I think the biggest shift in the last 20 years is troubleshooting in Linux and windows.
20 years ago and I had to troubleshoot issues and Linux. It genuinely required a good bit of computer knowledge to get it done. Sometimes hours of work to figure out how to get a webcam to work Or how to fix grub?
Windows back then used to be so easy. And there was usually something that would do a quick fix.
However, now and I run across a windows issue. It's a nightmare. I can put hours of work into trying to fix a driver issue or an issue with updates and get nowhere. Then go to reinstall the operating system and have to spend more hours just to get it installed.
Now in Linux, not only do I rarely have issues but also fixing those issues are pretty straightforward. And if I can't fix it a reinstall takes minutes and I'm back up and running in no time.
As a part-time sysadmin at my small company. We use Altium and Solidworks, so we need windows.
I have 10x more windows problems than Linux problems like a bug for around 5 or so people where a windows update would disable the microphone, but every single microphone menu and setting would say it is enabled and working properly. You HAD to use their troubleshooter (which they are now phasing out, wtf) in order for it to be auto fixed. So soon it will probably be replaced by something else that won't fix the issue.
0 information online about it, 501 different way to fix audio issues, none of which work.
Nowadays the only problems that I have with Linux are slight bugs or user errors, honestly.
Well OBVIOUSLY you need to set HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session\Windows\Microsoft\Win10\MSWindows\CockNBalls\BSODWord to 0 then restart your computer.
You forgot that you also need to create a new 32bit word entry with the value of the amount of system RAM in gigabytes times 2 divided by the square root of your age times 10.
Otherwise BSODWord won't be picked up.
Edit: also you need to redo that every time your system updates because Windows update will reset all those values
I wanted to dual boot Windows 10 for a few games after I switched off. I can't get the damn drivers for my hard drives to work. I just gave up on Windows entirely.
Nowadays I just roll my Linux installation back to before the updates using the BTRFS integration with the package manager. It works great and I'm never at a point where I can't use my computer because updates broke it. Heck, even if I bork it myself it's no biggie.
However, now and I run across a windows issue. It's a nightmare. I can put hours of work into trying to fix a driver issue or an issue with updates and get nowhere. Then go to reinstall the operating system and have to spend more hours just to get it installed.
Now in Linux, not only do I rarely have issues but also fixing those issues are pretty straightforward. And if I can't fix it a reinstall takes minutes and I'm back up and running in no time.
THANK YOU. I'm sick of this rhetoric about Linux being hard and user-unfriendly because of the command-line.
Windows is such a pain to use for a while now. You need a ton of post install scripts and hacks to make it even remotely usable and when something goes wrong good luck figuring out what. The event viewer is usually just a bunch of vague COM errors with an ID. Then when you look up that ID it's barely more useful than "something went wrong".