Personal anecdote: Windows Update has a habit of resetting microphone frequency settings, causing problems if Windows and connected professional hardware suddenly speak "different languages". This is strictly an OS-level issue, since no driver has been changed and the hw config and behaviour has not been changed either.
It's not just you, you will find most if not all vendors of external audio devices for Windows will have a tech support page saying you have to hit 'reset defaults' after Windows Update if it chooses to change Sample Rate, default device etc.
Windows often changes the settings for internal Realtek devices, too. Windows Update can set unusable settings irrespective of whether vendor drivers are used or class compliant Microsoft supplied ones.
My Dell laptop with Windows didn't recognize any headphones or headsets, until I tried 3 different drivers from 3 different vendor websites. Applications mess with volume settings constantly unless you know which checkbox to uncheck, at work we have a speakerphone where with some laptops you can't understand anything at all, and so on. Windows is not better here in any way, in my experience during normal day-to-day use it is actually worse than Linux audio.
> I've yet to meet someone that encountered Window audio not working, barring some hardware/firmware issue
Hit that with an All-in-one-PC thing of a friend two years ago, had to reinstall Windows after some issue with malware. Sound didn't work because the driver from Windows Update was generic, you'd need the years-old version from the manufacturer installed first (as it contained the pin mapping somewhere in the bloatware that came with the driver). Fun fact, Ubuntu also didn't make sounds, I thought the speakers were busted and was already thinking about bringing a 'scope with me next time. Why pin mapping of audio chips can't be stored in an SPI chip or ACPI table is beyond me.
I've yet to encounter a case where Linux audio is not working. Thats because just like windows, I buy hardware where the manufacturer helps write Linux drivers. I don't financially support hardware makers who don't care about me and buy from those who do, simple as.
Also hardware companies should be happy if people are trying to reverse engineer their devices to get a working driver: It menas people want to use it. Instead of trying to further lock down or obfuscate their devices they should be happy and help these folks. They are doing free work for your company.
> Instead of trying to further lock down or obfuscate their devices they should be happy and help these folks. They are doing free work for your company.
They are, but legally the situation is way less clear for companies:
- for anything involving RF communication, allowing unauthorized/unverified selection of stuff like wifi country codes can lead to illegal RF emissions
- low level assistance may touch stuff that's nominally under NDAs and expose the company to legal risk
- anything involving "jailbreaking" may lead to issues with DRM
As a result, the official policy often is "no one touches code or helps people from outside, corporate legal doesn't want to get Oracle'd".
As I said all that does is further push me to only buy from companies that support my os. I have mixed feelings about people reverse engineering hostile hardware. It helps those who mistakenly bought that hardware esp as an onramp for Windows users who just bought whatever laptop. And it's always useful to keep reverse engineering skills shrap. But on the other hand you are just helping someone who hates you, the best way to play the game is to not play it.
Any setup with a bit more complexity than "playing audio from a single app without regards to latency" can be terribly janky and unpredictable in Windows, especially if it's multithreaded or running along some other CPU/IO-heavy app. Audio engineers and streamers know well what I'm talking about.
Oh, I have so much issues with audio in Teams on windows. Spotify works fine and I can hear the sound when connecting a call or meeting but then the audio is out. Or the mic. You never really know which one will cause problems. Replaced the BT speaker that caused problems for years but usb mic+audio seem just vaguely better.
There's a small but loud crowd which insists on using Linux as their daily driver on modern laptops despite this makes very little sense. https://xkcd.com/619/ is just as true today as it was near fifteen years ago, it's just today it would be streaming from various services (especially in high resolution). I have also struggled with Bluetooth, multifunctional devices and weird enterprise networks. For people who do not enjoy fighting their computers, Windows + WSL is just a smoother experience. Leave the Linux kernel for headless devices: routers, servers etc. It excels there.
I use Linux not only on laptops, but also on servers.
Also, I am more likely to have 2048 core laptop than playing full screen Flash videos.
https://xkcd.com/619/ complains about some Linux development focusing on support on server/supercomputer features and ignoring UX issues and support for some then popular media format.
The ironic part is that support for absurdly high core devices becomes more relevant, while Flash died.
I have been an open source developer for near twenty years now but that doesn't mean I subscribe to such notions. I am just way too old to feed another Tamagotchi for an OS.
Bluetooth, audio, etc works fine in the machines I use, because the manufacturer helps the development
of Linux drivers. The real question is why are you buying hardware from companies that dislike you and your os?
Tough luck, that doesn't exist. Linux doesn't work and the others, by your definition, work for some corporation. Although this is blind zealotry, O&O shutup takes care of those problems but when did facts stop cults -- because that's what Linux people became. I have been using Linux since 1993 and once I thought similarly and have grown thoroughly disillusioned. It never worked well on the desktop and extremely likely never will. There's a long, long list of forum posts on Arch of me trying to use the damn thing over too many years and then this breaks or that breaks.
> https://xkcd.com/619/ is just as true today as it was near fifteen years ago, it's just today it would be streaming from various services (especially in high resolution)
Speak for yourself; IME playing video is sufficiently boring that I don't even think about it.
In Linux land. I am constantly fighting OS to do the most trivial things.