experience with ~0 surveillance.

~~~
saagarjha
> Microsoft needs to realize they are doing their name harm by not giving
> power users and evangelist-style technologists an obvious and easily-
> selected low- or zero-surveillance Windows version.

Why can't they do this for everyone?

~~~
beatgammit
Because regular users don't seem to care, and Microsoft obviously gets some
value out of it. If it's easy for power users to do it, it should be pretty
easy for regular users to do so as well, it's just that power users would
think to check.

------
gibspaulding
There's some really great info in here!

The school I work for has been pushing out an LTSB image to most of our PC's
and I can attest that it is a huge improvement over Pro.

The article also recommends Optimize-Offline and O&O ShutUp10 for users who
can't get a license for the LTSC image. I hadn't heard of Optimize-Offline,
but ShutUp10 is great for making Windows 10 way less annoying and invasive.
I'll be checking out Optimize-Offline tonight!

~~~
STRiDEX
I had a good experience with "tronscript" found here on reddit.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/TronScript/](https://www.reddit.com/r/TronScript/)
It removes a lot of the crap that ships with windows 10 along with disabling
telemetry. It was a decent place to start with a new windows computer.

github: [https://github.com/bmrf/tron](https://github.com/bmrf/tron)

------
squarefoot
Before I abandoned the Windows ecosystem, I loved Ninite
([https://ninite.com/](https://ninite.com/)). It repackages most well known
free software creating a single installer which will contain all of them,
minus bloatware, adware, toolbars etc, so that one can replicate identical
installs of the same software on several machines very easily and much faster.

Another interesting repository was
[http://www.aplusfreeware.com/last_freeware_versions.html](http://www.aplusfreeware.com/last_freeware_versions.html)
It contained the last free version of lots of well known software before their
makers decided to turn them commercial, add adware or discontinue them.

~~~
lysp
Ninite also has an updater.

It checks for all apps (that it knows about) and if they are out of date can
silently install the latest version of all apps at once in 2-3 clicks.

------
stuartd
Another option without Edge, Cortana and Candy Crush is Windows Server 2019
which is what I have on my Dev PC.

I’ve always run desktop server when I could - back to NT4 - initially to avoid
any differences between local behaviour and deployed, though this is not
really ever the case now. So now it’s for this reason - to avoid the cacophony
of recent Windows versions, weird behaviour from updates and the like. I don’t
know offhand how much a license is, mine is MSDN.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
There are a number of challenges with using Server as a desktop OS. Sometimes
utilities I want to use are $20-40 for a desktop PC, and $1000+ to install on
a server OS, even though they are the same software. Sometimes apps just won't
work because they are checking what OS you are using and don't like it.

Recently I tried setting up a Windows Server 2019 install... to use as a home
server... on my Intel NUC, only to discover that the Ethernet driver on the
NUC has been intentionally omitted from Windows Server compatibility, because
Intel wants you to use enterprise class hardware with Windows Servers. (If you
plug in a USB to Ethernet dongle that uses a Realtek chip, Windows Server
works fine on the NUC, but this is hilarious. There are also bad-hack ways to
modify the Intel network driver so it installs on the Server OS.)

~~~
user5994461
Last I worked on that, drivers had to be quite explicit about which OS version
they support. Intel wouldn't be able to make drivers compatible with Windows
Server 2019 given the OS was probably just released and the driver probably
predates it.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
The drivers won't install on any version of Server for this chipset. And Intel
has stated the reason why, it is an intentional choice.

------
AcerbicZero
If Win10 would just let you _do_ what you want instead of forcing you down
various half baked paths it wouldn't be too bad. I ran Server 2016 for awhile,
which had a few drawbacks, but overall was a much better experience. The lack
of customization for basic stuff is obnoxious both in Win10 and Server2016,
and third party solutions to core windows things (Start Menu is a good
example) can be hit or miss.

I'd be a little more generous if this most recent round of Win10 update hadn't
messed a bunch of stuff up which _was_ working, and rather than spend 4 hours
googling esoteric windows registry settings I think I'll just switch to Server
2019.

------
Kuraj
I would be all over LTSB for all the things except lack of support for
Microsoft Store apps, which I consider a vital feature - because for some apps
this might be the only distribution channel available.

------
imposterr
I've tried LTSC, and to be honest, I prefer Windows Server 2019. It had the
ability to set the Telemetry to 0 as well, and has less stuff pre-installed.

~~~
Someone1234
Indeed true, but Windows Server 2019 is more expensive.

[0] [https://www.cdw.com/product/microsoft-windows-
server-2019-es...](https://www.cdw.com/product/microsoft-windows-
server-2019-essentials-license-1-server/5301531?pfm=srh)

------
mythrwy
The investments I've made in learning Linux well have paid off so many times
over. Like VIM, there is a hump, some annoyance and then you get all your time
back invested and so much more.

At this point I find Windows so hideously unpleasant I believe if I were
forced to use it as a daily driver I'd go into another line of work. Life is
too short to be annoyed all day and not have control over your surroundings.

------
jscholes
> If you must run Windows 10

I must, because it's the only viable choice for a blind, screen reader user
(me) who wants to get real work done.

~~~
latexr
I’m curious about this in case you wish to expand on it, such as what you mean
by “real work”. Perhaps there are no macOS equivalents to the apps you need
for your occupation, but generically claiming one can’t get “real work” done
on macOS is inaccurate for several jobs.

Unless you’re referring to the screen reader, but my impression is Apple is
generally regarded as the best in what comes to accessibility features, and
they keep improving. They’re so proud of it they frequently brag about it in
promotional videos they present at high-visibility events such as WWDC.

Which makes me even more interested in your experience, since you _live_ it.

~~~
jscholes
> Unless you’re referring to the screen reader

I am. I would never claim MacOS couldn't be used by professionals in a more
general sense.

> but my impression is Apple is generally regarded as the best in what comes
> to accessibility features, and they keep improving. They’re so proud of it
> they frequently brag about it in promotional videos

For screen reader users, they're the best in terms of what they ship with the
OS. You get a fully accessible experience out of the box, which includes a
tutorial for first-timers. You can even run with text to speech in the
Recovery mode e.g. to format your disks.

Contrast that with Microsoft, with Windows 10 being the very first version to
offer an accessible setup/installation process, no obvious way to use a screen
reader in Safe Mode, and next to nobody using Narrator in their day-to-day
computer use because it took so long to be developed to any usable degree. One
of the most popular Windows screen readers (JAWS) also costs hundreds of
dollars - thousands over a user's lifetime if they purchase upgrades along the
way. Apple are definitely winning there. Everything is free and just works,
and I'm quite happy for them to brag about it.

Where it starts to fall apart is when you want to actually get things done
outside of a core set of Apple apps. For example, Office support is pretty
lacking, with poor or no accessibility for advanced word processing and
spreadsheet features. The terminal support is so bad that an enterprising
blind user made his own terminal screen reader to combat it[1].

There are other problems, such as the screen reader's slow performance making
the entire OS feel sluggish. Plus, if there are any bugs in it, you have to
wait for an entire MacOS update before it gets fixed. That's annoying when
it's a Window Manager bug, but can be completely disruptive when your only
gateway to your computer won't read your email for a while without crashing.

There are also tons of more opinionated stuff that users can (and do) argue
about, like the efficiency of the way you browse the web with VoiceOver on
MacOS vs the way Windows screen readers do it. But once you've assessed that
the core accessibility experience isn't going to work for you, debating the
rest is pretty pointless. Plus (and this is entirely anecdotal) it can become
exhausting trying to have a discussion about these problems, only to have
hordes of users tell you that you're wrong even though they're unemployed (or
employed in a different field) and don't have people relying on them to get
anything advanced done in the first place. Sometimes I think there's a
tendency to want to justify how much money they've spent on expensive Apple
hardware which, realistically, they didn't really need, especially if the cost
of a cheaper Windows laptop plus JAWS would've been less or the same anyway.
And these days, there's a fantastic free, open source screen reader for
Windows[2].

[1] [https://github.com/tspivey/tdsr](https://github.com/tspivey/tdsr) [2]
[https://www.nvaccess.org](https://www.nvaccess.org)

------
astine
I work for an MSP which supports Windows installs. The support teams
apparently hate our LTSC customers because they require manual upgrades unlike
the standard version.

------
jayess
I guess I'll just say it. I love windows 10. I tried a mac for a couple of
years and it feels like the OS is stuck in circa 2008.

------
timw4mail
Maybe I just don't use Microsoft's built-in software that often, but I haven't
had many issues with Windows 10.

------
chadlavi
Holy hell, I had no idea it was that bad over in PC land. I mean you _hear_
things, but jesus.

------
chx
This is so tiresome.

I posted this to reddit:

I installed my first Linux in 1994, before there was a Linux 1.0. I use Linux
to this day on my router and my server.

I have been using Linux as my daily driver 2004-2017.

You can't say I haven't tried.

I maintain anyone advocating to use Linux on a notebook has Stockholm syndrome
or more amicably, uses a very narrow set of hardware and services ("plain"
wifi, no bluetooth, no printers, no scanners, no Thunderbolt). Windows has a
Linux subsystem, use it, it's great.

Your choices include using Ubuntu or a similar system where the six month OS
upgrade will break your system so badly you won't be able to work for days. Or
you can use Arch where at least the main body of your system will stay alive
(most of the time but not always) during rolling upgrades but "insignificant"
pieces like MFC devices or bluetooth will break all the time. Mind
[https://xkcd.com/619/](https://xkcd.com/619/)

And if you ever need to work with enterprises, their wifi, their VPN... the
company will have an IT helpdesk ready to help with any glitches if you are
running Windows or Mac but if you are running Linux? Sucks to be you. And it
does suck.

I now have an external GPU via Thunderbolt. I plug in, my monitor plugged into
lights up, all my running programs move there. It's a nonevent. So is
undocking. How would that work on Linux?? The hot-plugging-an-nVidia-GPU might
be supported on paper but I am very happy not to need to configure that and
even more not to need to keep that configuration working. And I don't think
moving apps from one GPU to the next GPU would just work without an X restart.

Nope. The driver support is so far superior in Windows it's not even funny.
Sure the command line sucks but oh well, just use WSL. Use O&O Shutup to kill
the controversial reporting back features. Enjoy.

And then I got some answers and I looked up other Thunderbolt uses under Linux
and the results... oh my. A quick check shows the Aquantia 10 GbE chipset
driver
[broke]([https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/58174](https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/58174))
from 4.15 to 4.16 fixed in 4.17 and then from 4.20 to 5.0 again and there is a
patch but the [bug
report]([https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=202651](https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=202651))
is still open (every affordable, single port 10 GbE TB3 adapter utilize this
chipset).

~~~
throw0101a
> _Your choices include using Ubuntu or a similar system where the six month
> OS upgrade will break your system so badly you won 't be able to work for
> days._

Or Ubuntu LTS, where you only have to worry about things every five years (or
two if you want to update).

This is what is used by my local helpdesk, and things generally haven't been a
problem from what I can tell.

~~~
wbkang
LTS has its drawbacks. For years I had to work with Ubuntu 16.04 I had to
compile my own vim and tmux to have features I want. I have no problem doing
that as a developer but it's not a very good replacement experience for end
users.

~~~
throw0101a
There's a new LTS every two years, so I don't think things get too out of
date.

Also, are you doing it by hand? Have you looked at either pkgsrc or spark.io?

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pkgsrc](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pkgsrc)

* [https://spack.io](https://spack.io)

------
jevgeni
Could everyone chill with this already? We get it, you’re super clever and
super privacy conscious. Now let people enjoy the products they like.

