linuxmemes

n my last workplace, there had been more loss of productivity from the Windows computers being stuck for hours in a reboot loop, than from any Linux problems and that was when there were 60% Linux machines.

From your description it seems you had a very inept IT department on that company so, things are expected to fail - most likely a poorly managed AD without any policies running out of the box Windows installations.... Linux can't even be compared because for what's worth the typical Linux user knows how to deal with issues on his own and/or isn't stupid enough to mess the system like the average office using Windows worker is.

Yes, Windows is bad, but one thing I know for sure, a decent admin is capable of using group policy is all it takes to have reliable Windows machines. Picking a specific brands and models may help as well as cheap and diverse machines are less predictable thus a big factor when it comes to failure.

I'm not the Microsoft fan you may think I am, in fact I try to avoid it as much as possible - even when that means using macOS :( - but I've seen about everything from the startup that does no IT management to the large bank that only buys HP/Dell and applies very strict policies on everything. What I can say for that is that once you're dealing with hundreds of the same managed machine with the right policies it is really next to impossible to see Windows failing. And Microsoft actually documents things properly because their big companies demand them to do so. You can read that and disable every piece of garbage that comes along with Windows 10/11 and your system will not fail.

if run on Windows. But from my exp, everything is slow on Windows, so the ppl not complaining about their Windows being slow,

Windows isn't slow, it is just that maybe the garbage that people add to it or their unbranded toaster from 15 years ago is the problem. Although you can argue that Linux is faster in some contexts don't forget that people running Linux usually are more aware of what's a good computer and also tend to pick better hardware than the average joe.

Linux as a desktop is slow as well, GNOME relies on web technologies to render a UI, the lag when launching applications is noticeable... for instance on my i7-8550U laptop GNOME is always slower than Windows because you can't just make a DE that is a half baked browser to perform as fast as something native. Yes, I can opt for KDE or Xfce that are way faster but that's beside the point because then on those "slow" Windows machines you can also install Windows 7 and they'll be fast.

Even with KDE if I pick a i3 1st gen (2010) and load with the latest Debian or Fedora KDE it will be slow, as much as with a debloated Windows 11. Obviously that if I take Windows 7 or Debian 5 (both from 2009) they'll both be very fast.

Another anecdote with advanced Networking options. Doing anything out of the mainstream for networking stuff is way easier on Linux for me (...) how much better it is to have high quality terminal applications with man pages, rather than the mess of Windows System Settings.

I see your point, but this isn't correct. Windows since Powershell and Windows Terminal isn't what you think it is. Let me give you a typical network task, changing a VLAN for testing on Windows:

Get-NetAdapterAdvancedProperty "Ethernet 2" -DisplayName "VLAN ID"
Set-NetAdapterAdvancedProperty "Ethernet 2" -DisplayName "VLAN ID" -DisplayValue 55 # set the network card to VLAN 55

Reset-NetAdapterAdvancedProperty "Ethernet 2" -DisplayName "VLAN ID" # Reset back to no VLAN tag

Want to set a static IP for some config? Sure:

Get-NetIPInterface -InterfaceAlias "Ethernet 2" -AddressFamily "IPv4" | Set-NetIPInterface -Dhcp Disabled
Get-NetIPInterface -InterfaceAlias "Ethernet 2" -AddressFamily "IPv4" | New-NetIPAddress -AddressFamily "IPv4" -IPAddress "192.168.97.100" -PrefixLength 24 -DefaultGateway 192.168.97.182

Get-NetIPInterface -InterfaceAlias "Ethernet 2" -AddressFamily "IPv4" | Set-NetIPInterface -Dhcp Enable # back to DHCP

Want to automate the installation of a bunch of software? Sure, no need to ever click "next" again:

winget install -e --id VideoLAN.VLC
winget install -e --id eloston.ungoogled-chromium
winget install -e --id Joplin.Joplin
winget install -e --id KeePassXCTeam.KeePassXC
...

See, not that hard.

For example, setting up a new docker image; stuff requiring other dependencies; internet telling them to use apt and then me reminding them to use yum. All the stuff that comes with people predominantly having used Windows and having no idea about Linux.

Yes, because that people that came from Windows expect that the setup of a program to be something reasonable, not the mess of dependencies and different technologies that we've on Linux. Having a GUI setup that is essentially clicking next until you reach the end is way more user friendly than the docker hype. There's GNOME Software and all but again not everyone packages for it (in the same way that not everyone packages to the Microsoft store) and since there isn't a culture of GUI installer for Linux things become way more complex for the end user. Apple even goes further with their typical "drag application to the Applications folder" and done.

The larger number of options and alternatives on Linux while great actually work against the end user, because as you said, people get confused.