Why New Linux Users Quit And Go Back To Windows

No the arrogant Linux promoters know that Linux does not work like Windows and when you try to get help you run into arrogance from the Linux experts. Experts are only former drips. Don't try to justify the failings of Linux. @thesilentgeneration
@thesilentgeneration
1 second ago
I will give you a tip. Linux is a rabbit hole for new users used to Windows. Everything that just works on Windows, one must jump through hoops to get working on Linux. Heaven help you if you need help. The forums are full of arrogant tech people who love talking down to newbies. I'm going back to Windows. It just works w/o a terminal.

Because it is a rabbit hole. @thesilentgeneration
@thesilentgeneration
1 second ago
I will give you a tip. Linux is a rabbit hole for new users used to Windows. Everything that just works on Windows, one must jump through hoops to get working on Linux. Heaven help you if you need help. The forums are full of arrogant tech people who love talking down to newbies. I'm going back to Windows. It just works w/o a terminal.

Windows suer Quits after 1 week of linux
Me leaving ubuntu then planing out what distros i wonna use even artch witch is said to be the hell of all mac users

After 40 years I cut all with Microsoft products. Since august 2023I use Linux Mint 21.2 as office user! I Love It!!!! And I also use Kubuntu 23.10 for my 3D drawings and 3D printing. No prbolem so far. If it works don't mess with it.

I have Win10 and Linux computers. When I get mad at one I jump to the other.

I ve been running linux for 5 years. I came back to windows cause all works: digital cerificates, gamming, hardware,....

the biggest problem with Linux is software, software, software, I can't run solidworks on linux, I can't run ltspice on solidworks, practically 100% of commercial software is not available on Linux. some of this can be replaced with some FOSS linux compatible apps. but even most open source stuff that is very good isn't available on Linux, Windows has so much freeware even if we ignore the paid stuff.


the other problem, is really the package manager. there is no standard, so its just a total mess in general. if there was one unified package manager for all distros that had stable and tested released on it's repository, it would be so much better for everyone and it would be so much easier to design a GUI system for.

Maybe I got so attached to Linux because I didn’t know what to expect. It was like a mastery to me in almost every sense of the word. And I like it.

DT, do you pretend to make any video related do X11/Xorg and Wayland after RedHat stops the support to X11 in 2025?
I was learning about Lua because of Awesome WM, but now I'm not so sure it is worth the effort to customize it. Thanks in advance!

Biggest problem is software that's not compatible and lack of hardware drivers for new computers.

Yeah, that had me limiting my Linux usage to goofing around on dual-boot for years until Microsoft made it so I couldn't see myself continuing to use Windows when it had devolved into malware in and of itself.

Now I'm happy in Linux and can't imagine going back to Windows, and surrendering my computer over to Microsoft at all.

BTW, a lot of the "Linux Community," including DistroTube, pan my preferred approach of learning just what I need to in order to do what I want as I go along. That's not out of laziness, as such individuals like to assume of me. Rather it's out of being more interested in doing what I do with the computer than in making the computer work in this or that fancy way. Especially when this or that fancy way is completely irrelevant to what I want to do.

Whaat?? They do that? Heretics! 😅

I love GNU/Linux and FOSS software. The problem are the games, which don't work on Linux or works but with poor performance compared to Windows.

I did make the jump and I enjoyed it once I found a distro I liked but I had to go back to windows due to I couldn’t get my work done for my job due to compatibility so I have gone back for now whilst I find open source solutions so I be able to continue doing my job

Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming...

I tried linux for 4 days a while back, games work fine but the applications I use, compatibility issues is what made be go back to windows. I use FL Studio, the DAW itself works via emulation on Linux, but majority of the plugins do not either they don't work or they're buggy...

I've been using Linux as my home driver since Red Hat 6 came out. It's amazing just how much it can be customized and how easily it can be broken. At work I'm stuck with those damn windows. Proprietary software has it's own unique problems, which never seem to be solved.

Been using Linux for 4 months now. Yeah, indeed, I ran into some issues I did not expect whatsoever! But sticking with it and eventually fixing things helps me understand my system a bit better and as time goes on, I'm better at it. Love it so far!

Because its all about the software availability and not "how similar the task bar and icons look compared to windows" and every single "noob friendly" distro focuses on the most unimportant thing , as if having a windows liek task bar would make anything easier. Literally ever DE except gnome (and even switching to that feels like nothing) is close enough to windows look that there is literally no need to modify it more. We need the software. For example, I want to cut a photo or modify it VERY LITTLE, like add a line or an arrow.... I need to learn how to use GIMP... entire gimp just to draw few simple drawings.... why is there no software like paint, meant for noobs who want to do simple things. I dont need professional, I dont need layers, I need to draw a line (literally the closes thing to this is a game for toddlers called tux paint). Then there are proprietary software you need for work (no alternatives, job asks me to do it in X, I will do it in X or get fired). If Linux developers continue obsessing on how DE looks, Linux wont go anywhere. We need simple software for simpler tasks and we need to look how to make companies support linux versions for their software or work on wine. I dont care how windows like it looks, can it run windows apps? No? Then its same as any distro before it. Operating systems themselves are good, we need software. I remember how easy it was to make memes in pain net, thats the last time I made a meme 3 years ago before I had to use GIMP, inkscape or krita for anything and having to curse at the monitor when it layers everything and I cant match anything properly.

I've used Linux for a couple of months now, Ubuntu, Arch, different DE's and various distros based on these, my three favourites has been Garuda kde Plasma, Mint Cinnamon and Zorin OS core, but each of three has issues i experienced on one and not the other.
While Linux is cool and the thing i absolutely love is the app repositories and the deep level of customization, there is some glaring issues, scaling is terrible, and my biggest gripe is gaming, and that's issues that i simply don't have time for, because of the limited time i have for myself, i just want to click on a game and play, not having time to do all the tinkering to get one specific game to work or having to use the terminal to fix Steams terribly small UI, so i just got a debloated version of Windows 11 and used that instead.

Windows has limited big issues like privacy or drivers. If something doesn't work, it doesn't work. Linux has many small issues. From DEs to weird init problems depending on your hardware. These small issues pile up and make me want to go back as a user to bloated spyware that is Windows.

Fedora FTW.

Maybe the commercial OSes like
1. Windows with WSL and
2. MacOS
just give the users the power of a *nix system AND their favourite apps?

Honestly, Linux is not what people keep saying it's ... They say it doesn't break, no it does break a lot, especially dealing with packages, when in windows all that is taken care of for you. Linux consumes a lot of battery, so you have to spend time to tackle this issue with TLP or auto-cpu freq or something ... Linux is fun to tinker with but its not a daily driver for majority of people.
I even think windows does something with the graphics because everything looks clean and better on windows while on Linux people should see why this not the case with Linux

I think that most of the time, Windows users try Linux thinking it's supposed to be like Windows. And the other thing, there will be a problem if you want to get Office365 of Adobe Suite, etc. In my case, i switched to Linux 15 years ago. I'm a network engineer and Linux sysadmin, i evidently don't represent the average user coming from Windows and trying Linux!

The perfect setup for me is having Linux on my laptop, using Wine for software like Winbox (Mikrotik management) and having a Windows VM inside KVM when i absolutely need Windows (which is seldom the case!). I use a combination of Remmina, a good structured ssh settings and a bunch of very handy cli utilities.

I do a lot of media management / processing with the power of the cli + alias and scripts i did. So what an average Windows user can get with Linux? Just think about a friend of mine that was stuck with an endless rebooting Windows after the hyper crappy update engine of Winblows... not to mention the tons of spy crap inside, the fact that your PC is "owned" by Microsoft that do whatever they see fit without asking and the ever changing of GUI just for the sake of selling it... I'm not blaming users of using Windows, it seems easier and most of the time it comes with the system you buy. But using Linux brings many things to the table if you're not afraid to try and learn! But Linux will never be Windows!

It’s because no one teaches them really how to write scripts or write packages that set up configuration or use the network for backup/services. Writing packages also takes way too much time (Debian is like +25 years old?)

Linux is supposed to be for servers but can also work for desktop. Getting it to work well as a desktop requires offloading processes/logic to the network and to packages. And unless you’re close to programmers or IT, unfortunately, nothing on the internet really teaches you this. The more focus there is on Linux for personal computing (as a desktop), the less clear the distinctions become, between what’s needed for each approach.

There is also what the Linux expert thinks (and what they’ve forgotten is important for beginners) and what the Linux beginners think.

And does anyone teach Linux for the desktop user? No. It’s only taught for its usage in servers, whether in Fortune 500 companies or wherever. Literally no one knows how to use RPM Mock who doesn’t have a Redhat certification, but if you wanted to quickly write packages for personal use, that’s what you need.

Linux noobs will quit because something happens and they just need their computer. Reinstalling the other OS is fine, but it’s impossible to remember all the minor tweaks you’ve made. Unless you took notes, everything blurs together. When you try it again, you attempt to reapply old tools to solve the same problems instead of looking for new tools, so all you find are old forum posts.

This is why there are the Linux user groups because a noob badly needs a mentor… but they don’t necessarily know that.

Some serious work is needed to make Nix and Guix work for the average user (probably the former). Still you have to somehow solve the problem of hosting network-local custom packages … which is just a fairly advanced thing to do (esp when you don’t know where to put a GPG key).

The answer is grassroots: grow the local user groups, share server resources and show people how to make slow/steady progress where you don’t feel like you start over from scratch when it crashes.

The servers don’t usually crash btw. It’s the display manager, the GPU drivers, the window manager, etc. which is why you definitely need more than one computer to run Linux.

I always say Linux isn't better or worse than Windows, it's different. A lot of people just want to work with say spreadsheets or watching videos and for that, Windows, Android, or IOs do that do that well. Game developers set up games to run on Windows first and maybe a Mac, but after that, if it runs on Linux it's a bonus. The ideal Linux market is older computers, which does run Linux better than Windows IF they can get everything to work. For my desktop for example, it uses a Netgear N4100 wifi usb and there is no driver for that and never has been one.

DT, i was the same way. I distro hopped to every distro that looked difficult. Arch saved me. it made evry other distro easier! I'm now a CLI master, a MONSTER of scripting, and a Network security deity. I'm far away from your knowledge, and every day i learn that i have much to learn. There is no problem i cannot fix as far as i know though. I never give up.

I try Linux once a year, but every single time frustration with small stuff not working starts piling up and I always arrive at a point were I can't keep up. Every year it comes a bit later (first it was days, then weeks, now a couple of months), so it's not like things aren't getting better, but for me it's not ready yet.

Here are the small annoyances I encountered the last time (with Nobara), in chronological order:
- I have two monitors, one 4k and one 1440p so I need to use Wayland for fractional scaling, but this is a problems since games do not recognise the actual monitor resolution but the scaled one. "Oh well, it's not that bad I'll just use gamescope and FSR"
- My USB fingerprint reader doesn't work and installing the correct driver looks like an assle I don't want to undertake "Oh well, I'll just not use it"
- No freesync support "I can live without it, but it's a bummer having paid for it and not being able to use it"
- EXT4 drives are mounted automatically, but not NTFS ones so every time I have to access to the data I have on my secondary HDD I have to mount it and write my password. I haven't found a GUI to make it automatic, and don't want to use fstab because I have very bad memories of using it on my Raspberry Pi and having to reinstall everything after putting a space instead of a tab. "Oh well, It's not that bad I can still access my files if I really need to"
- Of course Discord can't screen share on Wayland. "Oh well, I'll just use it from the browser when I need to screen share"
- No easy and built in way to use MPV in single instance mode. People link to a python script to do it, but for me it didn't work and I found no instructions on how to make it the automatic behaviour for every time I double click on a video file. The developer believes this to be a stupid functionality not worth implementing, I strongly disagree. "Now I am starting to get frustrated."
- I haven't found an easy way to remap keyboard buttons for a given layout (for example Alt+\ to `, or Alt+, to >). "After yesterday's search about MPV I'm not in the mood for wasting another afternoon on forums, I will just not use those buttons"
- OBS tanks my performance in-game. "Ok, tonight I'm going back to Windows"

None of those annoyances are that bad, if taken one by one, but all together they made me really frustrated and borderline infuriated. To be fair, there were also a lot of things I loved: snappy system, no bloatware, cloud storage services built in the file explorer, automatic recognition of my mouse battery level without installing third party stuff, all the games I tryied worked flawlessly (apart from the resolution issue above), it's super easy to do software development and almost all the software I need is available.

Hopefully next year most of these problems will be addressed, I really hope one day to be able to move definitively to Linux.

only thing that made me quit linux is horrible latency, wayland and x included on lg ultrawide and gtx 1650...

Use both windows and linux but my main system is linux . all my machines are dualbooting but now with VM i have less need to boot on windows . My first time with linux many years ago i also did quit if i remember i failed to install it to many error

I am Queen of Mount Stupidity

One word: drivers

People tried linux and go back to windows?? really?? I mean, I don't know what to think off first, ARE THOSE PREMITIVE USERS DON"T YET DISCOVER THAT COMPUTER EXISTS, THEREFORE DON"T KNOW HOW TO USE IT?? OR USERS WHO DOESN"T KNOW FOR EVERY APP IN WINDOWS MULTIPLE VARIATION EXISTS IN LINUX AND THEY ARE TOO NOOB TO FIND IT.

who quitted? 10 years and going...linux saved me a whole lotta viruses, reboots and most of all: MONEY.

Thank you for the motivation! Good old Debian awaits me!

Couldn't agree more!

You complicated something very simple: windows user: “all of my friends are trying this Linux OS, I can’t be left out”
After one week: windows user: This Linux is so hard, you must be a f’cking computer guru to solve the problems specially when you update this Arch thing. I’m done, back to windows”

Hey DT, can you create a video explaining how to set pipewire in windows manager properly?

People going back to Windows from Linux has absolutely NOTHING to do with Dunning-Kruger.

The people who are saying it's about the Apps are 100% right.
Even basic things like being able to access all the features of your shiny new Video card.

I have used Linux off and on since Redhat 5.1 and am more comfortable with Windows when I just want to relax and use a computer.

I play around with Linux mostly as a hobby trying many different distributions and challenging myself to get it able to do everything my Windows machines can.

When I use Linux, I have to think about the OS more. When I use Windows it's just about the apps except in those rare cases where Windows gets into a state where it isn't working correctly. Usually that can be fixed fairly simply. Uninstall a few things and run a troubleshooter.

Because they are soft.

Because of Fortnite not running in Linux.

My Path to linux began with a raspberry Pi, I configured as my personal Homeserver.
Next step was trying to switch to Linux Desktop, so I made a multiboot System. I could configure my Linux system as I wanted and everytime something didn't work when I needed it. I switched to Windows for that moment and solved the problem later.

Actually I am struggling making my RGB Keyboard run on my XMG-15 Pro. But I will fix that too some day.

My reason for the change to Linux is because I don't trust microsoft. I want to know whats done with my data, thats wy I have my own Homcloud and use Linux as a system now. It was hard work gettiing all done.

But at the Moment I just feel free.

No, with more than HALF A CENTURY of computing , coupled with all of the "smartest kids at the High School lunch room table" bragging about how much SMARTER they are than everyone around them , some even using curves and graphs to "prove" it, you'd THINK THIS would have all been Ironed out by now, ESPECIALLY with ALL of this "open source" , patched and cludged by every ONE of those lunchroom children .
The rest of us DON'T have the PATIENCE or the TIME to DEAL with the inanity.
Put out something USABLE by your TARGET GROWTH OPPORTUNITY MARKET and your "CURVE" goes AWAY .

So in summary, skill issue. Thanks dt

Dunning-Krueger effect is apropos, after distrohopping on VMs for over a year and after windows broke my PC after a windows update I finally moved my daily laptop to Fedora. I was surprised how many little things have bogged me down getting it running the way I like, so many hours reading and trying to understand and the info just doesn't really set in. So many things that were so simple and obvious to do in windows that just don't really exist in linux and EVERY tutorial I try to follow just gets more and more complicated every minute deeper I get into it. It's like you need to have a degree in comp sci or be a competent coder/programmer just to understand how the system even works and where files or data is stored. I don't know, been almost a month now and I haven't booted back into windows yet but it's quite fatiguing to use linux for general every day use - it's great if you are just browsing the internet or watching media that is stored locally but I can't seem to get my system to do most of the things that linux is supposed to make so easy for it to do. Pretty sure I'm close to the bottom of the graph, will give it some more time but if I can't start doing the things I see other linux user are doing I'm going to give up because I just don't have the hundreds of hours of free time I'm going to need to get there.

a lot of people don't realize that computer use is a skill, and just like any other skill, it takes time and repetition to advance your skill level. When something disrupts your workflow, it takes time and repetition to adjust to the new workflow as well. Even from one Windows version to another can be bothersome... remember all the hate for Windows 8? And a lot of that was just because it took an extra step to get to the desktop environment from the live tiles screen. If anyone reading this is on the fence about trying an alternative to Windows, don't approach it like it's going to be a cure-all. Instead, approach the switch like a hobby project, or like you just graduated high school and are now moving on to college. You're leveling up a skill set. The effort will be worth it.

The first time I switched over to linux I got the hang of compiz, and things were glorious, but as a gamer-kid I couldn't live without the fancy windows games.
Now that I no longer have gamer friends, every time I try to switch to linux I can't help but remember the awesomeness that was the customisability of linux gui back then, compared to the drab unusable mac vomit that people seem to think gui's must look like now. Even 5 minutes of tweaking a litestepped win97 was miles beyond a week of tinkering in current Linux Mint. One look at current gui design choices and I prefer to be a digibetic troglodyte. On top of that distros change supported package managers faster than they change the standard background. And they freeze up python so you have to instanciate a different python than the distro python or you break the system. What is wrong with you people ... If postal services and phonelines and the tax office still worked like they used to I'd probably turn away from digital devices forever.
You disappointed me open software people, you held the future in the palms of your hands, and traded it out to mega conglomerates for sponsorship deals, chromium and nvidea driver support. Shame! Shame! Shame!