Linux

Printing and scanning. I only print like one thing every couple months and scan things every 6 months, but a backlog is growing. My printer is over 10 years old but it worked well on Windows. Despite their site saying it supports Linux I just can't get it to print or acknowledge any data is being sent. I'm contemplating a newer printer since deals are going on right now.

Update: Woooo! After a few weeks of fiddling with the install scripts and CUPS config I got something to print via Linux! That being said I'm upgrading, not giving up, to a new EcoTank printer.

I’m really impressed by the fact that it’s so difficult to find something I miss even if I really try hard.

I’d say I miss being able to do a backup of my work iPhone with iTunes and not some obscure command line tool. But that’s about it and I’m not even sure I really need it since my company is trying to block reinstalling from a backup for safety reasons probably.

Linux has really become something that everyone can use day to day provided they have the right hardware and not something like my Surface Go where the bluetooth comes and goes.

Ive been mostly on linux for like 25 years, but i was using a chromebook for a while bc it was cheap (had a linux desktop tho).

I miss easily running android apps on my laptop. I could install waydroid but its not that big of a deal to me. Just the only thing i could think of that i miss from another os...

It's been so long since I used windows at home. I switched in 2009.

I use it at work, so I would say RDP is probably my favorite feature I would miss at home. But for the most part I use ssh anyways.

Fusion 360 :(

Yes i know theres wine versions But they just dont work the same. And randomly crash.

Yes i know free cad exists, but it feels so clunky and is so much diffrent than fusion/inventor

to edit CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT all night long

Fair number of FPS games refuses to work. Apex recently just did that. Other than that, none. Really happy my personal setup works so well.

Good OS-native cloud syncing. The Windows Cloud Sync Engine is so useful and is now adopted by virtually every cloud storage provider, and crucially lets you keep your entire cloud drive visible as unsynced files and pulls them on-demand (ie. what Dropbox call Smart Sync).

Thanks to being freelance and working for different companies I have different files I work on in Dropbox and Onedrive as well as my personal stuff being stored on Proton and my Synology NAS through Drive, and none of these have linux integrations that even come close to their Windows or macOS equivalents. Things like Syncthing and rclone will do selective sync, so you aren't forced to sync your entire cloud drive on to your laptop's tiny SSD, but that still means half your files are missing and have to be accessed through janky browser interfaces 🤢

I've been waiting for a post like this. Every single time I have tried Windows 11 I have fallen in love with the UI and UX. Sure, it can be buggy at times, but that's true with anything. It has always pained me a little bit every time I have to replace it with Linux. KDE Plasma 6 is the closest I've been able to find to Windows 11. Microsoft in my opinion did a really sleek and nice job making Windows 11 pretty, especially compared to Windows 10.

Hardware info (hwinfo) or similar. Be able to check all voltages, speed and temps while testing new hardware. For example my ARC A770 has little to no info, and shows running at pcie x1.

Edit: mistakingly thought link width was x4, but looking at it again shows x1

I miss not having to worry about whether any app or game would be easy to install and work flawlessly.

edit. also printing in general, situation is so dire that I just send whatever I want to print to my phone and print it from there these days.

A minor but useful GUI feature on MacOS in list view is showing the size of directories as well as individual files and being able to sort by those sizes. That extra step in Linux of having to contextually click on a listed directory and choose "Properties" all the way at the bottom of that menu is a minor annoyance

I miss the human connection with those around me who use windows. After years of using Linux almost exclusively, I now miss being able to relate to them. Sometimes I feel lonely because of it.

Colleagues get to resonate with all the windows slowness and reliability issues, and I can only stay silent.

"Hey, how can I do this obscure thing?" "Oh yes that's easy... err... no, I don't know." So many methods that are easy on Linux are basically impractical on windows. E.g. many text file processing tasks are doable swiftly with simple shell scripts or even bash one-liners; what will a windows user do? Telling them to automate something means suggesting them to create a new Java project. Opening an SSH session means using Mobaxterm which limits the number of sessions you can create.

Wallpaper Engine. Advantages Linux provides mostly are better than Windows, but man I miss clicking a few times and having an animated wallpaper working.