9mo ago

Rant: My recent experience of trying to install windows for gaming and why I'm really thankful for Linux

I thought I'd chuck windows on my gaming laptop an Acer nitro 5 from last year, to see how it's going do some bits I can't on Linux VR, certain multiplayer games etc.

What a disaster! I've spent the whole day brute forcing drivers and generally dicking about trying to get my setup sorted.

Upon installation, Wi-Fi drivers don't exist, so you cannot use the internet while installing if you're on Wi-Fi. Mint's had this since what 2006? But that's cool, Cortana is here to chat away and not understand any requests. Once finally in the OS after 20 questions that could be considered harassment if it was a person, nothing was ready to go. Every single driver needed sourcing and installing.

People have the cheek to complain about Linux's Nvidia install, literally two clicks on most distros if it isn't already baked in. Go to website find driver, download click click click agree click wait more software click click wait.

Plug in my sound card OK it's a bit old now UA-25 but nothing happens...hmm find obscure video partially install a driver from Vista then cancel the installation program so you can side load a driver from 8,1 but wait there's more disable core isolation to allow the driver to work reboot into a now slightly more compromised OS.

OK plug in wheel again not new stuff G25 oh it works cool. Oh, no H-shifter OK download driver. "Can't find device, ensure it's plugged in". Windows decided it knew better, downloaded its own driver that blocks the official one and loads a steering wheel as a gamepad..GG cool cool.

I do not understand why we still have this image that Windows is noob friendly, it's such a convoluted obfuscated process to do anything. It does worse than nothing, it thinks it's smart enough to carry out tasks on the user behalf and just bork it.

All of these issues are because I don't have the new shiny things, but it really highlighted why I love Linux now if you'll excuse me I'm going to install a distro and play on my 20-year-old peripherals

121 comments

Never trust a rant from a person that can't install Windows.
- Yeah I'm skeptical. Having installed windows on a machine that I put together about a year ago, it was pretty straightforward. Yeah I needed to install the drivers, but that didn't take long. Maybe windows 11 is much more tortured than 10 though, which is what I installed.
- I think most people are just used to Window's BS, so these issues are just expected and they know how to fix them.
  Linux has an easier experience getting up and running, but when they have an issue, usually it's something completely different from what they have experienced before and get frustrated.
  This is why mainline OEMs shipping computers with Linux by default will be a huge step forward.
- Does installing XP count? I might tolerate that.
  Can't bring myself to install the latest few and select "no, do not spy on me" 7 thousand times. They will spy somehow as it's proprietary - god knows what it's actually doing.
- Lol right? Windows is beyond simple these days.

14 days ago I tested Ubuntu. I couldn’t access my Wifi. The network was visible, but it refused to accept the password. (Yes, I quintuple-checked that I entered it right.) When I tried Linux Mint, it worked on the first try.
Moral of the story: Drivers are hit-and-miss on Linux, too.
- Only moral I got from this was to never use Ubuntu lmao
  all hail latest kernel modules, and akmod/dkms
  
  Yes. There are no reasons to use Ubuntu nowadays. If you are on that track, skip to mint or mx linux.
- Hrm, but shouldn't Linux Mint, being based on Ubuntu, have basically the same drivers?
  
  That's the point he is making really. Linux has issues that Linux enthusiasts refuse to acknowledge
- That reminds me of an issue I had when I was installing Mint. I tried out a live boot first and everything seemed to work except there was no internet connection. Turns out my WiFi card needs a proprietary driver, but no big deal it installed easily enough just from the boot disk. Internet's working, all looks good, so I go ahead and install Mint proper, remove the live boot usb, start the system, and savour that new Minty smell. But hang on, there's no WiFi, I forgot to install the driver! Should be an easy enough fix though, it wasn't hard last time.
  So I go to install the driver and the first thing it says is that it needs the boot disk to get the driver. That makes total sense, can't install something you don't have! I plug in the usb again and now it should all be plain sailing, after all it's just installing a driver that worked 20 minutes ago, right? Sadly no, that would be too easy; for some reason now it's missing dependencies! Or something along those lines anyway, I forget exactly. But can't it just install those from the boot disk? Well apparently not, it instead tries to connect to the internet to download them. This obviously fails since I don't have a WiFi connection, which is why I'm installing the driver in the first place. All I get is a popup saying it can't install some stuff because there's no internet connection, fix that to get your internet connection. This is the point where face meets palm. I'm sure there's some fiddly "proper" way to work around that but the thing is I'm incredibly lazy so I'll just take the quick option instead. I plug in my phone and use a tethered connection. I run the install again and it finally goes through, at last the system is ready to use! It's been mostly smooth sailing since then (though I did get annoyed enough at NTFS a couple of months ago that I just reformatted a data drive and wiped a ton of data I probably didn't need).
  Tl;dr: I had to tether to my phone for a minute. Traumatising!

Drivers for desktops are pretty much a non-issue on Windows, in fact, most will be installed via the internet before you even boot the desktop for the first time.
Drivers for gaming laptops are a nightmare on Windows, and you'll probably have to chase weird slow pages in the manufacturer's website to perhaps find 4 packages that might contain the driver you want.
- I have clean installed windows on a lot of gaming laptops. Most of the time windows updates pulls in every driver for you if windows have the correct wifi driver to begin with. If it doesn't i just download wifi driver on my phone and transfer it.
  
  Perhaps it's gotten better since the last time I've used a laptop, I really avoid them nowadays. Either way, good to know.
- Or upu just download the ryzen or Intel softwsre/chipset drivers and it's all sorted. Though for gaming laptops chasing down means going to the manufacturer support site for that specific model...

Wi-Fi drivers don't exist
They absolutely exist, but perhaps isn't part of the installer.
Every single driver needed sourcing and installing.
Windows Update solves 95% of that automatically these days, as long as you have internet it will sort it out for you.
Plug in my sound card OK it's a bit old now UA-25 but nothing happens.
This an external USB sound card from 2004, Roland has drivers for it working on Windows 98/ME/XP/2000/Vista/7/8/8.1 it is a 20 year old card, it awesome that it works on Linux, but you can't blame Roland or Microsoft for not supporting a 20 year old device on the latest versions of the OS.
OK plug in wheel again not new stuff G25 oh it works cool. Oh, no H-shifter OK download driver. "Can't find device, ensure it's plugged in". Windows decided it knew better, downloaded its own driver that blocks the official one and loads the steering wheel as a gamepad...GG cool cool.
You are whining about a modern OS not being compatible with a 18 year old steering wheel? You can't expect indefinite hardware support for every random little device you happen to find, this like the sound card above is on you, not Microsoft.
I do not understand why we still have this image that Windows is noob friendly.
None of the above quoted examples are noob issues, this is like you are talking to a person in old english from the mideval times and being mad that a random guy in the middle of Londing in 2024 can't understand you.
A noob would realize that their devices were too old and buy new devices.
Windows is noob friendly in that most software have a Windows version, most people use it, it is a known variable.
Like it or not, Windows is the defacto standard, and that means that is it safe in the perspective of a noob user.
I am saying all of this as an IT guy who has worked professionally with both Linux and Windows, I ran Linux as my main OS for a year or two, I LIKE Linux, but this is not fair critisism of Windows.
- It’s concerning that you think “just buy new stuff” is reasonable and that Windows should only work on new hardware out of the box.
  
  It's concerning that you insinuate that 20 year old hardware just works in Linux.
  Just because a 20 year old sound card happens to work in your favorite Linux distro doesn't in any way mean that it will work forever or that there are drivers for all 20 year old soundcards.
  Where does it say that it's not allowed to create a Windows driver for a 20 year old soundcard?
  
  This is the reality of the computer industry, you don't have to like it, but you have to expect it and work within the reality of the industry.
  If OP had complained about how their 10 or 5 year old devices didn't work, then they might have had a point, but 20 years old? That is unresonable.
  
  "Just buy new stuff" is the mindset of the perpetually boring and uncreative. Break shit and build better stuff.
  
  @beatle @stoy expecting any modern os to support 20 year old hardware is silly.
  
  You forget that he's an "IT guy that has worked with Linux and Windows professionally". Trust him, bro!
- Happy to see lemmy linux community not blindly hating windows and providing facts. Also you can use a package manager like choco to install apps from terminal so you dont have deal with clicking next.
  
  Treating Windows unfairly in these kinds of comparisons is a disservice to Linux as it implies that Linux can't win in a fair comparison.
  Windows/Linux/MacOS are all best at different things and for different persons, let the best OS for the task and person win on a fair test
- Ridicolous. You act like this is the first person to realise Windows is jank. How many USB steering wheels have you bought during your lifetime?
  
  None, I was gifted a Sidewinder Forcefeedback steering wheel by my dad when I was 8-9 something, but it used the old gameport.
  I don't see how this is relevant though....
- you can't blame Roland or Microsoft for not supporting a 20 year old device on the latest versions of the OS.
  Why not?
  You can't expect indefinite hardware support for every random little device you happen to find, this like the sound card above is on you, not Microsoft.
  Why not? Linux development is mostly volunteer, and these things are easily compatible with Linux. It seems like you can absolutely expect support for every device, it's just that Microsoft isn't willing to provide it.
  None of the above quoted examples are noob issues, this is like you are talking to a person in old english from the mideval times and being mad that a random guy in the middle of Londing in 2024 can't understand you.
  Notice that you had to exaggerate a 20 year timespan into a 500 year timespan to make this analogy work?
  
  Why not?
  Because it is a paid OS and it's developers are writing code for financial gain, if they are not being paid to write the code, it doesn't get written.
  Voulenteers write the code because they want or need to, if there are no drivers for a device in on Linux, you need to write it yourself.
  Notice that you had to exaggarate a 20 year timespan into a 500 year timespan to make thisnanalogy work?
  Yes, that was deliberate. Have you ever noticed how much faster technology develops compared to languages? That is why the analogy works.
- You should expect the creator to abandon the device eventually but indefinite hardware support is possible - that's why it's important that drivers be open source. If enough people care to use the device then a community can be created around it to support it on whatever OS they want.
- old english from the mideval times
  That would be Middle English. This is Old English.
  
  Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
  This
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
  
  Thank you for correcting me (:

Thanks for the post, interesting.
I do not understand why we still have this image that Windows is noob friendly, it’s such a convoluted obfuscated process to do anything.
Microsoft has been ~~blackmailing~~ pushing computer hardware companies for a long time to have Windows bundled with computers. Your story has now enlightened me why they did so all these years :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Refund_Day

Windows and MacOS are “noob-friendly” for those who use them for simple purposes and out-of-the-box. As soon as you want to do something more advanced, you’re back to googling and installing software from a variety of sources.
Many linux distros are like that too (others are just not noob-friendly at all), but centralized package management and documentation are nice.
I’m really glad to be away from registry editing, 50 app icons in the tray, and navigating my way through settings to control panel so I can actually fix my audio devices or network options.
I’m on Arch now, so I still have plenty of configuration and software, but I know the systems and choose explicitly which ones I use. If something isn’t working or is annoying, it’s my fault.

Huh? I'm all for d***riding on Linux but this is a weird case. I've not had a single issue with windows on gaming laptops even across multiple reinstalls. They're all automatically installed soon after you boot. Just need to wait through a few updates.
- Yeah I've never had a missing driver problem with a windows install since maybe windows 7. I even moved a hard drive with a windows 8 install from an Asus laptop with an Intel cpu to a custom build desktop with a ryzen cpu without having to change any drivers. I did have to reactivate windows because of the hardware change but that's it.
  The included drivers are often providing less performance than updated ones from the vendor though, so it is recommended to download those in some cases, specifically nvidia. But most gaming laptops will have a vendor provided update center to manage all of that for you.
  I like Linux over windows for a lot of reasons but this post is a bit silly.

The pretentiousness is off the scales with this one
- accurate tho
  i had to manually disable driver updates via windows update because it picks the shittiest possible drivers for everything
  
  Built a PC for my cousin, Windows likes to delete its own Wi-Fi driver among other issues, not to mention using modern Microsoft products feels like a rectal probing with how invasive it is.

Blame the oems, dell ships dell OS with windows branding.

Upon installation, Wi-Fi drivers don’t exist, so you cannot use the internet while installing if you’re on Wi-Fi.
This is a good thing with modern Windows. You don't want it online while it's installing, you want to install, lock things down a bit and then connect.
- Unless you’re using one of the more recent Win11 builds, where you won’t be able to finish OOBE without an internet connection unless you had the foresight to patch the installer beforehand.
  
  Mind you, I haven't installed a Windows Home OS since ever, but Shift+F10 and then using OOBE\bypassnro works just fine for me.
  
  Yeah I mean I downgrade new computers to Windows 10 Enterprise and ~~patch~~ authenticate with MAS. I tried using Windows 11, but the taskbar pissed me off too much - I want separate tabs starting from the left, not combined, and everything always showing in the notification area. I was going to put up with the tab thing but having to manually set every single notification icon to not hide itself away was just a dealbreaker. I want to know what's running, so I know to kill it.

Windows and Linux have opposite problems for starters with newer hardware better supported on Windows and old hardware supported on Linux. As Linux gets more popular, it will start to shine because if newer hardware becomes better supported, the experience will truly be that Linux just works and Windows needs drivers for done stuff.
The other big factor is that Windows is already installed. So, you don’t have to do anything or, at most, one or two things. Even if that one thing is hard, you are more likely to blame that one thing than Windows.
Finally, we have to acknowledge that your experience sounds atypical for Windows installs. Most of my hardware is easier to put Linux on than Windows but I doubt any of them would be that hard.
We also have to admit that Linux does not have drivers for everything while Windows basically does ( somewhere ). So, Linux can be the bigger bummer overall. Of course, this is in the x86-64 universe only. Linux has vastly better hardware support when you consider other platforms.

I've installed Windows on a system I've built myself, and I've had so many problems...
Firstly, did you know what Windows doesn't allow you to install it on a partition that isn't the first one on the drive (under certain circumstances)? It also doesn't give you sensible error messages that that's the problem.
I also had to install audio drivers from the disk that came with my motherboard (the ones on the website didn't work).
I don't know if this was this system or some other one, but I've faced the whole "no network card drivers so can't download network card drivers" issue.
Recently I made the controversial decision of booting Windows with an external drive plugged in, so it decided to reorder my device letter mappings and break a bunch of shortcuts.
And of course, there's no resource like the arch wiki, so you're basically left on your own to fix things.
Windows may or may not be easier to use, but it certainly isn't easier to install and fix.

I often get shattered by windows users how hard it is to install Nvidia drivers or get it to work.
Like. Idk why they are like this or how I should tell them otherwise. But they will give me a response of their experience as proof of how hard it is.
I mean. Its even pteinstalled on some distros so wtf.

This is mostly an Acer issue I think. A decent vendor will have a software package or even their website that will handle updating your drivers.
- Surprise! They virtually all do, but they didn't look.

Actually, both Ubuntu and Mint didn't have wifi drivers for my late-2014 Mac Mini (Intel based). I had to plugin ethernet so I could actually download the drivers. Also, the version of Windows you might have installed might have been older than your PC, so no drivers would naturally be in it (e.g. Win11 is already 2-3 years old).
- Actually, both Ubuntu and Mint didn’t have wifi drivers for my late-2014 Mac Mini (Intel based).
  It's a Mac... the shittiest hardware in existence to try and install anything else but OSX. Until asahi linux, there was no concerted and funded effort to make linux run on the mac.
  CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
  
  No, it's not the shittiest hardware in existence. The wifi in question was just Broadcomm, not Apple. The Apple-based Macs are just PCs, with a modified UEFI firmware, nothing else. Only the Silicon-based ones are more Apple-based.

From what I got online that computer has either an Intel or MediaTek PCIe Wifi card, both of them should be supported out of the box by Windows. Also you aren't required to install GPU drivers manually, just run Windows Update and it will pull the driver including the Nvidia panel for you.
I do not understand why we still have this image that Windows is noob friendly, it’s such a convoluted obfuscated process to do anything.
Because it is as long as you don't fuck things up because you think you know better. Just use Windows update to pull GPU drivers... or download what Acer says is for your computer on their support page... cheap ass hardware that shouldn't even be on the market doesn't help either.

I can't say I've ever had this experience with installing drivers on Windows. Is it as smooth and centralized as Linux? No, but it's generally just go to manufacturers website, find product, find support page, locate drivers, download/install, rinse and repeat. Never had to go watch videos that led me to a partial install of drivers for an outdated Windows version. If WiFi doesn't work, use USB tethering from your phone. The laptop will act like it's connected to Ethernet (this at least lets you go to the Acer website to find the right WiFi drivers for your laptop).
Also never had Cortana bother me during setup. You can always skip all that extra crap. Last time I installed Win10 was to update my NVidia GPU firmware and it took 10 minutes.
- This is very similar to my experience with a laptop from 2020. I wiped it and tried to install windows on it and nothing worked. It couldn't find a recovery partition (no surprise, the entire disk was wiped) and just refused to continue. I tried everything I could find online to make it work and nada. Partitioning it with linux MBR and GPT, enabling/disabling secure boot, enabling/disabling UEFI, different USB sticks, with a network connection, etc.
  The previous experience had been a successful install on another, older laptop but the graphics card drivers were too old and only available from sketchy websites. Experiences before that of reinstalling windows every year or so to keep it fast involved backing up the driver installers and installing them in the right order otherwise it wouldn't work.
  Windows was the most tedious OS I had to deal with.
  CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Don't get your Linux packages from random websites. That's bad practice at best

Every single driver needed sourcing and installing.
Windows update on W11 will pull basically everything automatically, with the exception of some older proprietary hardware (a lot of gaming and sound devices have really screwed up drivers for example).
Drivers are extremely hit or miss on Linux too especially for anything new, and manually installing some driver is incredibly frustrating since you can't just run an exe and be done.
People have the cheek to complain about Linux’s Nvidia install, literally two clicks on most distros if it isn’t already baked in. Go to website find driver, download click click click agree click wait more software click click wait.
It's the same on windows, go to nvidia website and download the driver and install.
- The last part you mention is not a comparison how it is better but rather to put the idea away that its hard to install nvidia drivers on Linux

We are improving your experience. Please do not resist.

Installing an operating system is a process that’s full of potential to be very painful no matter what the operating system is. All 3 major operating systems do their best to make it as painless as possible, but if you stray from the happy path, it requires technical knowledge to fix that most people don’t have. So the bottom line is that the OS which can make deals with manufacturers to pre install their OS with confirmed working drivers will seem more user friendly than the OS you have to install yourself. If you gift a noob a System 76 laptop and ask them to install Windows on it, they’re gonna balk at you the same ways as they would if it’s the reverse.
- Well said

Amen.

If you're having issues with VR on Linux, I might be able to help you with that, as I'm using Linux to play VR. Took some time to figure everything out but it's working great for me now. Only important thing is what VR headset you have.
- ... so what headset do you have?
  I'm thinking about the index on linux
  
  I actually have the Index, it's really great but also really expensive

I've fully given up on vr in Linux after spending a whole day trying to get it to work. I have Nobara and modern AMD hardware, tried SteamVR and FOSS VR (envision) (which was awful to set up on the "gaming OS"). I booted into my windows partition, clicked a button to update AMD Adrenalin (and several years of windows updates) and VR simply worked.
I love Linux but it definitely has its own issues. My boss (who got me into Linux) vented some of his frustrations with Linux while installing Android studio: "linux makes up a few percentage of the userbase but 90% of the OS's. It's far too splintered." I have to agree, and it's why i will likely always have a windows partition. Because things just work, and if they don't I have a wealth of information on the internet because there is only one OS people can have this problem with.
I think the valve and the steam deck is doing the linux community a massive solid and somewhat unifying the Linux gaming community.
- VR seems to be one of the last things that does not work. My Index is laggy af on Ubuntu and Fedora but completely fine on windows.
- I use ALVR with Steam VR and a Quest 2 on Arch. Not as smooth as native but it works pretty well. Had Blade and Sorcery running at comparable performance to Win10

Sounds like a user problem. Installing windows should take 30 minutes tops.

....you're using Vista? Even when Vista was new it was terrible. Just get Windows 10. Also if you use old peripherals then yeah, you're probably gonna have problems. No idea what all these issues with installing drivers is about; it stopped being a problem with newer Windows. It's like this post was made over a decade ago, lol.
- This was 11 I had to use Vista drivers as an attempt to get my ancient hardware working

Weird I've never had to manually install a driver for windows.

Lol I still have the CDs that came with my first built PC parts just to install the drivers because windows would never use the correct one even when the OEM had them very easily online.
Have a complete CD for my monitor, GTX 750ti, and motherboard. Actually had to use mobo CD to get ethernet working (killer ethernet e2400) and I think I might have used nvidia CD or just gone straight to GeForce download.
I can't believe I can actually say linux has had a working kernel module since at least 2013 but Windows 10 didn't

windows
Wrong community.

121 comments