After 30 years with Linux, I gave Windows 11 a chance and found 9 clear problems
A long-time Linux user switched to Windows 11 and identified nine significant issues, including poor window tiling, inconsistent settings menus, forced Microsoft account sign-in, intrusive ads, heavy system resource usage, unreliable search functionality, confusing privacy controls, problematic update management, and limited customization compared to Linux.
Background
- The author is Steven Vaughan-Nichols, a veteran tech journalist who has been using Linux since the early 1990s and has long been a vocal advocate for open-source software.
- This is not a casual user trying Windows for the first time — it's an experienced Linux power-user evaluating Windows 11 after decades of daily Linux use.
- The article reflects a recurring debate in tech: whether Linux (free, open-source, highly customizable but requiring more technical know-how) or Windows (paid, proprietary, user-friendly but restrictive) is the better daily operating system.
- Key pain points for Linux users switching to Windows often include: privacy concerns (telemetry/data collection), forced updates, lack of a native package manager, ads in the OS, and a fundamentally different file system and permission model.
- Context matters: Windows 11 also controversially requires TPM 2.0 and relatively modern hardware, which locks out many older PCs that Linux runs fine on.