Hall With A View

Going the wrong way

So clearly I have lost my open source mind. I've installed Windows 10 on both my desktop and laptop. Before you write me off as a traitor or something worse here me out.

There are a couple of things that motivated this:

I've just passed my ham radio basic license and while there are good tools for Linux desktops, the Windows based toolsets are just a tad stronger (IMHO).
""While I used to spend each and every day with MacOS, I now spend my days with Windows professionally and while I'm a Linux guy through and through (Slackware install from floppy disks in the early 90's up to Fedora 39 and Ubuntu 23.10 so I think I have OS "cred" here) I criticize it out of ignorance rather than experience so I thought I would get some.
I just don't want to stagnate as a IT professional. There are so many in our industry that apply their bias to technology rather than taking the higher road of using the tool that works for the user. This is just bouncing around between OS' to keep my brain working.

Things I've noticed already (but already deal with on a day to day basis at work):

We install Windows a lot at work, mostly through autopiloting installs using InTune which the team did a masterful job of configuring. Installing from scratch is a bit more work with a number of are you sure you don't want targeted ads, location awareness, etc. It didn't offend me, I realize that it is just part of a modern Windows installation.
Just like the 400 some package updates that I would get with an install of Fedora or Ubuntu, I applied the latest image to this machine and then had approximately 25 or so updates of the OS and various drivers.
The update process is slow.
Reboots are part of all OS updates these days, as all OS' recommend them these to apply security updates immediately. (Yes I know about livepatching the kernel!)
Finding software is work. The Microsoft Store is not great, but at least most of things I use are open source (OBS, Audacity, SDR#, KeepassXC, QLog, Python) and easy to find.
Things just work. Everything just works out of the box.
Battery life on my laptop (E490) is vastly improved. I don't blame Linux for this as the device is clearly tailored for a Windows power managment scheme hence the hours gained.
It's not awful. Things are integrated (except the horrid Settings / Control Panel stupidness - why are there still two different window styles? Why aren't all the settings available from Settings?)
It's just another tool. I get why people use MacOS or Windows over Linux as to them it's just a tool. That doesn't make their choices wrong, nor does it make your choices right. It's just choices to get things done.

I'm going to keep this for awhile just to see if I can learn things like PowerShell and such.

73 all!

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