but with Linux, the case for me is that given enough time, I can usually find all the information I need to figure it out. With Windows it's Google for 10 minutes then throw my hands in the air and figure out a workaround.
I'm not sure which is better for my productivity: realizing that I accidentally screwed up my DNS resolver and spending the next hour hunting through forum posts and man pages before finding the snippet that explains what I was supposed to do and reconfiguring my resolved.conf symlink or figuring out the quickest, crudest workaround on Windows.
Stackoverflow really changed the game. I really should get active there again to give back more, I can't tell you how much a random stackover/superuser question helped me narrow down an issue.
Also, has everyone forgotten about IRC?
You just have to be tricky: People will not help you, but as pedantic as they are, they’ll correct mistakes you make.
You go there, and say "I’m disappointed that you can’t even use <device> with Linux" and you’ll get hundreds of answers telling you exactly how to use it.
True! However, obligatory "Gentoo is rice" link: https://fun.irq.dk/funroll-loops.org/
source: I got trolled by swedes in #linux before abandoning that wasteland for greener pastures listed above.
Arch? You need to make sure you're not looking at something a decade old.
I often just scope my google search.
Also, I do not find that I can answer every question easily for linux, even though I've used it as my primary OS since ~2002 and have some idea what to google for.
In fact, I have both sound and bluetooth issues on my machine right now that I have given up trying to resolve.
I have seen my fair share of this in the Windows world, too. Edit registry keys you never even heard of, use that (mostly undocumented) command invocation (I'm look at you, SharePoint!), edit that XML file that sits in a place where it does not even make sense...
On Linux (and other Unix systems), at least you have man pages, on Windows I cannot recall a single instance where the builtin help system has actually helped me. I mean, even MS-freaking-DOS had a reasonably useful builtin help.
With Linux, at least it gets better once you get the hang of it. Microsoft's sorry excuse for documentation is (mostly) a joke. (The exception are developer tools - the documentation on T-SQL and the .Net framework classes is fairly good, even though it's such a mess that it's easier to Google for specific entries than using the TOC or the builtin search... once I find what I was looking for, I do usually find a helpful answer to my question.)
(To be fair, when I first started using Linux, I found it incredibly strange, complicated, confusing and intimidating; within the first six months of using Linux, I was this close to literally throwing my PC out the window on no less than three occasions. So I know the frustration you speak of.)
If I went back to trying Linux, I'd need a suite of 'just-works' solutions; Plug & Play was the main reason my family moved from DR-DOS & Norton Commander to 95. And of course driver compatibility.
Honestly, if I went to an open OS from 7 at this point, I'd go to ReactOS.
Man get-command
Get-help get-help
But I agree, PowerShell is a huge improvement.
It's a lot harder to pull a specific, coherent, considered answer out of the internet, which doesn't involve duct tape and breakable insecure awful things.
"How do I run x on startup" will as likely get you "download this Ruby script which calls IFTTT.com triggered by when your network adapter connects, btw install this binary wifi driver blob" as "put this with a plain text password in /etc/whoknowsbutitworks lol" as "on your distro with your shell the startup system is XYZ and the startup scripts run like a then b then /home/user/c so put it in ~/c"