The advantage of linux comes in freedom, not UI. The best things in linux always was, still is, and likely always will be, command line. The UNIX philosophy has made Linux what it is today: everywhere that you least suspect it. Alot of people say it's because of open source, which i agree gives it alot of power, but he strong focus the unix principle places on "focus on what you're good at" inherently makes things for linux more cross platform, which is why we find so many linux originated tools being used on windows, that alot of people don't realize found their first home on linux.

The problem, however, is CLI is scary, and not everyone is willing to learn it. Linux is more than a swiss army knife, for the swiss knife has a makeshift tool for every given job, while Linux simply has the tools intended for the job.

That said, GUIs make all this power user friendly and hidden from the user, so they often don't see the primary advantages of linux over other solutions, just like alot of people don't see the advantage of DRM-free over the more convenient and better known DRMed platforms: not everyone cares about playing their game 10 years from now, especially people who don't know or understand what happened to Dungeon Keeper and such. People just get stuck on the idea that newer is better, because they haven't gotten burned yet.

I am not sure I completely agree that Linux is focus on what you're good at. To me, it seems Linux is more free than Windows, because their code is made by a pretty much unrestrained community, but in practice Linux is harder to pin down than commercial software and this is visible in the GUI. There are less computers with standard Linux simply because people dont like to search for, as you say, the whole toolbox instead of just having it all handy. Windows, after all, is at least easier to use and an excellent choice in terms of flexibility. In fact, Linux perhaps overreached itself principally in terms of this area.

Linux, under the hood, is a kernel mixed with "binutils" and/or "busybox" which follows the unix philosophy. Go ahead, grab termux if you have an android device and see how powerful the CLI really is. It's because of this that we have dd-wrt, stoplights with linux, linux servers everywhere (for httpd, sshd, ftpd, smtpd, etc), skype servers (yes, microsoft used [or maybe they still do] linux servers to run skype), cookware, cars, scientific equipment, airplanes, digital billboards, gas pumps, supposedly the International Space Station, and a whole host of other things. Why? Because if you need something you can just plug in about any hardware and make it work with minimal effort since the strongest tools are cross compilable and interact well with each other via pipes and everything else, thanks to the unix philosophy, you can jerry-rig things to work, and be stable, pretty quickly.

The problem is, it's not focused on being a desktop, and the things that focus on trying to turn linux into a desktop are projects much, much bigger than linux itself, because it turns out that GUIs and GUI interfaces are alot of work, especially if you want fancy animations like when you want a window to go up in flames when you close it (that was fun back in the day).

That's what I mean, it is certainly more lively than Windows, but at the same time it struggles to find a place of its own. Sometimes flexibility does require more of a light observant rooted-ness in a robust desktop environment, or even the DOS-environment, because of course Bill Gates was succesful long before Windows.

Well, Linux as a whole isnt' trying to find a limited market, but rather be good at what it does and let the market find it's spot for it. You need software to control stoplights, crockpots, microwaves, science equipment, etc, and an OS provides you an environment where alot of the boiler-plate tasks (basically, the bits that everything ultimately needs, from drivers to basic I/O for testing to timers to everything else) are done for you.

Long post but I hope it helps:

From my experience in low end systems, I suspect the OP's system is running an mSata or eMMC drive (not to be confused with the larger and modern M.2), possibly of 32GB size.

So, aside from Installing Linux, how does one resolve the free space issue for Windows?

1) Wipe the hard disk clean, not just a format but all partitions and reinstall Windows using the latest version as this will ensure less old files in your system due to updates. In some systems, OEM's tend to put a hidden partition with the full Windows setup (4GB) along with Bloatware such as Acer's junk software.

2) Disable System Restore, this wastes a lot of space. Contrary to popular belief it's actually a very crappy Windows feature. Space usage varies here but I've seen it as high as 9GB.

3) Disable Hibernation - Not to be confused with Sleep Mode where your PC remains on with very low power. Putting your system in hibernation means it will copy everything in Ram to a hidden file on your hard disk which is the size of your system memory before powering off. You can find this file at: C:\hiberfil.sys. - If you have 4GB ram then it will be 4GB in size, you get the picture. Solution - Start Menu > type 'cmd' > Right click run as Administrator > type (without quotes): powercfg -h off

Extra) Aside from the above 3, you can clean the system regularly with free tools such as CCleaner and SystemNinja.

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Technology Rant:

Laptop manufacturers today cut hardware costs but still sell them at a high price, for example 2 Years ago I bought a Acer laptop: Intel N2840 (Dual Core), 2GB DDR3L (NOT Soldered), 320GB Sata HDD + Windows10 for 300€. I have since upgraded that laptop to 8GB Ram and a 250GB Samsung SSD and running Xubuntu 18.04.

This is what the same shop is offering today (Acer Lap):

Intel N3160 Dual Core, 4GB DDR3L (Soldered), 32GB eMMC (also Soldered) and ChromeOS for 329€, a much inferior product which can't be upgraded.

Don't you hate that? I hate how we keep loosing freedom as time goes by as companies don't respect our agency. It's for this reason that i'm glad i've gotten into arduino and stuff. In the coming days, that kind of stuff will be healthy replacements, even if slower, just to have some freedom.

Non gaming laptops are going worse by the day. Some mid ranged models (550€) are screwing customers with ram, they come with a fixed amount onboard (soldered) and 1 expansion slot. whereas the older models gives you straight 2 slots and bam you can put as much as the chipset allows. I've taken my i3-5005U laptop to 16GB last year, you can't do the same thing with all modern models.

Buying a laptop has become like stepping in a minefield these days unless you do your homework.

Honestly, outside of ram, hard drives, and "expansion slots," laptops really have been this way for a long time, though, but this was usually about fitting it into the plastic. I'm a bit concerned about this creeping rejection of our ability to change parts that would otherwise be readily changeable. I'm also weary of the crap that's happening with tablets (if you dedicate your sd-card to your android device, via encryption, you can treat this as "internal memory," but Samsung disabled this feature).

hahaha, I understand

Hey man, thanks. How does Asus junkware influence the functioning of the computer? For example: if I update to another Windows, on my last Asus, a lot of the functionality was lost, function keys etc

Asus have less junk than Acer, however regarding the function keys, they usually require no special software. Pressing FN + F# keys should do it.

Drivers are needed for some special keys. Too new Windows = no drivers, so either stick to old Windows, dual boot with Linux where there may or may not be support (try with a live USB) or live with some lost functionality (my mum's solution).

With Windows 10 you want at least 2GB RAM and at least 40GB storage space. I find used laptops are better deals taan many new but they might not be able to withstand the torture of lugging them around everywhere anymore.

In Windows you can right click on the waste basket and decrease its size a lot to instantly free up space. I agree that the System Restore is dumb; been disabled on my personal Windows systems for many, many years now but then I usually know how to fix any problems that crop up.

In theory, but in practice, PS/2 device drivers are pretty standard (especially thanks to the Address bit 20+ enable switch happens to be on the keyboard/mouse interface hardware, for some silly reason that evades me [as opposed to simply writing to a special memory offset or MSR]). Keyboards are usually either USB or PS/2. IMEs/Layouts are usually where the trouble comes from when going forward (when going backwards, keys for things like sleep were unstandard).

So how do you disable System Restore on Windows 10? Does it still exist on Windows 10?