I just have to say, after having booted into Windows, that Linux is so much nicer than Windows when it comes to doing system “updates.”
So, here I am, sitting in my chair for about 20 minutes looking at a mostly black screen and a highly dubious looking percentage number going up very slowly. It tells me that Windows is “updating” and that I should keep the computer turned on. Good thing I have the computer turned on or I wouldn’t know that I shouldn’t have it turned off, right?
Anyway, I start to think about how this experience goes in Linux. In my experience, I do “system” updates about once a month, and I can see each individual package being installed (if I glance away from my browser session, that is). In Windows, I have no choice but to sit here and wonder if the system will even work again.
Windows decides that it wants to update drivers, apparently (I honestly have no idea what it’s doing, which is part of what pisses me off), because it reboots the computer. Then it reboots again. Then, eventually, everything goes back to the familiar Windows desktop. WTF?
How anyone could prefer Windows to Linux is truly a mystery to me.
Want to see a really big difference? Try doing updates (or using Windows at all) with “only” 4GB of RAM and a mechanical hard drive. You can do it in a virtual machine if you don’t have a spare system sitting around. Use Windows 10 or newer for best effect. (Good luck if it needs more than a few weeks of updates; you might be waiting and rebooting for quite a while before it finishes.)
One might argue that this is unrealistic, because modern Windows system requirements state up front that such modest hardware isn’t enough, but that’s not the point.
Do the same thing on any modern Linux distro, and notice the difference. Now consider how much more efficient Linux is at making use of your hardware, no matter how much RAM or how fast the disk.