With Linux, you select the right tool to the job. The ones given to you out the gate depending on what you install (Mint vs Arch, for instance) might be enough for all your needs, and you get to pick and choose starting gear. If you need more tools after the fact, you have a software center to install flatpacks for anything generic you may want, and the terminal lets you go wild if there’s anything special not covered you need modified. There’s manual pages, and the forms are last resort for most.
On Windows, you are given a generic toolset. Usually it works, but sometimes they just break for no discernable reason. You can call Microsoft for support, but good luck talking to a human. You can’t pick a different starting toolset, and while you can install software (by using a web browser and hoping you don’t get phished), it’s difficult to change underlying components without getting blocked by the OS or breaking a core function. Windows forums are quite a wasteland, and almost nothing is documented for the user.
But the frequency of issues requiring extra work is far higher with Linux than Windows, in my experience, and it’s often a much longer process to fix with Linux.
With Linux, I often run into issues that I’ll patiently tinker with for hours, but eventually run into a wall, resolve to address another day. And I’ll learn a lot about computers along the way! That’s fine and even fun when it’s my self-hosted recipe app (which apparently simply cannot run on a Raspberry Pi except for all the people who said they got it working on their machine yet their solutions don’t work on mine), but it’s far more frustrating when it’s an application for something more basic like music or video playback, word processing or spreadsheets or internet browsing.
Of course all the same kind of problems can occur on a Windows machine, but, at least in my life, it happens less than once a year as opposed to Linux where it seems to happen once per “new thing” I try to do. Some day I’ll do it. But right now, Windows 10 “just works” in a way that’s more valuable.
There’s a pretty good chance the Linux issues you’re having are actually Raspberry Pi issues. I’ve had to do so much more tinkering with SBCs to get things to work compared to x86 systems
The rpi 5 processor is armv8 and it lacks a lot of support in general. That thing has made me want to break my keyboard in half a few too many times lol
I mean here’s the comparison:
With Linux, you select the right tool to the job. The ones given to you out the gate depending on what you install (Mint vs Arch, for instance) might be enough for all your needs, and you get to pick and choose starting gear. If you need more tools after the fact, you have a software center to install flatpacks for anything generic you may want, and the terminal lets you go wild if there’s anything special not covered you need modified. There’s manual pages, and the forms are last resort for most.
On Windows, you are given a generic toolset. Usually it works, but sometimes they just break for no discernable reason. You can call Microsoft for support, but good luck talking to a human. You can’t pick a different starting toolset, and while you can install software (by using a web browser and hoping you don’t get phished), it’s difficult to change underlying components without getting blocked by the OS or breaking a core function. Windows forums are quite a wasteland, and almost nothing is documented for the user.
That’s true and it makes sense.
But the frequency of issues requiring extra work is far higher with Linux than Windows, in my experience, and it’s often a much longer process to fix with Linux.
With Linux, I often run into issues that I’ll patiently tinker with for hours, but eventually run into a wall, resolve to address another day. And I’ll learn a lot about computers along the way! That’s fine and even fun when it’s my self-hosted recipe app (which apparently simply cannot run on a Raspberry Pi except for all the people who said they got it working on their machine yet their solutions don’t work on mine), but it’s far more frustrating when it’s an application for something more basic like music or video playback, word processing or spreadsheets or internet browsing.
Of course all the same kind of problems can occur on a Windows machine, but, at least in my life, it happens less than once a year as opposed to Linux where it seems to happen once per “new thing” I try to do. Some day I’ll do it. But right now, Windows 10 “just works” in a way that’s more valuable.
There’s a pretty good chance the Linux issues you’re having are actually Raspberry Pi issues. I’ve had to do so much more tinkering with SBCs to get things to work compared to x86 systems
I thought that too, at least when I was trying all this on my Pi Zero 2 W but I think the 5 is x64 innit?
I take on projects on my weeks off, tho, so maybe I’ll set up a dual boot during my Q1 week off and take it from there.
The rpi 5 processor is armv8 and it lacks a lot of support in general. That thing has made me want to break my keyboard in half a few too many times lol