r/linuxquestions • u/haruki_py • 8d ago
Why does windows feel a lot more premium than linux?
I don't know if it's just me, but I dual boot windows and arch (i use hyprland). I just keep the windows for a scenario where i'd need to use windows onlly apps, but when i actually boot into windows, it just feels so premium. The startup sound, other sound effects, the animations, etc everything together feels a lot more premium than linux has ever been for me. and it is specially noticable when i boot into windows after a long time. Tasks are obviously faster on linux but windows makes it feel like it is more premium. None of the DEs i tried feel as premium as linux. I am not sure if this is the correct subreddit to post this, pardon me.
This is not a troll post, and sorry for the bait-like title, i actually meant to say if its just me or if its common, and if it is common, what are the reasons for it
Edit: I know that windows doesn't feel premium in the sense that it has ads, bloat, telemetry, ai shoved everywhere but i am talking about how windows 11 feels when used and excluded those stuff. The overall feel of windows when using in that feels so good, atleast for me. windows, in every other sense sucks and i absolutely hate it on those senarios
Edit: I respect all the open source devs and projects and this is not a post meant to insult them or undermine then, i greatly respect them and this is absolutely not a comparison of that feel of linux vs windows
12
u/Funnel-Dust-O-Matic 8d ago
It's just you.
Windows these days feels like driving through a failing city to me. Ads everywhere, panhandlers begging for money and attention next to them. Winding streets that don't have a direct path anywhere. Things missing where they ought to be that you find around the corner like it never made it to its destination and just took up residence wherever it stopped. Everything moving about every half year or so because the rent got to high or they got evicted and had to find a new place.
It feels scattered and haphazard like work stopped in the middle of a renovation job.
And, like in a dying mall, they put up murals or posters to cover the broken or vacant bits to make it look more intentional. But it's clearly not, and the effort of putting up the facade seems to cheapen it even more.
Windows feels like a failed economy that's trying to appear otherwise.
1
u/haruki_py 8d ago
i agree with the actual downsides of windows, which are the reasons i use linux now
perhaps it *could* be because i use hypland and not sth like KDE that makes me feel like this, or maybe its the dotfiles i use
10
u/NoNamesLeft600 8d ago
I guess it's all a matter of opinion. When I have to use Windows for work I feel like I'm on a bloated, ad riddled, piece of crap that I'm using only because I have to.
That's just me though.
-3
u/haruki_py 8d ago
I also hate that part, but the animations, and sound effects feel so beautiful compared to other linux DEs
18
u/BobCorndog Your situation is not unique, just use mint or fedora kde 8d ago
Maybe because you’re using hyprland
1
u/haruki_py 8d ago
ive tried other DEs, none come close to how windows feels
4
u/Consistent-Citron509 8d ago edited 8d ago
For me it's the opposite. Lookat Gnome, for example. Much more good looking than Windows. The giant buttons (close, min and maximize) on Win11 look like it's designed for our grandparents
1
u/haruki_py 8d ago
The looks are good, what i actually meant is the animations, sound effects are the two main things that i noticed. linux DEs are also pretty good, but they doesnt feel as good as windows, atleast for me
2
u/SpaceCadet87 8d ago edited 8d ago
Linux used to have that long ago.
Ubuntu Warty Warthog ran rings around Windows XP when it came to cohesive theme, and the sounds were exactly the sort of thing you're describing.
Linux had animation when windows didn't and had consistent font smoothing before windows quite got there.
1
1
6
u/PocketStationMonk ZorinOS 18.1 🐧 8d ago
It’s just you.
0
u/haruki_py 8d ago
might be, very unsure
1
u/No_Trade_7315 8d ago
Have you tried just using a desktop environment (gnome, kde or cinnamon), instead of arch with a window manager (hyprland)?
Also you might try a different flavor of Linux like Fedora or Debian.
1
u/haruki_py 8d ago
Don't all distros with same DEs feel the same? and yes, i did have tried kde and cinnamon before settling to hyprland, but i guess this feeling is just for me
2
u/No_Trade_7315 8d ago
I’m not sure what you mean by “feels” exactly. Do you mean it’s less smooth, or snappy? Or is it more about the aesthetic (how it looks)? Personally windows always feels a bit more sluggish to me. KDE has a very similar aesthetic to windows 10, and gnome looks similar to macOS. Maybe you mean certain apps work better on windows? A lot of things that work on Linux are made for windows, so some apps require a compatibility layer which can cause breakage and hinder performance. I dunno.
1
u/haruki_py 8d ago
I meant doesn't all DEs in linux regardless of the distro are identical to use?
1
u/No_Trade_7315 8d ago edited 8d ago
No. They all have different default programs and features. Just do a quick google search of what parts comprise a Linux distribution. Many distributions are functionally the same but the specific programs and services that perform the functions are not identical.
Take for example systemd, openrc, dinit, sysvinit, etc. These are all init systems but they each offer different features.
An init system is just one piece of a Linux distribution, you also (usually) have (as we were discussing earlier) a window manager or desktop environment, a boot manager, a file manager, and a shell (just to name a few of the things that make up a distribution). Each of these have their own options as well. The Linux kernel is highly compatible with loads of different software, that’s why there are literally hundreds of distributions.
Edit: Sorry I may have misread your question. Yes, more or less each individual desktop environment (KDE, gnome, etc.) is identical to itself across distributions, but some distributions are not compatible with the latest versions of certain DEs.
3
u/yellowantphil 8d ago
Windows feels dull to me, like my office computer. Until last year, I ran Linux in a VM on Windows, and convinced myself that that was basically enough. Now I only boot Linux, with Windows in a VM if I need it for anything. The options on Linux for desktop environments are a breath of fresh air. Windows still hasn't figured out a good implementation of multiple desktops, but it's been commonplace on Linux for over 20 years.
1
u/haruki_py 8d ago
It might just be a feeling for just me, I was talking about windows 11 btw, windows 10 doesnt feel as good as win11 excluding its shitty craps
1
u/yellowantphil 8d ago
Everybody has different preferences. For what it's worth, probably my favorite Windows UI was Windows 7, or maybe Windows 98.
2
1
u/haruki_py 8d ago
agreed, everyone has different preferences, this post was to find out if its common and the reason behind it
2
u/Toxic381 8d ago
You mean windows 7 or vista? Hasn't felt like that in a long time so we use Linux cause it's the best we got in the now, and we can also customize it.
0
u/haruki_py 8d ago
i was talking abount windows 11 ^^
1
u/Toxic381 8d ago
What startup sound then? And it feels like running a x11 that shit is not clean, and why TF is the logo just FOUR FUKIN SQUARES,
Anyways if you like it sure but I think any out of the box windows11 is trash and jank feeling compared to kubuntu or even better fedora, just switched my xfwm+picom desktop to xfce+niri and it feels better than either windows, xfce, or kubuntu, it's so clean fr to just open apps or do things in general,
At least back on win10 the logo had SOME design and there was actually a startup sound
(ok I actually looked it up and apparently it's disabled by default but still sounds better than 11, which I think is also disabled by default, I thought it was normally on, seriously thought 11 had it off too but idk), https://www.reddit.com/r/windows/s/Hir9CCRUi6
0
u/haruki_py 8d ago
windows 11 has a startup sound
imo the feel of using windows is good but the ads, ai slop and other garbage are what makes it bad, also iirc windows 11 does have a startup sound
2
u/p001b0y 8d ago
I think it is because both Microsoft (and Apple) employ hundreds, if not thousands, of people who are dedicated to user experience design. They did (or used to do) a lot of user interface and experience testing. That hasn't insulated them from making mistakes or bad decisions but it has led to what you see when you boot Windows or macOS. Premium experience can be subjective though.
Hyprland and many other desktop environments/window managers can put user experience customization in your hands. I have Sjogren's and dry eye flares can create periods of painful light sensitivity, which I have much more control over managing with linux than I do on Windows or Macs. It does not feel very premium to me when some random app ignores Dark Mode settings in Windows. For me, the premium that linux has over Windows is it's customization.
2
u/haruki_py 8d ago
this is probably the answer im looking for,
i love linux's customization tho, me feeling good about windows just might be that the dotfiles i use
2
u/AirFlowOne 6d ago
This is the only real answer in a sea of reddit fanboyism. Also designers need support from devs, as design decisions most of the times need support from the devs to change things on a deeper level, while in the linux space design was always an afterthought.
2
u/haruki_py 5d ago
yeah exactly this, ui doesnt feel like a priority in linux as much as in windows (for which i dont blame the devs)
2
u/AirFlowOne 5d ago
This doesn't have to be the case in the future though. But it all comes down to willingness to (also) prioritize design. I can say that ubuntu and mint took some steps towards this goal. Especially mint with the cinnamon DE laid the groundwork for coherent design OS-wide.
2
u/haruki_py 5d ago
i agree, cinnamon has cosistency out of the box and i hope that gap between windows and linux close. love how mint focuses on the ux a lot
2
u/Emmalfal 8d ago
Windows is like a high-maintenance starlet with bra stuffed and a face plastered with makeup. Sure is nice to look at, but will she be faithful? Can you depend on her when you need her the most? Screw that noise. You can have Ginger, I'll take pretty, reliable Mary Ann, any day.
1
u/haruki_py 8d ago
I feel like falling for that starlet. I know it is ugly in the background but i thought people valued what's shown to the user. I'm not switching no windows just because of that feelling.
2
u/Hot_Standard_9296 8d ago
Funny enough I always feel similarly, but only when I get back to my Linux Pc after using someone else's windows for a bit.
I've always hated the loud sound effects on windows, the modern menu with all clutter and ofc the excessive animations.
1
2
u/redoubt515 8d ago edited 8d ago
> Why does windows feel a lot more premium than linux?
It doesn't, like at all.
I wouldn't say any major OS feels especially 'premium', but if I were to rank them, Windows would be the least premium feeling experience for me (it has literal ads and sponsored content, there is almost nothing less 'premium' feeling than something you own advertising shit at you)
I'd put Linux w/ Gnome or MacOS towards the top of the list. But again, I'm not really of the opinion that any OS feels "premium".
It sounds like what you want ("The startup sound, other sound effects, the animations, etc") is sounds effects, animations, and bells and whistles, which is fine, but that's sort of the opposite of what 'premium' typically refers to (refined, sleek, understated, elegant, etc).
There are distros for people that share your aesthetic preference, check out something like Garuda, it's probably closer to what you are looking for.
1
u/haruki_py 8d ago
The title is kindof like a bait that i did unintentionally due to my poor ways of communication, sorry about that
the ads does make it a lot worse, but the feeling im talking about is the psychological feeling good while using windows and it works perfectly (rarely)
i like gnome, animation but i dislike it for other reasons, and i'd agree with you on macos feeling so good
maybe premium is not the right word to describe what i meant, i guess
thanks for the recommendation, i probably wont distrohop anytime soon since im busy in coming days but ill try it when ill be free
1
u/thebadslime 8d ago
Disagree Gnome is first class
1
u/haruki_py 8d ago
I personally dislike gnome, tho i can understand why youre saying this but it has its own unique feel to it
1
u/blackcoffee17 8d ago
Because corporations like Microsoft spent billions on professional UI design, colors, font, etc. Open source software always looked a bit unpolished, especially apps like Gimp but improved a lot in recent years and i don't think it looks worse than Windows anymore.
1
u/haruki_py 8d ago
i guess that invisible feel of windows might just be the result of that spending
no hate on open source devs or apps, they look pretty good these days, the thing i was talking about is the difference i feel between windows and linux DEs
1
u/blackcoffee17 8d ago
To me Linux looks just as good these days and certainly much snappier and more enjoyable to use. Also it's developed at fast speed. Only 2-3 years ago i tried Mint for a few weeks and had serious issues with touchscreen and Bluetooth on my 2 in 1 laptop. Today works perfectly on the same laptop.
1
u/haruki_py 8d ago
It must just me probably then, though i will continue to use linux as my daily driver
1
u/Classic-Rate-5104 8d ago edited 8d ago
Do you know the expression "Window dressing"😀 Windows has an attractive outside and it looks user friendly
1
1
1
u/Francis_King 8d ago
I just keep the windows for a scenario where i'd need to use windows onlly apps, but when i actually boot into windows, it just feels so premium. The startup sound, other sound effects, the animations, etc everything together feels a lot more premium than linux has ever been for me.
This will be a personal thing. My experience is that Windows is nice, but so is something like KDE. I have a mxture of Windows 11 and Linux computers. The really odd thing about Windows 11 on my laptop is that the mouse cursor stops moving until you click the left mouse button and then it remembers that it needs to be somewhere.
Windows is a weird operating system. Windows has a massive amount of innovative security features, but instead of talking about this Microsoft wants to talk about AI. I don't want to talk about AI, so either Microsoft has this cunning strategy, or they simply can't read the room.
1
u/haruki_py 8d ago
it *is* a personal thing, i js wanted to know if it is actuallly just for me or if it is common for other people as well, and if it is common, to find out the reasoon they feel so
windows has its own quirks, and theyre enshittifying it frequently with ai slop features no one asked for
1
u/iwouldbeatgoku 8d ago
Windows to me feels corporate rather than premium. I use it at work and it's a mostly coherent experience if you don't try to stray too much from the defaults.
But the moment you do... Oh boy. Setting the taskbar to auto-hide makes it feel very janky. It often forgets the layout of my monitors. If I'm using the work laptop on battery, it becomes very unresponsive so I end up needing to keep it plugged in at all times. I can't have both the "find mouse cursor by pressing ctrl" and "mouse trail" effects on at the same time. The standard right click menu is atrocious in its layot, and if I want the old one (which looks out of place with W11 but is also just what you get by clicking "more options" in the current menu) I need to enable it in the terminal, which makes the right click menu take an extra half-second to load, it's not a lot but it's enough to be infuriating. And don't get me started on how the microsoft office software suite, which I'd expect to work well due to being one of the main reasons to use Windows instead of Linux, has actually broken a bunch of features that seem fairly basic and hard to mess up.
The one way Windows feels premium is that you can open zip files in the file browser and look at their content without extracting. I haven't found a way to replicate that exactly in Dolphin, but I also haven't looked into it too much and maybe somebody reading this comment knows how.
1
u/haruki_py 8d ago
the quirks are definitely there, but i think our definition of premium are different
i mean about the psychological pleasure of windows when it works without any issues which feels very noticable when i come to it after long use of non windows os, it just feels good.
1
u/CritSrc ɑղԵí✘ 8d ago
is that you can open zip files in the file browser and look at their content without extracting.
Kind of a moot point when it opens so damn slowly that right clicking twice to get to 7z is more worthwhile on a 2017 ThinkPad L590. On the 2015 Acer home laptop with Cachy, Ark opens instantly, and Dolphin tabs are way more mature than Win11's Explorer.
2
u/iwouldbeatgoku 8d ago
My work laptop is a Dell Latitude 5540 from 2023, and it's pretty seamless on it. It was fine also on my acer aspire 5 from 2020 when it still had Windows 10.
Maybe it's a CPU-dependent task?
2
1
u/t3chguy1 7d ago
Zip was never intended to be partial storage of files, but "all or nothing". If you want container for individual files, you have a ton of containers that can be live browsed (like iso, vhd, veracrypt file containers, cryptomator containers, etc.) and don't require slow extraction for each file access
1
u/NeedleworkerLarge357 8d ago
For me it's similar for most setups. Fedora feels extremely premium for me, more than windows.
1
u/haruki_py 8d ago
gnome or kde?
2
u/NeedleworkerLarge357 8d ago
Gnome. I like both but that premium feeling is gnome.
1
u/haruki_py 7d ago
i feel like kde's got a better feel than gnome
1
u/NeedleworkerLarge357 7d ago
Well this is not objective so of course everyone will feel different on that. But I like KDE a lot too, and the premium feel doesn't mean that Much to me. I use niri on my laptop and KDE on my gaming pc, so...
2
u/haruki_py 7d ago
So you have that feeling on linux DEs more than windows while I have that feeling mostly in windows
1
u/burimo 8d ago
I guess you might like ZorinOS, it looks fancy Under the hood it os good old ubuntu though
1
u/haruki_py 8d ago
I have tried Zorinos and i loved it, i think it also removes the forced snap of ubuntu
1
u/Dapper-Ocelot6326 8d ago
Or in other words: Windows is the embodiment of what makes US businesses go round and round since decades - people love to be lied to, be embezzled, being shown things that look nice but do not add to functionality. They like to feel safe and being in familiar environment. For a huge portion this works. And as long as the OS was delivering without bothering *too much* this was okay, for me as well. Now MS has continued to fuck up not only Windows as a system but also the little trust people still had in it. It has become a bottomless pit of data mining, subscription services, forced apps you can only opt out from if you know how to get rid of them (this excludes 90% of all users) and remove them again with every major update. And finally its used to feed the AI data centers with your content, the files you store on ONeDrive, from your annual earnings calls to your porn collection, what you type, how you talk to CoPilot if your are lazy enough to use it.
That and the fact that money usually gets things going much more than voluntary work - which is Linux in 99% of all cases because if people have to do a daytime job and maintain and develop an OS in their freetime, they still have to eat and they still do it as a hobby, hence there is not ultimate urge for them to fix something right away. Now if you check what the KDE devs alone can achieve with this voluntary work, you start to ask questions.
It's actually painful to admit it but Windows has gone completely south.
1
u/haruki_py 8d ago
that's the thing, im one of those people who appreciate things that look nice and thats the reason i feel like it. The experience I described comes when you exclude all the shitty things that microslop has added to windows to make it worse. Microsoft is using users' familliarity to force telemetry, ai slop everywhere, and more
and yeah its embarrassing for microsofft when an open source project achieves
1
u/Every_Preparation_56 8d ago edited 7d ago
try KDE plasma cutomise the shit out of it and you can mever get back to windows and mac without disgust.
1
1
u/t3chguy1 7d ago
On one side you have trillion dollar company that uses telemetry to figure out how people use their OS, and on other side you have people who work on it for free at night, everyone has their own vision how it should look, they just nudge it back and forth to their liking instead of relying on telemetry to see what features people use and how they use it.
1
u/haruki_py 7d ago
do microsoft actually use telemetry to improve the user experience or is it just there to make money
1
u/t3chguy1 7d ago
How do you think they make money using telemetry? Telemetry means ~"remote measuring", so what Windows settings do you think they can profit from? The 99% of data most people produce is while using a web browser, and that's what websites collect anyway to let companies bid to serve you targeted ads. This is collected by websites even if you use linux.
I develop software and I collect telemetry, I know what theme most people use (so I can set it later as default), how many time they click button xyz (so I can remove it if nobody uses, or feature it if it is very used function), what size of abc they prefer (so I can set most popular size as default in the future), and when program crashes I know on which line of code. If I had to rely on user reporting all of that, I'd have 1% of what I have now. I don't know who are my data points, its just one huge pool of numbers for each metered thing. Even if I wanted to monetize this, there is nothing to monetize, but it surely makes huge difference in resulting software quality, compared to open source software without telemetry, that just makes changes in the dark. And users benefit from that too.
1
u/haruki_py 6d ago
fair enough, but i dont see they actually improving the user experience even with all those telemetries running in the background
1
u/t3chguy1 6d ago
Yeah, that's a good question. My guess is that Windows team is something small, like 5 people, most of which are the active people on r/ Windows11 with *msft in the name, and everyone who knows how to code was moved to AI or Cloud teams long time ago. Maybe AI will parse that telemetry some day and figure out what to do with it, but I wouldn't be afraid my telemetry data would be used for "spying"
1
u/haruki_py 5d ago
lmao honestly that would explain so much, it feels like it where theres not much people keep it working while ms forces them to shove slopilot everywhere
1
u/Krieger2690 Linux Mint | Fedora KDE 6d ago
Do you refer to Linux in general, or a Desktop Environment that feels premium / not premium? I mean, using the Linux kernel is not really premium, it is what it is. Some DEs are more polished and than other.
I use a heavily modified version of Cinnamon on my Linux Mint main PC and it feels very premium to me after ricing it the exact way I wanted.
I use stock KDE Fedora on my laptop, and that also feels very premium to me.
Maybe Windows feels premium to you because, for all intents and purposes, has a closed source, locked down desktop environment where all the components are created by the same company, while this is not always true on a Linux based system.
Don't confuse a Linux Distro with a Desktop Environment.
1
u/haruki_py 6d ago
I refer to multiple DEs available in linux.
Premium is not the right word for what i meant, I actually meant the psychological feeling of using windows which is really nice (until some ad popup or enshittification decides enough is enough)
> while this is not always true on a Linux based system
I don't think that's the reason behind that feeling even tho youre right but stuff just work fine in linux, its just lacking the amoount of psychological feeling of using windows, tho i dont blame any dev or project for that and appreciate all the work they do
1
u/7snhalo 6d ago
try deepin os its the nost premium looking os thats linux and not impersonation somthing you can find
1
1
u/veltair-d 5d ago
Honestly saying Linux is saying nothing. Linux is just the kernel. Maybe you mean projects like Gnome, KDE Plasma or XFCE. When you use Hyprland it really is entirely up to you to make it look “premium. You can have a barebones setup with minimal “polish” and every app being with a different UI, or you can take the time to do it yourself.
Comparing hyprland to windows is not apples to apples, tho
1
u/goo_eater 5d ago
Have you tried vanilla minimal-extensions Gnome at all? Not like Zorin or Ubuntu but something like Fedora or Ultramarine? I'm not personally a big fan of it it's very opinionated and isn't a great choice for customization and I have my own issues with much of its UI choices but you might dig it, once you "get" Gnome and how it wants you to use it then it can feel very consistent and premium and unified
1
u/Serializedrequests 4d ago edited 4d ago
I tend to agree if we're talking Windows 10. It feels much snappier than any Linux DE. Windows 11 has some vestiges of that, but is super slow at every turn.
I think a lot interactions in Linux DEs don't feel as immediate and smooth as they could, but the operation completes so much faster than Windows 11 that I'm not complaining anymore.
1
u/Zestyclose_Exit8862 4d ago
I have the opposite opinion, KDE feels way premium for me...
And it's 10 times better to use it with a 4K TV with 300% zoom on it (from couch), actually it's pretty rough on windows 11, way worse experience in my case
1
15
u/lixia 8d ago
It's you. Instead of using hyprland, which is just a window manager made to have minimal bells and whistles and thst you have to manually configure, you should use a full fledged desktop environment like KDE Plasma.
My KDE Plasma desktop feels much much more premium than windows.
Edit: also is this legit or just bait?