> The thing is, a stock Linux distro is made independently of the PC hardware that will run it. There's no integration like any PC vendor does when installing Windows, making sure the Windows configuration is well tuned.
You make it sound like Windows needs to be fine-tuned (by the vendor) to provide good battery life. This is absolutely not the case. You install a bare Windows 10 on a random laptop, and battery performance will likely be much better than on Linux.
Anecdata, but my desktop Lenovo workstation's suspend function worked well with Linux, but after an update (few months ago) it never resumes successfully. Nothing in logs -- just simply doesn't wake up properly. (4.10 kernel.) These are painful things.
> Anecdata, but my desktop Lenovo workstation's suspend function worked well with Linux, but after an update (few months ago) it never resumes successfully. Nothing in logs -- just simply doesn't wake up properly. (4.10 kernel.) These are painful things.
That sounds like my experience with Windows 10 on my gaming PC. I only use that machine when gaming, and while it has a <10 second cold boot time (god I love NVMe), I prefer to leave it running and let it fall asleep after a few minutes of inactivity. Some time last week or so, I noticed it never cycles fully to sleep; it will fall asleep and almost immediately wake up. I'm positive this was due to a Windows update, as I haven't changed any settings on it before or after the incident first occurred.
Now, this is on a PC I built, but I used a common motherboard (Gigabyte Z170M) and never had this issue on my previous build, also based on a Gigabyte Z series board. My wife's computer is a mini-PC made by HP, and it started having the same sleep/wake issues during the same week. Something in a recent Windows update has affected sleep states.
I had similar, terrible issues with my gaming rig when I let Windows auto-update from 7 to 10. I found that there is an option in system update to "restore" or "auto-fix" the OS. You might start by trying that.
I found that I needed to let the entire thing be wiped (including all software) and re-installed in order to get it working. A long time and complete pain in the ass, but it's much better now.
Just as a piece of warning if you go that route: MS decided that my legit MS office keys were "Pirated" because they were old and wanted me to upgrade (after telling me that it was a valid key 3 hours before) so I told them to pound sand and I was going to buy MAC's from now on, and I'm not a fan of Apple at all. They offered me nothing, but the chance to give them more money.
> Just as a piece of warning if you go that route: MS decided that my legit MS office keys were "Pirated" because they were old and wanted me to upgrade (after telling me that it was a valid key 3 hours before)
This happened to me after my first upgrade to Windows 10. I had a legit copy of Office 2010, and when I upgraded my Windows 7 installation to Windows 10 during the free year, I opted to do a clean OS install after 10 was activated. Upon reinstalling Office and inputting my key, at first it activated then it threw my Office install into an unactivated state and told me to contact my administrator. Umm, what? I'm the administrator and this was a retail purchased and licensed copy that worked fine before being installed on Windows 10. I even tried reverting to Windows 7 and installing Office on that, but it never activated and gave me the same message.
Thankfully I don't really rely on Office anymore and can get by with F/OSS alternatives or Office Online, but it definitely sucks that Microsoft appears to try pushing its business customers into O365 subscriptions and away from traditionally licensed software using what I feel should be illegal tactics.
Completely agree with you. I have in writing that my key would be good, even though the MS site said that there was an error and I needed to check with Customer Service. I then explained this to three people, whom found the written statement and said they couldn't/refused to fix the problem. They just wanted to sell my an O365 subscription.
As to how legal their tactics are, I'm not sure. I do know before I would never have considered anything other than MS, I'm now left to moving onto Mac's because I cannot give them more money and the work I do tends to now work in the Linux or alternative OS environments. Lots of industrial software that is touchy enough as it is...
I only boot into Windows once a month or so. This Monday, when I had my laptop sitting idle for a bit, I noticed the sound of the hard drive settling down and spinning up again in a regular pattern. At the time, I thought it was the Antivirus deciding to do an idle scan just when the OS put the drive to sleep, but now I think I might be affected by the same bug you mention.
You make it sound like Windows needs to be fine-tuned (by the vendor) to provide good battery life. This is absolutely not the case. You install a bare Windows 10 on a random laptop, and battery performance will likely be much better than on Linux.
Anecdata, but my desktop Lenovo workstation's suspend function worked well with Linux, but after an update (few months ago) it never resumes successfully. Nothing in logs -- just simply doesn't wake up properly. (4.10 kernel.) These are painful things.