Episode Details

If you run a Linux-first home network, you've likely encountered the Windows driver problem: printers, firmware flashers, and hardware utilities that simply refuse to work without a full Windows environment. But does that mean you need to dedicate 30GB of disk and 4GB of RAM to a VM that wakes up once a month? We dig into Microsoft's official stripped-down builds — Windows Server Core and Windows IoT Enterprise — and the community-favorite Tiny11, comparing their tradeoffs in resource footprint, driver compatibility, and stability. We also explain why the "kernel-only Windows" Daniel asked about doesn't actually exist, and why the driver model itself forces the bloat.