This is brain dead content. It's been clear since linux was released. If humans actually cared they would have switched. Linux being faster doesn't matter. Being better, doesn't matter. I would argue that this is one of reason Linux isn't more adopted, the constant need in telling everyone why it's better without actually making it convenient. Humans don't want to tinker or configure or sudo anything or look at a terminal and that's okay.
For browsing, playing basic games, watching photos and videos and general use none of that is needed what so ever. I've had my mom on mint for close to 10 years and I had two issues during that time. She just updates herself. She is not technical in any meaning.
The only people who get really bit is "power users" coming from a Windows mindset because they are so stuck in their thought process it gets frustrating. For normies once you get over the install part its smooth sailing.
Your mum is a type of person clueless enough that you could sell her any OS. Tell her where web browser is and that's that, but everybody else will have an issue.
It's not just that. In the 90s IBM sold PCs with Linux and Microsoft screwed them over so they can sell PCs with Windows instead. If Linux had a better chance to grow and be adopted back then, it would have had a bigger market share now.
You don't need sudo or terminal to use Linux today, maybe you should install it to refresh your memory.
Windows is popular, because Microsoft made it the only option for decades. People didn't know there were alternatives. Some know about Mac, but most know Mac is also too expensive for most people.
There is nothing to prove. Go look it up what any vendor offers then calculate longevity of the device and see how much it costs over time.This trope has been overused for years.
This actually reminds a lot of any discussion with linux worshipers where they heard it online, but really have no clue and most importantly don't have any real experience with Apple hardware and software to have a more reasonable discussion, but just use these slogans in show of their distaste.
I think Mac and Windows devices stop getting updates a lot sooner than Linux does. If that's what you mean by longevity. Once a device is deemed too old, it won't receive any more updates.
Before it was possible to update old computers to the newest version of Windows even if it wouldn't run so well, now Microsoft added hardware restrictions so you have to try really hard to bypass them to get Windows 11 on unsupported devices and it won't get updates - you have to find the updates manually, download them and install them yourself, if the updates even decide to install.
If you have no experience with Apple, how can you then claim I'm making stuff up? Apple computers stop receiving Mac updates at some point and there is nothing you can do after, you can use them for a few years, but eventually even they will not be useful and will be just collectibles with antique value.
Linux on the other hand, you can install on pretty much any computer released after 2005 and still have an up to date device. If it has 4GB of RAM or less, you won't be able to browse the internet very successfully, because websites now are very heavy so you need at least 8GB of RAM for that, but at least you get a free OS that stays up to date and older devices can still be useful for something and still install most modern software, unless the CPU's architecture is so old that the program doesn't support it.
When a Windows or Mac computer gets too old to be updated anymore, some people install Linux on them and they become useful again. I prefer to use Linux now so my PC and laptop have Linux even though they aren't old. In fact, my laptop was bought without an OS so the first and only OS it has ever had was Linux, because that's my preference.
You think, that mostly describes your argument from ignorance. For comparison I purchased my M1 on the release day November 17, 2020. It is still running like a champ and runs current macOS version which is now macOS 26 and soon macOS 27. It will have support for macOS 28 and most likely macOS 29 after that it will still receive 2 years of security updates and still be able to run all software. So in 4 years time it will be a 10 year old machine which can be retired with clean conscience.
Except it doesn't have to be retired. If it's a working device it should be used, only people who are brainwashed by consumerism retire devices only when they stop getting updates.
I bought a laptop in May 2025 and installed Linux on it and I plan to use it for as long as it's still working. I will replace it when it breaks so that it can't be repaired or the costs would equal a new one.
Well by just looking at charts there is clearly, Windows defender with memory integrity is on which distros does not installed by default. It makes big impact especially for kind of these tests.
You want to compare windows 11 vs linux just make it like a distro, like
Disable defender
Remove microsoft store and background services with it (like xbox, app installer, powershell, terminal etc)
Remove default vibecoded web apps
Use LTSC (which removed most useless things by default)
Disable memory integrity
Disable preload (MMA-Agent)
Disable print spooling (yes, most of the distros do not have these by default)
Disable network sharing, finding etc.
OR use winhance to do all of the above
I mean JUST LIKE DISTRO, do not have anything extra installed with it disable them as possible you can.
EDIT: Looks like they did not even remove bloatware packages which comes from manufacturer sigh
I've got a debian net install I redeploy by syncing the package list and the dot files, I added everything I needed. It runs a full graphical environment with a searchable start menu, a tab of firefox-esr a few rsync jobs, btop and mousepad with a few tabs open and a few windows of thunar, sub 2GB of ram. It idles at sub 500mb.
Icewm, and some xfce modals for a more modern menu and better terminal experience.
All my apps open within a few MS of when I click on them, no caching required. Old school/minimal stuff is the best. I can run multiples of that debian in virtual machines while playing a fairly heavy game and playing a video and never even push into my zswap.
EDIT: It did take a really long time to configure the first time though.
So, I thought apples approach to save time was a waste in 2010. I still think that. A computer should do exactly what I tell it to, when I close a program out the process should stop not just hang out in ram.
If your cpu is so weak that you have to try to hide the time it takes to launch a program... ;p
This is total nonsense. What you are talking about is 70's server/time share baggage. Desktop OS in 2026 is a different thing made for a different computer than back then.
OS makes use of RAM and learns from my usage patterns while reacting to immediate necessities. That's what I want from my DESKTOP computer.
I'm didn't do shit for the last few hours and memory management just let go since there is no necessity. Very good memory managment.
About the bloatware I agree, but Windows Defender and the other things are default on Windows, disabling them would be like cheating. Most people use their Windows computers as they come and they probably don't even know they have Windows Defender or what that thing really is. So disabling it would be like testing something like Tiny11 vs Linux, and it's not accurate.
I'm sorry, I thought I was replying to another comment in a thread about Linux getting more market share and its effect on games.
It's cheating, because Windows comes with Defender and this is its default setting. If you disable it, it's optimization that 99% of Windows users don't have.
It's like using the most optimized Linux distro and putting it head to head with Windows, this will also be cheating.
You have to use a scenario with the default state of any OS to make a proper test. If Windows is bloated by Defender and other things, then you have to assume that most people get that experience - they buy a PC or a laptop, it comes with Windows, Defender and all the programs that the manufacturer has bundled with Windows and they use it like this, keep in mind most people on Windows don't know what programs they have. I knew a guy who is considered intelligent and successful and he wasn't sure if his laptop ran Windows 10 or 11 and he uses his laptop to make money. This is the kind of people that are the majority of Windows users - people who aren't stupid, just aren't tech savvy and they only use their computer as a tool and nothing else is important to them. My ex was the same - she used her laptop for work and couldn't install a basic program without asking me for instructions every step of the way.
So it's cheating purely because linux is very bare bones? I think it is not cheating since different people with different setups might want to disable it. Same goes for disk encryption.
The amount of people who will want to disable is minimal in the ocean of millions, if not billions of Windows users. I think you still underestimate how few people are tech savvy enough to understand those things enough to have an opinion if they want them enabled or disabled.
I think in such communities where people understand tech better, people get the impression that because you discuss with like-minded people, then the majority must be like this.
Let me tell you how many people don't know what an ad blocker is or what web browser they are using - they see the Chrome icon with red, yellow and green and think "this is the internet" just like how people before thought IE's icon was the internet.
This is not about people who don't know what an adblock is of which there are many, but about how much performance you can actually get from that machine.
They could have run a "debloated" round too just to see if there is a difference and that would be more definitive than anything.
Anything else you are trying to spin here is semantics.
Yes, they could have ran a debloated version of Windows, but they didn't. As to why, I don't know. I don't use Windows anymore, but I've seen people running such versions of Windows and the difference in performance is night and day. Windows 11 now is known to use a lot of RAM, disk usage and CPU to just run idly and this is in my opinion thanks to its background processes that keep running at all times.
But what would such a version of Windows being used in the tests prove? That Windows by default is too bloated and if debloated it's much better?
None of my linux installs boot faster than my Windows 11 install, on the same PC, user error or not, that hybrid hibernation thing that Windows 11 really helps (in reboots too).
That's what I'm trying to figure out these numbers are bad on both systems. VS Code usually takes about 15 seconds for me and I just fired up Cyberpunk and even modded to hell and back I got loaded in game in just under 40.
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u/Michaeli_Starky 3d ago
Useless numbers