I’m usually a Windows “shill” or at least a casual defender of it, as I work in a Windows environment and it’s not as bad as people pretend it is. No shade against Linux, I love it and Windows is bad. Just not like “I’d rather self-castrate” bad.
Anyway…
But for a home server? Either be super lazy and set up samba shares from your Windows desktop for the drives (avoid having a server at all) or bite the bullet and use Linux. You’ll get so much more out of a Linux server that it’s not even funny.
If you’re competent and technologically saavy enough to use a Linux distro as your daily driver, you can learn to make Windows work for you too.
Waste of effort if you don’t need to interact with any Windows environments for school or work, but definitely possible.
For me? I’m happy to get paid to automate shit using PowerShell that should have been basic built in functionality from the start. PowerShell is just the most convenient scripting language due to being packed-in with most Windows installs, and tons of built in functionality for interfacing with other Microsoft products. So as long as Microsoft keeps sucking, I’ve got a comfy paycheck.
And if the year of the Linux desktop ever finally happens? I’m ready, I’ll be cheering, and I’ll be ready to get paid helping companies to make the switch.
It’s very rough coming back after 20+ years. Easy things on Linux quickly become a wasted day going down six trillion rabbit holes on Windows before you can even accomplish your seemingly simple task. Most problems in Windows are much more easily resolved by booting into Linux to make the repairs.
Understandbly theres no real need to use powershell outside of the windows realm.
As far as my limited experience understood it: Everything powershell gives you is in a properly formatted data type (e.g. bool, text, int, etc.) and thus can be more easily manipulated than in bash where everything is treated as text.
I work with Windows and it’s AWFUL. Did you know the taskbar is a fucking ELECTRON APP? Everything is so slow. And you have to go through hoops to do what you want, and that setting isn’t available in the settings electron app, you have to go through these 5 screens to find the magic button that opens the win 95 style dialog box to set what you want. It’s so So SO BAD.
I’m using it 95% of my time with it by remoting with a program to the server and experience reduced window quality and speed anyway.
I want it finishing the task and not look pretty.
And ew. 95 theme. How old are you? At least use Aero/flat and then log off to reduce the 0.5% load from the active user session
I think they are trying to exaggerate how very outdated some Windows UI elements look (primarily dialog boxes?). I doubt they would use a 95 theme on an OS that’s hard to theme and annoying to use.
Yeah, Windows isn’t that bad, but it’s not that good either. On servers, everything requires a million clicks or some random terminal command that’s impossible to find documentation for (was just passed down from senior to junior over the ages). I had to configure one for testing (embedded product that needed to work in Windows environments as well as Linux), and it took hours to do the most basic task. Granted, none of us were sysadmins, just devs, but we weren’t familiar with Linux or Windows servers, just desktops, and Linux was by far easier to configure.
Don’t pick Windows for your server without a good reason, you’ll get much more value from learning Linux than Windows.
I’m usually a Windows “shill” or at least a casual defender of it, as I work in a Windows environment and it’s not as bad as people pretend it is. No shade against Linux, I love it and Windows is bad. Just not like “I’d rather self-castrate” bad.
Anyway…
But for a home server? Either be super lazy and set up samba shares from your Windows desktop for the drives (avoid having a server at all) or bite the bullet and use Linux. You’ll get so much more out of a Linux server that it’s not even funny.
I’d rather run a rusty nail through my sack than booting Windows
Have fun with that then. Sorry about your balls.
If you’re competent and technologically saavy enough to use a Linux distro as your daily driver, you can learn to make Windows work for you too.
Waste of effort if you don’t need to interact with any Windows environments for school or work, but definitely possible.
For me? I’m happy to get paid to automate shit using PowerShell that should have been basic built in functionality from the start. PowerShell is just the most convenient scripting language due to being packed-in with most Windows installs, and tons of built in functionality for interfacing with other Microsoft products. So as long as Microsoft keeps sucking, I’ve got a comfy paycheck.
And if the year of the Linux desktop ever finally happens? I’m ready, I’ll be cheering, and I’ll be ready to get paid helping companies to make the switch.
After learning too much about Linux it’s impossible for me to use Windows.
It hurts me at every step, making me question my life and everyones sanity who handles that stuff.
It’s very very bad and nobody will pry Gentoo from my hands.
It’s very rough coming back after 20+ years. Easy things on Linux quickly become a wasted day going down six trillion rabbit holes on Windows before you can even accomplish your seemingly simple task. Most problems in Windows are much more easily resolved by booting into Linux to make the repairs.
The few times I tried bash it was awful.
At least Powershell let’s me manipulate data more freely and organized.
But Linux has way cooler packages (Window Server 2025 finally implemented winget ootb).
I have not used PowerShell that much, because I’m so used to bash that it felt foreign.
There are other shells you can try, more modern, perhaps they will be more to your liking.
Understandbly theres no real need to use powershell outside of the windows realm.
As far as my limited experience understood it: Everything powershell gives you is in a properly formatted data type (e.g. bool, text, int, etc.) and thus can be more easily manipulated than in bash where everything is treated as text.
Linux has been fine as a desktop since i386 days.
I’d definitely rather boot windows, but to each his own.
I work with Windows and it’s AWFUL. Did you know the taskbar is a fucking ELECTRON APP? Everything is so slow. And you have to go through hoops to do what you want, and that setting isn’t available in the settings electron app, you have to go through these 5 screens to find the magic button that opens the win 95 style dialog box to set what you want. It’s so So SO BAD.
I’m using it 95% of my time with it by remoting with a program to the server and experience reduced window quality and speed anyway.
I want it finishing the task and not look pretty.
And ew. 95 theme. How old are you? At least use Aero/flat and then log off to reduce the 0.5% load from the active user session
I think they are trying to exaggerate how very outdated some Windows UI elements look (primarily dialog boxes?). I doubt they would use a 95 theme on an OS that’s hard to theme and annoying to use.
Yeah, Windows isn’t that bad, but it’s not that good either. On servers, everything requires a million clicks or some random terminal command that’s impossible to find documentation for (was just passed down from senior to junior over the ages). I had to configure one for testing (embedded product that needed to work in Windows environments as well as Linux), and it took hours to do the most basic task. Granted, none of us were sysadmins, just devs, but we weren’t familiar with Linux or Windows servers, just desktops, and Linux was by far easier to configure.
Don’t pick Windows for your server without a good reason, you’ll get much more value from learning Linux than Windows.