Linux beats Windows at these 3 things, and Microsoft still has no answer

Published Oct 19, 2026, 4:00 PM EDT Dibakar Ghosh is a tech journalist at How-To Geek with over a decade of experience using and writing about open-source software, Linux, Android, AI, and personal productivity. He writes about software, operating systems, and tools that help people get more from the technology they already use. Most people, especially casual desktop users, see Linux as a mere alternative to Windows. The idea is that Windows is the more capable OS that can do more, while Linux is the alternative that’s still catching up. Now, I do agree that Windows is better at running certain video games (especially those with anti-cheat software) and industry-standard professional applications. However, there are some areas where Linux has the edge over Windows. In fact, here are three things Linux simply does better than Windows, hands down — and yes, these are areas that benefit nontechnical users, too. Desktop and window management It’s ironic that the OS named Windows doesn’t have the best window management Credit: Lucas Gouveia/How-To Geek If you’re a multitasker and have a bunch of windows open all the time, you’ll find Linux far more powerful and flexible. You see, with Windows, you get what’s known as a floating window manager, or stacking window manager. Think of your desktop as a desk and each app window as a sheet of paper. You can freely move the paper around and, most importantly, stack the sheets on top of one another. This offers an intuitive way to work with app windows, but when you have a bunch of them open at the same time, finding the one you need can become a chore. It also doesn’t help that one window can overlap another, essentially hiding its contents. This is where tiling window managers come in. Here, the desktop is like a grid of tiles. Each window occupies a portion of the screen, and they never overlap. As such, the contents of every open window remain visible. Now, Windows does offer a form of window tiling through its Snap Layouts feature, but you typically need to arrange everything yourself. However, with Linux, you get automatic window tiling. Here, when you open an app, it’s configured to automatically fill the available desktop space. Then, when you open a second app, both apps take up half the screen. Likewise, open a third app, and the available space gets split again. You can also configure how each subsequent app window splits the screen. This way, all your apps automatically arrange themselves into predefined positions without overlapping, allowing you to see everything on your screen. Credit: i3wm Granted, as you keep opening more apps, the space allocated to each window gets smaller and smaller. That’s where virtual desktops come in. They let you organize your apps into separate workspaces. Now, Windows introduced virtual desktops with Windows 10, but Linux desktop environments have supported them since the ‘90s, and they’re often more deeply integrated into the desktop experience. For example, GNOME is essentially built around virtual desktops, called workspaces. On other desktop environments, you get panel widgets that let you visualize your active virtual desktops and switch between them with a click. In some cases, such as with KDE Plasma, the panel widget even shows the apps open on each virtual desktop and lets you move them between desktops right from the panel — without opening the virtual desktop switcher. KDE Plasma also takes the idea of virtual desktops even further with KDE Activities, which are essentially virtual desktops on steroids. Each Activity is its own separate workspace, complete with its own wallpaper, widgets, pinned apps, and set of virtual desktops. With Activities, you can create separate environments for different parts of your life. For example, you could have a work Activity with three or four virtual desktops dedicated to writing, research, email, and other tasks. Likewise, you could have a separate gaming or relaxation Activity, with one desktop dedicated to Steam, another to Discord, and another to Spotify. You can even configure apps to open only on specific virtual desktops within specific Activities. Carry the entire OS on a USB stick Linux can be the most portable PC you’ll ever own If you’ve ever installed Linux, you’re probably already familiar with the live environment. Basically, when you plug in a USB stick containing the Linux distro you want to install, you can boot into an environment where you can either run the OS installer or simply start using the distribution. This is called a live environment. From here, you can browse the web, write and edit documents, and even install and use different apps — all without technically installing the OS. The entire thing runs off the USB stick. You can take this a step further with a feature called a persistent live USB. Normally, the live environment resets when you shut down the system, meaning all the changes you made and apps you installed are gone. However, with a persistent live USB, your changes and installed apps persist across reboots. This means you can plug a USB stick into one computer, do some work, install some apps, unplug it, take it to another PC, plug it in, and bam! You have the same Linux environment, ready to pick up where you left off. As you can imagine, this is incredibly powerful. It’s basically like carrying your personal PC on your keychain. Windows had something similar called Windows To Go, but Microsoft discontinued it in 2019. Keeping old hardware alive That “obsolete” PC in your closet might have years left in it Credit: Nick Lewis / How-To Geek Linux doesn’t just beat Windows in this department — in fact, Windows is often the reason perfectly serviceable hardware becomes obsolete in the first place. With almost every major version upgrade, Windows seems to get heavier, consuming more and more system resources. This leaves fewer resources available for your apps, potentially forcing you to upgrade your hardware. Even if you have a high-end system, Microsoft can introduce strict hardware requirements — like the TPM 2.0 mandate for Windows 11 — that make perfectly good PCs ineligible to run the latest version of Windows. Linux, on the other hand, generally has a smaller footprint and fewer hardware requirements. Even some of the heaviest Linux distributions are still lighter than Windows in terms of resource usage, while offering a comparable level of polish and, in some cases, more features and control over the OS. This allows you to breathe new life into old hardware that Windows has effectively rendered obsolete. And it doesn't stop at PCs that are just a few years old. Some specialized distributions, such as Puppy Linux and Tiny Core Linux, can run with just a few hundred megabytes of RAM, allowing you to revive decade-old hardware. Granted, you won't be running modern workloads on these systems, since apps and websites have become much more resource-intensive, too. But you can repurpose them for lightweight, specialized tasks or turn them into basic home servers instead of letting them end up as e-waste. And there’s more where that came from These are the three areas where I think Linux has the clearest advantage in terms of features that appeal to the widest range of users — but they’re far from the only ones. Linux gives you much more granular control over system updates, its snapshot and rollback features are leagues ahead of Windows System Restore, and the OS is generally more resilient to common security threats. There’s also the fact that it doesn’t ask you to create an online account or try to upsell you with forced ads baked into the OS. Sure, Linux can’t run Adobe Photoshop or Valorant (at least not yet), and if you absolutely need them, it makes sense to stick with Windows. But for everyone else, I strongly believe Linux is the better OS, offering a better overall user experience.