Macros

Macros, 7 months ago

For me the 30 minutes to install is about right. After that I have usable Linux and an unusable Windows.

To get Windows to the same state:

• Add 5 Minutes for clicking trough the "Do you want to enable handwriting? ((( We just allow ourselves to collect samples of everything you write to “improve our recognition engine” )))
• Add 20-30 minutes of security updates (thankfully it got much faster with SSDs, before it could have been hours)
• Add 20-30 minutes of installing necessary software like an office suite, PDF Reader with basic functionality, 7zip. This is only 30 minutes because I spent hours automating the downloads and installs trough scripts.
• If it is my system or a company system: Add 20 minutes to go trough the settings of Win10Privacy to at least reduce the phoning home and to enable some necessary settings for working with the system like "Don’t restart at random times"
• Add 10 Minutes to remove the installed bloatware like People, Windows Maps, Windows Experience Host, …

In summary:
Linux requires 5 minutes attention and is ready after 30min.
Windows requires 40 minutes of attention and is somewhat ready after 2h30min. Even if I skip the privacy stuff its still at about 1h20min.

To be fair: On Windows and Linux I immediately install ublock to Firefox afterwards, on Linux I run a single apt command to install some more niche software which takes about 3 minutes on a fast network connection.

Macros, 7 months ago

I am very happy if you can enlighten me. Granted, I do not install Windows very often (otherwise I would bake all these things into an image), and there may be improvements. So feel free to make your point and save me time.

An no, security updates can’t run in the background. If I sit a user in front of a PC, the PC has to be secure. Which means that the zero day exploits from a few days ago which are already exploited in the wild have to be fixed. Also yes, software for basic tasks and configuration till usability is reached is part of an operating system install. Otherwise you have to compare the time to install a barebones Linux (1 Minute) with a bare Windows install (still 30 minutes).

I currently use chocolatey for automation of software installs. But Libreoffice alone takes minutes to install on Windows even on fast PCs. If you know a better/faster tool I am happy to listen.

Macros, 7 months ago

I had good experiences with the Zenbook-Flip Series from Asus. Linux support is great, build quality too. It even survived a big drop with only the screen falling out, but still working. I just inserted it again. Battery life is also great which is perfect for university.

Palm rejection did not work reliable however. I just got used to disable the touchpad with a keycombo whenever I started typing longer passages of text.