On my Job I regularly have to install Windows PCs and sometimes even install the USB Drivers for Mouse and Keyboard to work. Why dont I have to do that on Linux ever? Seems weird not to have them installed on Windows.
On Linux, all those drivers are already included in the kernel out of the box. Linux has much better hardware support than Windows in general, the only issue are proprietary drivers from third parties that don’t support Linux.
I had the experience recently with two wifi usb sticks. Linux: Work out of the box, no hassle. Windows: One was not supported on Win 11 and caused blue screens, the other only works on USB2 port, not on USB3 and it was a real hassle to finde the right drivers.
That’s why I don’t understand people who say Windows is easier than Linux.
To be fair, it is very important to remember that some community member has put work into making it work, the way that it does. I’m incredibly thankful, that we’re in a position, where OSS outperforms proprietary software in so many ways. Support these people, if possible
Can you explain what you mean by this. I have only a bit of experience with a few distros but hardware issues have always been a bugaboo for me with Linux. This statement seems quite the opposite of my experience. I mean I guess it’s because of the third party proprietary drivers, but that’s a decent chunk of the hardware pie and it’s hard for me not to include that in “better hardware support”
There are basically two different approaches to drivers. Windows will have some very basic drivers built-in, but most of them are downloaded and installed when a component that requires them is detected in current versions of Windows.
Linux on the other hand includes every driver it knows about out of the box. You won’t ever need to install additional drivers if the hardware is supported. This makes Linux an excellent portable system, you can just take a drive out of one pc with an AMD CPU and Nvidia GPU and put it into one with an Intel CPU and AMD GPU without driver issues*.
*as long as you stick to the included drivers
Not my experience at all. Always having to deal with hardware compatibility with Linux, for mundane stuff that Windows never even blinks over.
My best example is a Logitech mouse, arguably the most prolific and popular mouse out there, they don’t work in Linux at all, until you find a third party tool. In Windows, they work immediately, albeit without Logitech’s fancy management utilities. But they just work.
I see this all the time on Linux, with mundane stuff.
Which mouse and which distro? I’m genuinely curious. I’ve plugged my MX Master 3S directly into my work laptop running Arch many times and have never had to do anything to make it work.
Where as I’ve got my 3S plugged in to my work laptop running fedora and, and I regularly have to cycle the connection setting away from the bolt dongle and back again, because the input becomes choppy and laggy.
No issue with the straight bluetooth connection, but the high resolution scrolling doesn’t seem to work
You’ve probably figured this by now, OP, but the computers at your job are weird. Needing to install USB drivers for mouse and keyboard to work is not normal behavior for Windows. Like another person commented- check the BIOS settings.
Windows ME didn’t have the ability to automatically install USB drivers and it was fucking bullshit even back then.
You can’t install a flash drive driver if you need the flash drive in order to transfer the driver to the computer, everything is always 0.1mb too large for a floppy drive so CD has to be burned which is clunky and stupid and time consuming.
What version of windows and what mouse and keyboard. 99% of them work out of the box and the drivers only add extra functions if there are special features.
Basic functions of HID should still work under windows for the same reason why they work mod-less under Linux. But when those devices are not HID-conform then you would need drivers/a kernel-mod.
Drivers are included in the kernel, you will always have them.
