I hear it every time: But Muh Windows is better, because you dont have to install Drivers!!!11!11elf
And every time I have to force myself to tell them that its even Easier to install drivers on Linux, because you dont even need to know if you have an AMD or an Nvidia Card, you just open the Software and click on the recommended install
Occasionally you will have issues with ancient hardware needing specific broadcom stuff. Also, Surface tablets require a little bit of work.
Other than that I have been having a great time not installing drivers on Linux for the 7 other computers I have recently been managing.
HP printers are even easier on Linux than Windows with hplip.
And even so, if you require ancient drivers its probably even wonkier to get them working on Windows
I support several hundred Windows desktops, and most of them work okay out of the box. Since we are stripping down the Windows image, we are injecting the drives at imaging, so it is very difficult to compare.
I CAN discuss that Windows 11 24h2 appears to have issues with scanners, and requires going into device manager and telling the computer to use the driver you just installed and is already selected.
There for a while your could reach pretty far back and get 7 and 8 drivers working on 10 as long as they were whql. Often enough, XP and older drivers would work, assuming you used comparability mode and did just the right dance. I’m seeing lsa blocking some of that now.
Again, it is difficult to compare a professional environment to my personal fleet, just considering scale and one-off cases.
But… then you’re using an HP printer. 🤮
Yeah, there is that downside.
I just bought an ancient enterprise color printer from auction for a song. It came with an additional full set of unopened toner, all for less than half the cost of the toner.
The upside is that I will have a color printer I can manage and use for printing books.
The fact that it’s a laser printer certainly redeems you! I’m dumb and bought a decent Canon printer several years ago (do they still make them?), and have used it a few times since then. I haven’t checked recently, but am 100% certain all the cartridges are dried up. If I ever wanted to use it again, I’d have to blow out all the dust from it, clean the nozzles, buy more of all the colors (even if I’m printing b&w), and align the printing again. So much better to just go to a print shop the few rare times I’ll need it. I don’t want to make assumptions, but I bet that’s the case for most people…
If you are lucky, you may be able to reclaim the ink with rubbing alcohol, but I always spent forever on that and rarely had good results.
https://www.wikihow.com/Clean-Ink-Cartridges
If that doesn’t work, I’m a fan of blotting the cartridge on an alcohol-soaked paper towel and then dragging the cart along a piece of paper to scrub the nozzle.
I have gotten ink working that way, personally and professionally.