Reserved bandwidth??
Some sort of hidden, concealed, clandestine internal QoS implementation in Windows. Reserving a portion of network bandwidth for high priority traffic sounds like a good concept, but I don’t like the fact that this is so hidden (I’ve been working with computers for many years and I’ve never heard of it until now), and that the mechanism to determine the priority of a packet is unknown.
We know windows spyware traffic have the top priority.
I love shitting on Windows as much as anyone, but that is a completely baseless, fictitious accusation. And if not, give me a credible source.
If anything, I’d keep spyware traffic as low-profile as reasonable in Microsoft’s place.
I tend to agree.
Nevertheless, some unknown implementation can have bugs and things can go wrong and there’s nothing you can do about it, short of “rebooting” or d̷o̶w̸s̸i̷n̴g̸ ̴t̶h̸e̷ ̸h̵a̵r̵d̷ ̵d̷r̶i̴v̶e̷ ̵w̶i̴t̸h̷ ̸̞̺͠h̵̺͙̎̍o̸͔͠ͅḻ̷̀̇y̵͚͍̎ ̷͉̅̅w̸͎̔a̷̧̫̒́t̶̼̉̓ę̵̾͗r̶̫͑͑ ̴̣̿͒(̷͙̎a̸̬̺͝͝n̸̞̓̓d̴̬͌̍ ̸͇͕͌͝s̷̡̯̓͝u̸̡̳̇͝b̴̳͜͠s̷͍̘̽ë̵̜q̷̝͐̄ȕ̵̞̐e̷̲̠̐́ń̴̨̙͝t̸̛̬͝l̶̮̔͠y̴͕̪̑͝ ̵̖̆ḃ̴̪̟u̶̢͓͑̌y̵̜̤͌̏i̵̦̋ň̴̨͚̀g̸͓͑ ̴͍̬̽à̶͜ ̴͇͔̓n̴̬͂͜ì̷̢̛̯c̴̤̖̈́e̶̼̫̐̊ ̵̹̏͝f̸̙̀̑r̷̪̩͆͆e̸̤̫͛͋s̷̢̙̏h̷͇͔́ ̸̭̆͝N̷̰͗͛͜V̶͇͒̚M̸̟̍͜ě̷̛̟ ̸̢̞́͝a̷͙͔͒͒n̷̻͇͝d̸̘̥͌̾ ̴̜͓͑p̷̬͑͊ŭ̸̮̏t̸̲̀t̴̡͚̽í̶͎͓̑n̴͕̘̒̈́g̴͓̰̓͝ ̵͓̎a̴̻̼͗ ̷̦̍̈́s̷̥̅̈l̴̝̂e̴̞̅͊ḛ̴̊̅k̷͚̕ ̵̛̼̬͗D̴̻̾̽e̵̙͂̊b̷̝͘ī̵̢͇ą̵̂n̴͖̑ ̶̼̚h̴̼͂͑e̷̲͆̆a̵̡̋d̸̢͔̈l̶͕̍̍e̸̛͕̙̒s̶̞͔̀͠s̸̯͖̕ ̵͍̦̈́̉ ̸̨̨̓i̸̙͖͗̌ņ̶̯̍s̸̡̖͗̇ṯ̷́̒ä̵̦́̎l̶̼̄l̵̨͊̊ ̴̳͑͗ó̵͎̅ǹ̴͈̚ ̷͖͊͝i̷̠͇̊t̷̼̞͒͘)̵͎̤̔͌
https://www.makeuseof.com/windows-limit-reservable-bandwidth/
It’s not as scary as it sounds.
It’s not, and in a vacuum I don’t think anyone would mind. It is the fact that it is concealed that is really shitty.
“It reserves bandwidth for high-priority tasks such as Windows Update over other tasks that compete for internet bandwidth, like streaming a movie”
As much as I’d like to keep my system up to date (and I really do), if I’m watching a movie then that is my priority. Any task I’m currently using the bandwidth on, should be considered my system’s priority. This is akin to rebooting the computer when it determines it is necessary, with the user having little control to stop it; it’s intend isn’t malicious, and it is meant to protect the user, but all it achieves is upsetting the user and make us find ways around it or turn it off completely.
It’s used for updates. I’m not sure if it works all the time.
I think that it used to be called
superfetchin the old days. https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/superfetch-service-disable-helps-to-increase-speed/3c4d5b4b-edef-4eb7-9456-52fd304e606cIf you’re using an “unofficial” license, it’s probably normal to disable updates and afferent services.
I remember from years ago when I was modding Windows XP installations with nLite to try to purge all the unnecessary bits and install some useful stuff. Superfetch was this annoying service that supposedly ruined online gaming due to lag. :)
Prefetch and superfecth are just obnoxious services that waste disk space. You can safely disable them, there is no downside to not using prefetch or superfect on modern SSDs. On regular spinning drives, yes, they did make loading programs a bit faster.
Superfetch was keeping an index of file relationships in RAM and pre-loading files you were probably going to use next. It didn’t ping your network at all, but it could easily eat up a ton of disk resources and RAM. It was really only an issue on old 5400rpm laptop HDDs from what I remember.
Might be thinking of windows search indexing.
Yes, disable Windows search indexing as well. No point in having that on an SSD, it’s pointless, it just wastes disk space.
I am currently dual booting and trying to get feature parity in my Linux install as a reletave newbie.
So far the largest hurdle I’ve been able to solve was getting my RAID array recognized. That sent me down a rabbit hole.
To get it working in Linux I needed to:
- switch from LMDE to Mint proper
- add a PPA repository
- install the RAID driver
- manually edit my grub config file to ignore AHCI
- run a command to apply the change
- reboot
- format the volume
To get it working in Windows I needed to:
- format the volume(Windows gave me a popup with a single button to do this on login)
You’d normally use a software raid implementation these days, and Linux has a number of those. But yeah, dual booting can expose some quirks and filesystems and disk setup in general is one of the most prominent.
This. How an advanced use case is accomplished is not a point against a system’s usability.
The point I was trying to make is that if you ever want to do something that is not covered with an out of the box install, it’s typically far harder to do in Linux than in Windows (although my ~15 years as a windows sysadmin probably bias my opinion)
Windows is turning into a telemetry nightmare because about 10 years ago Microsoft figured out that they could sell ad space and monetize user data, so I’m trying to get off the platform before my LTSC install hits EOL. But I have to admit it’s a hard path.
Now do a raid like it’s typical for Linux and get it to work on Windows.
Oof, hoops you have to jump through to get two disks in a mirror on windows still haunt my dreams sometimes
(although my ~15 years as a windows sysadmin probably bias my opinion)
So basically: it’s not any harder in linux, but you have more than a decade of muscle memory in windows, so it’s harder for you.
That’s like saying “Japanese is a less efficient language than English, all of the words are different, and when I want to say a word, I have to learn it first, but in English I just know the words! English is so much better! (My 30 years speaking english probably bias my opinion)”
Things are certainly different, but its hard to compare which is “harder” for the advanced use cases.
There’s no shame in having long term experience with one platform and having that shape your expectation about how a solution should look.
But in your example raid controller driver was covered in an out of the box install in windows. If it wasn’t you’ll still need to do pretty much the same. Also there was a couple of weird steps in your linux list like switching DE to run a couple of CLI commands and disabling AHCI for some reason.
Congrats on taking the plunge. I suspect there are others like you.
I’m actually kind of envious. The joy and frustration and joy again of exploring something new was something I relished in my early Linux years. Back then you had to use a text editor to configure your video card before even getting started, so it was kind of insane haha. But totally worth it later, as all of those skills translated.
For advanced, power user stuff, I find Linux to be much friendlier and faster. Just being able to do everything in a Terminal instead of having to mess around with a mix of inconsistent GUI menus in the two different control panels, gpedit, regedit (which is an entire headache by itself), a mix of cmd and Powershell (and whatever Windows Terminal is) is just so much less of a headache.
Also I find things easier to script in Linux compared to Windows.
Not to mention the mess that is Windows Update, which doesn’t even upgrade third party software, and takes a long time to actually do the updates. Package management is a godsend. Windows has chocolatey and winget, but those are poor substitutes.
And I say all of this as someone who is technically proficient in both.
Are you using hardware RAID? yeah, that doesn’t go too well with Linux… works perfectly in Windows though, cuz their softraid solutions are shit.
Server-level hardware RAID is fine on Linux. It has to, because manufacturers would cut out a huge chunk of their market if they didn’t. Servers are moving away from that, though, and using filesystems with their own software RAID, like zfs.
Cheapo built-in consumer motherboard RAID doesn’t work great on Linux, but it’s also hot garbage that’s software RAID with worse performance than the OS implementation could give you. I guess if you’re dual booting, you’d have to do it that way since I don’t think you can share software RAID between Windows and Linux. It’s still not great.
Cheapo built-in consumer motherboard RAID doesn’t work great on Linux
That is what I actually meant.
It’s called FakeRAID for a reason.
Why have I never thought about this? Dual boot and bit by bit work on feature parity while still having an OS that’s my daily driver.
Beware of the W̷̞̬̍̌͘͜ĭ̴̬̹̟͕̒̆̈́n̸̢̧̙̈́̅̂̆̕͜ͅd̵̟̟̪͎̀̀ő̴̼̺̺́̐̂͘w̵̨͊̀s̵̡͎̭̊ ̸͔̬͔̜̊́̈́̌̈́ͅŬ̴͉͚̳̌̉͘͝p̸̼̅̆͐̃̑d̸̜͂ǎ̵̛̯̏͝ť̷̰é̸͇͝ as it can screw up/overwrite your other bootloader completely.
Kinda sucks, when you’ve got a meeting/work and you find out that forced update made your system unbootable/partially unbootable and you now get to live boot in and go fixing the EFI partition manually, in the CLI.
That happened to me once and that’s when I decided feature parity was less important than a reliable system that “just works” for getting things done on a schedule. (I removed windows completely, in case that wasn’t clear)
Anyhow, make sure you install windows to a separate drive that can’t see any others during the windows install, then will keep the bootloader separate.
I ran into similar issues before. My plan was to install Linux on a separate M.2 so Windows won’t interfere and manually boot the OS I want to manually.
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Ah, a man of culture I see 😌.
Linux: You can mostly stick to the GUI to install software, touch the terminal for obscure/command line applications and install GPU drivers and you have a functioning system
Windows: Forced to go into regedit and services.msc to fix high resource usage on a fresh install, debloat scripts to remove bloat on Windows and need to update system, scower the internet for drivers and all the software you need
I can see why I got fed up very fast trying to use Windows 11 in QEMU tbh…never trying that shitshow again…
Edit the only packages I had to install through Bash are: Neofetch, Htop, OpenSeeFace, Brave Browser, Wine, Nvidia drivers and ProtonVPN. Linux is very user friendly imo
7 packages from the command line isn’t that many, but you’re failing to account for the fact that to most Windows users, the amount they’ll realistically install is 0, both because they don’t know how to use the command line and because they don’t know what to install. See also: https://xkcd.com/2501/
And keeping your software up to date is a giant pain.
Use Winget or Chocolatey. If you use an app that’s not packaged yet, it’s easy to package it yourself.
Somethings are more complicated, others less and some others more entertaining if you like tinkering.
It’s not exactly a fair comparison, the tweaks in the bottom panel aren’t necessary for most users to do, yet a new user to Linux will need to get over a learning curve to do fairly basic tasks.
My litmus test for when Linux will be “ready” is can you do everything you need to do without using the terminal. So far I’ve yet to see a distribution that has achieved this.
The closest thing I’ve seen is SteamOS.
I set up Linux Mint for my parents a few months ago. Never touched the terminal, everything was done in Mint’s UI; the initial installation, Timeshift setup, theme customizing, app installations for Spotify, OnlyOffice, VLC, and Chrome, automatic updates, printer and scanner setup.
Butter smooth so far.
Yeah I honestly rarely use the terminal on my mint install. And that’s even as a developer.
To be fair I initially had to do some odd tweaks at first, namely getting my keyboard function key working how I wanted. But even that was just editing some config files, and a non-power user probably wouldn’t have the kind of mechanical keyboard I have anyway.
SteamOS is the only good linux experience I have had, that’s mostly due to the fact it’s made specifically for the hardware that is running it.
What about Mint or PopOS? Also I don’t agree with your definition of “ready”. The stigma around the terminal must go! the current state of linux on ANY popular distro is: everyting can be done via GUI but some things are just easier to do in the terminal and it’s not linux’s faulth that terminal is just so good
Manjaro has a pretty great out of the box experience, everything just works via the GUI, including software management (and even pulling packages from the Arch AUR repos).
I use the terminal out of preference, and because it’s where I’m comfortable, but I can’t think of any situation it’s actually needed for general desktop use.
Meanwhile on Windows 11 you need a terminal even for the basic installation and local user setup.
Windows is the much more difficult OS AFAIK. Even something simple like having keyboard focus follow mouse is a giant pain and doesn’t work well (pop up dialogs can be painful). I hate windows and managed to mostly avoid it until I switched jobs in 2017.
Even something simple like having keyboard focus follow mouse is a giant pain and doesn’t work well
Ah, I see you have seen the UAC prompt as well.
Plenty of modal dialogs flat out don’t work with keyboard follows mouse. But now that you mention it, its windows dialogs (not from 3rd party apps) that seem to be the most problematic.
I recently discovered, after a while of wondering why the audio quality in windows was worse than fedora that the automatic windows audio enhancements actually made the audio significantly worse 😅 meanwhile I still haven’t figured out how to stop windows from randomly switching the audio source from my headphones to my nonexistent display monitor audio.
Open device manager, goto audio devices,then disable the audio driver for your monitor. Simple
Reminder that Group Policy settings are disabled in home versions, and even some of the registry entries for updates are missing. To get a full package of windows with all the options you have to pay like $400 to $600 for their LTSC or maybe some of their Enterprise versions. Honestly, if anybody pirates Windows, then definitely pirate the LTSC.
I don’t think many dual booters actually pay for Windows licenses.
I don’t think many dual booters actually pay for Windows licenses.
You probably got a license when you bought that laptop you got in 2010. And carried it forward. Just because Microsoft didn’t charge for the upgrade path to get to windows 11 doesn’t mean you didn’t pay something for the license.
No, I actually haven’t bought a single laptop in my entire life. All my laptops are give/throw aways. The newest I have is a 3rd gen i7.
Did someone actually pay for a Windows license when he/she bought the laptop? Can’t say for sure, but yes, most probably. For a Win7 license most likely since that was what was sood back then. Now I have LTSC and Linux on all of my PCs.
But me personally? No, I have never paid for a Windows license. All of the installs I have ever done for myself were pirated. From Win98 and XP onward.
All my laptops are give/throw aways.
Cool then you have licenses. Whether you utilized them or not is up to you. But you have licenses.
Utilize what. They’re most probably Win7 Home licenses that could be exchanged for a Win10 Home license at a certain point in time, but not any more… and I wouldn’t use a Home license anyway, it’s crippled AF.
Isn’t gpedit not even in pro anymore?
Huh? You only need the Pro version for Group Policy and all the registry settings, and you can get licenses for ~$20 if you buy an OEM license through an authorized reseller.
There’s some limitations to the OEM licenses, but I’ve never run into them.
As far as I’m aware, LTSC just effects the update channel that Windows Update pulls from, with LTSC getting non-critical updates later and for longer after support “ends”. Usually you can switch that in the registry.
Huh? Huuuuuhhhh?
I don’t pretend to know the ins and outs of every windows version, but OEM versions are made to order by manufacturers and that comes with it’s own special place in hell that I’m not even going to go into. LTSC has everything with no downsides, Home has Group Policy disabled, that was my comment. Despite your standoffish comment you didn’t argue against any of that.
Error, you app has unexpectedly closed!
Unpopular opinion: The Windows Registry, a centralized, strongly typed key:value database for application settings, is actually superior to hundreds of individual dotfiles, each one written in its own janky customized DSL, with its own idea of where it should live in the file system, etc.
Which is why I prefer NixOS (I use NixOS btw)
btw i use Nixos
claps
The language itself has no type enforcement, the type checking is implemented within nixpkgs. This might seem like pedantry, but it really matters for things like LSPs (text editor autocomplete). I think that’s what scares some people off: it’s like OG Minecraft, you need to have the wiki/search.nixos.org open while you are doing your editing.
That being said, the type checking goes much deeper than what the windows registry does - e.g. it won’t allow you to enable conflicting services - like grub and systemd-boot - at the same time.
That is true.
But, due to the nature of how it works, it can be also used to hide data that the user “should not be aware of”.
So can a dotfile, or any other kind of storage. There’s really nothing inherently bad about the registry. Its reputation as a place to hide things in is equal parts selection bias, users’ lack of technical understanding, and the marketing of “registry cleaner” apps.
I agreee with you on the side of the concept, but the way it is organised and the potential values seem to make no intuitive sense (if they make any)
I haven’t watched LTT for quite a while. A lot of his videos entertained me, but the guy himself…
The only real issue I’ve had with Linux is trying to get my old Drobo 5C to work. (it’s a self-managed dynamically adjustable/resizable raid array that just presents itself as a single 70tb usb hard disk. The company that made them dissolved a few years ago)
It’s formatted in ntfs and loaded with 25tb+ of data from when I ran windows primarily.
It’ll mount and work temporarily, but quickly stops responding, with anything that tries to access it frozen. Particularly docker containers.
Then it’ll drop into some internal data recovery routine (it’s a ‘black box’ with very little user control, definitely wouldn’t be my choice again, but here we are), refusing to interact with the attached system for half an hour or so. When it finally comes back, linux refuses to mount it. ‘dirty filesystem’, but ntfsfix won’t touch it either. Off to windows and chkdsk, then rinse and repeat.
I gave up when one of those attempts resulted in corrupt data (a bunch of mkvs that wouldn’t play from the beginning, but would play if you skipped past the first second or two). I can’t backup this data, (no alternative storage or funds to acquire it) so that was enough tempting fate.
I ended up attaching it to an old windows laptop that’s now dedicated to serving it via samba :(
Really looking forward to setting up a proper raid array eventually, but till then I’m stuck with 11mbps. I’d love to rent storage temporarily so I can move the data and try a different fs on the drobo…
You could probably get a Gbit LAN USB card added to that so you could at least get 30MB out of the thing 🤷.
I’d need a windows system to put it in. The Drobo isn’t upgradable beyond stuffing more drives in it, and the laptop is an old hp craptop…
I’ve got a second desktop that’s got usb3 (drobo is usb3), so that’d probably improve things, just not by a lot (pretty sure the slowdown is in the samba share, but I need to do more testing and see where exactly the issue is), and I kinda want to keep that system free for other experiments.
Idk, still thinking on it.
Winaero Tweaker makes it as simple as a checkbox.
20 years ago, a friend said “Windows does whatever you don’t tell it not to do”. It is as true now as it was then.
90% of configuring Windows is disabling shit.
To the reader that needs it and is too afraid to ask: https://github.com/LeDragoX/Win-Debloat-Tools
Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted -Scope CurrentUser -Force; ls -Recurse .ps1 | Unblock-File; ."WinDebloatTools.ps1"
Ugh, you need to use the terminal for the simplest tasks in Windows, it’s so hard, nobody will ever use it, cope Windows users!
That’s what most people in this thread sound like. But for Linux.
Look at that powershell nonsense. We had shit for this already Microsoft.
