The Reverse Roll
Switching to Windows
As described in this article, I switched back to Windows in December 2025 after just under a year.
At first, everything was great— I had my favorite programs—ON1 Photo RAW, Affinity, and EmClient—back again.
Other things also felt somehow more convenient at first. No need to search for drivers; almost everything worked “out of the box.”
Gradually, however, it became clear that I had paid for this convenience with all the drawbacks of a Windows 11 system.
The Drawbacks
When you’ve been using Linux for a long time, you quickly forget that on Windows, hardly anything works without having to set up an online account somewhere. It starts with Windows itself and continues with almost all programs.
The constant pop-ups of messages and the like when you hover over the weather applet are also annoying in the long run. You can certainly turn that off—but all in all, I don’t want to be told how to set up my system.
It feels like Windows does exactly that: the system dictates many things to me that I don’t want.
A Step Back
Last week, I’d finally had enough and switched back to Mint.
Aside from the fact that programs feel significantly faster, Linux actually gives me a sense of freedom.
Here, I can decide for myself what the system looks like, what I need, and what I don’t.
This freedom is sometimes more complicated than on Windows because I “have to” decide for myself what I need—since I’m not restricted by the operating system.
BTW:
Since I use almost exclusively open-source programs on Linux, there are no license fees or subscriptions. That also helps the household budget.
Darktable
In the article mentioned above, I wrote that I never get the same results with Darktable as I do with ON1.
This is still true—if you’re familiar with ON1, you can achieve very good results very quickly (thanks in part to the many presets).
Recently, however, I stumbled upon this YouTube channel:
Darktable Landscapes
What’s explained there is, for me, almost like a small revelation when it comes to Darktable.
In any case, I’m currently more than just a little happy to be back in front of a Linux system.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
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