I was using Ubuntu exclusively for around a decade too. It's a great development environment. But about a year ago I needed a new laptop and with the one I purchased, some things didn't only require extra steps to get working, some of them were no fix issues until some indeterminate date in the future.
You mention the fingerprint reader not working out of the box - with my laptop, Fingerprint GUI was basically waiting on one of its dependencies to somehow figure out how to integrate my fingerprint scanner. Things like my active-stylus capable touchscreen weren't supported, and there were no applications to really utilize it even if it was.
I switched to Windows as my primary OS when I realized Windows PowerShell had basically become on par with Linux in almost every degree and that VS Code was as cushy as I could hope for in a development environment. The only thing I've found that isn't supported out of the box is Redis, but I downloaded a ridiculously lightweight version of Ubuntu from the Microsoft store (we're talking <1 MB memory footprint) with one click and was then good to go.
The other thing that really impressed me was all the easy to use tuning software. With ThrottleStop I was able to easily under-volt my processor to completely eliminate things like thermal throttling and improve performance all while greatly improving my battery life. Nvidia support is also way better so I can turn off my graphics card for anything but games - and then there's MSI Afterburner to under-volt my GPU when I am using it.
And yeah, not only do my fingerprint scanner and stylus work on Windows, but Windows has Windows Ink built in so I can easily take screenshots of whatever I'm doing with Snip & Sketch and annotate them with a pen in an instant, and I can use Sketchpad like an on the fly whiteboard when I need to do some math.
Plus, it has art programs like Krita that basically turn my laptop into an iPad Pro when I feel like getting artistic.
And with programs like Enpass, I can use my fingerprint with Windows Hello in place of my master password for stuff like logins and credit card information, which is a lot more secure for someone like me that does a lot of my work from coffee shops.
I still love Ubuntu, but all the offerings of Windows 10 has kind of made me a Windows fanboy and even makes MacOS seem like a decisive downgrade.
You mention the fingerprint reader not working out of the box - with my laptop, Fingerprint GUI was basically waiting on one of its dependencies to somehow figure out how to integrate my fingerprint scanner. Things like my active-stylus capable touchscreen weren't supported, and there were no applications to really utilize it even if it was.
I switched to Windows as my primary OS when I realized Windows PowerShell had basically become on par with Linux in almost every degree and that VS Code was as cushy as I could hope for in a development environment. The only thing I've found that isn't supported out of the box is Redis, but I downloaded a ridiculously lightweight version of Ubuntu from the Microsoft store (we're talking <1 MB memory footprint) with one click and was then good to go.
The other thing that really impressed me was all the easy to use tuning software. With ThrottleStop I was able to easily under-volt my processor to completely eliminate things like thermal throttling and improve performance all while greatly improving my battery life. Nvidia support is also way better so I can turn off my graphics card for anything but games - and then there's MSI Afterburner to under-volt my GPU when I am using it.
And yeah, not only do my fingerprint scanner and stylus work on Windows, but Windows has Windows Ink built in so I can easily take screenshots of whatever I'm doing with Snip & Sketch and annotate them with a pen in an instant, and I can use Sketchpad like an on the fly whiteboard when I need to do some math.
Plus, it has art programs like Krita that basically turn my laptop into an iPad Pro when I feel like getting artistic.
And with programs like Enpass, I can use my fingerprint with Windows Hello in place of my master password for stuff like logins and credit card information, which is a lot more secure for someone like me that does a lot of my work from coffee shops.
I still love Ubuntu, but all the offerings of Windows 10 has kind of made me a Windows fanboy and even makes MacOS seem like a decisive downgrade.