> I constantly get sleep issues on my Linux hardware where it just fails to resume and sits at a black screen or throws kernel panics. I've got coworkers whose external displays don't get reconnected right from sleep. These are pretty bottom of the barrel experiences. Meanwhile, every one of my Windows machines sleeps and wakes without any issues.
Again, I believe you, but I've never seen this and I don't know anyone else who has ever seen this. Everyone I've ever talked to, ever, has said sleep on Windows does not work. That's a big reason they're on Macs.
Now, I don't like MacOS. So I use a Lunar Lake laptop with Linux, and sleep works. I have 2 1440p 240hz monitors connected over thunderbolt and those sleep and wake just fine too. Which, as an aside, is a testament to the hardware. Shoutout Intel.
And on the topic of drivers, yeah that's just a roundabout way of critiquing Windows. Those should be included in the kernel. It was a design choice to not do that, which really holds Windows back. Microsoft has been reversing course over the past 10 years or so, so we have precision drivers from Microsoft for touchpads for instance.
And, surprise surprise, those touchpads with first-party precision drivers built into Windows are the best touchpads.
As for monitors not being attached after sleep, I was mostly talking about macOS but I do get my comment isn't clear on that. It's an incredibly common issue.
As for drivers being in the kernel or outside the kernel, in the end if the vendor writes trash drivers they'll be trash drivers regardless of where they are. Clearly good touchpad drivers could have been written, but Synaptics just never gave a shit. But those same shitty touchpads were still often shitty even in Linux with open-source drivers. And what do you know, a vendor actually cares to make a good driver and things are better. We didn't even need to change the entire driver model for it to happen.
Back when I used nvidia graphics adapters a driver crash in Windows just meant maybe your app crashed, maybe it handled it gracefully and all that happened was the screen went black for a second. A driver issue on that same nvidia GPU in Linux means a kernel panic and the whole machine crashes, even things not running GPU workloads.
There are pros and cons each way about whether you bundle in the drivers into the kernel or have them live outside. Having it live in the kernel means if the vendor never bothers maintaining or opensourcing the driver you're just stuck on the old kernel. I've got a drawer full of computers which will never see a modern kernel and still keep all their functionality. A pile of e-waste because of the requirement to use that specific kernel the device shipped with, nothing else.
Again, I believe you, but I've never seen this and I don't know anyone else who has ever seen this. Everyone I've ever talked to, ever, has said sleep on Windows does not work. That's a big reason they're on Macs.
Now, I don't like MacOS. So I use a Lunar Lake laptop with Linux, and sleep works. I have 2 1440p 240hz monitors connected over thunderbolt and those sleep and wake just fine too. Which, as an aside, is a testament to the hardware. Shoutout Intel.
And on the topic of drivers, yeah that's just a roundabout way of critiquing Windows. Those should be included in the kernel. It was a design choice to not do that, which really holds Windows back. Microsoft has been reversing course over the past 10 years or so, so we have precision drivers from Microsoft for touchpads for instance.
And, surprise surprise, those touchpads with first-party precision drivers built into Windows are the best touchpads.