It still sucks for the average user. The GUI is lipstick on a pig. As soon as anything goes wrong, it's back to the command line. You look up the problem, and there will be a dozen articles about it, all contradicting each other. Look up what it takes to create a desktop icon for something. (Hint: the top result in Google won't work.)
I'm currently restoring a Ubuntu system after a hard drive replacement. I've been at this for a day now. Typical little stuff:
- OpenGL frame rate is terrible. The default install turns out to be running OpenGL in the Mesa emulator. Time to install a driver. There's lots of advice on that. Get it from the NVidia site? From Ubuntu? From a driver-aggregation site? (Scary). Want the open source version or the closed source binary? Need CUDA support? Five choices of driver. Finally pick the latest open source version and it works.
- File restoration isn't working properly. I used iDrive for backup, and now it's time to restore. I've restored one or two files from iDrive before, but now I have to restore a lot of them. The interface is a bunch of Perl scripts, with a command line menu system from the 1970s. After much struggling ("Restore From" means the name of the machine that was backed up), I get the restore running. It runs, but about 8,000 files don't restore out of a few hundred thousand. The message is just "FAILED". Files with "&" in the name don't restore. Files with "__" in the name sometimes don't restore. Working on that. Looks like most of what I lost was part of old builds of a big program, but there are a few files I'd like back.
There's also many occasions where some .exe has simply "stopped working", or some system process takes over the CPU, with me none the wiser. If I install a 3rd party driver, there's some chance Windows will at some point attempt to replace it with an inferior version from its own driver database.
Then there's the whole update situation, which effectively takes control away from you, the computer owner, not to mention it could delete user data.
And yet, despite OS updates being forced upon you, application installation and updating is often still mostly an annoyingly manual process of browsing to some site, doing some sanity checks to make sure the site's legit, which your 'average user' is not doing, downloading the .exe and trying to avoid accidentally agreeing to have some toolbar installed in the process.
Add to that the telemetry, ads, nagging to use Edge before you switch etc. and am pretty sure that's not even most of it, as I luckily don't have to use Windows often.
This reasoning... doesn't make sense. Say Linux freezes 1% of the time, and half that time you can go into the TTY and fix it; the other half of the time you can't do anything. Now say Windows freezes 0.001% of the time, but never provides any way to recover. Therefore you conclude Windows sucks and you prefer to be on Linux because Windows requires a hard reset whenever it freezes...?!
And then just try getting the built-in OpenSSH in Windows 10 installed and playing nicely with Linux – I'm still not sure it was worth the effort over just e-mailing files back and forth. I've had at least as much trouble with Windows as with Linux lately (but I don't do anything involving graphics).
The way I see it, the main reasons for using Windows over Linux are simply that there are still lots of programs written for Windows that aren't there on Linux, and although there may be good alternatives, they won't have the same community around them or training materials or third party tools and integrations. E.g. if you use Adobe CS, you can get lots of howtos on youtube, filters and plugins, help from friends etc. – if you try to switch to GIMP/Krita/Darktable, you're on your own and when you come across a cool-looking plugin you can no longer even try it out. And that feels bad.
By the way, what is iDrive? I've used varous linuces for nearly two decades and never heard of it.
It has come so far over the years (back from when kernel / Xorg / drivers whatever) has to be compiled to get things to work. Now it mostly just works, although some effort is always required.
Over the years I have reduced my GUI usage to a minimum (it is still very useful for some types of operations) and it has made life simpler because there is a lot less variation in the CLI than than GUIs.
It can still be a pain (I have Nvidia card in my most recent laptop and it took some effort to get it working) but I have learned enough over the years that I was able to do it with only minimal Googling.
Once everything is set up it works and keeps working. It doesn’t slowly build up crap over the years, it doesn’t gradually work slower and slower. And if I took out my hard drive and put it in another machine it will probably just work, or at least get me to a shell where I can tweak a few things.
I can run the same OS on my desktop as I run in my servers and routers.
Being fluent in Linux has done wonders for my career in IT.
If I need some Windows apps for work I just run them in a VM with zero problems.
A big part of why things work so well of course is Debian - it is really good. As good a balance of freedom as you get in the Linux world.
So my experience is: if you are a basic user Linux is great, if you are an advanced user it is great. If you are an average user, not so great, but it’s hard to please everybody.
Installing a program (not from the Ubuntu Software Center) and getting a launcher icon into the start-menu-equivalent took way too much time and Googling.
I don't understand this. You can open the "App Store" and search and download programs. If, for some inexplicable reason, you don't want to use the Software Center, you can open a terminal and type "apt install [name]".
Surely this is easier than installing a program on Windows. What exactly is your issue?
- [Super Key]
- First three letters of the program name
- [Enter]
Much faster.
Now, I have a love-hate relationship with Ubuntu. Things kind of work, but they feel the pathological need of changing most of their tools each other version. The sad thing is that those changes don't provide any improvements, it's just the same but different.
I can think of different things that are easier in Linux than in any other os. But would you try to create a website in C++?
"The right tool for the right job" is only part of the story. Proficiency can go along way.
- Unity has one of the cleanest UI out there when you open no more than 5 applications
- he can't do any serious damage (he doesn't have admin permissions)
- that laptop has an Nvidia graphic card that runs smoothly with (unfortunately, Nvidia fuck you) proprietary drivers
Also, I have a desktop PC running Ubuntu with a 780ti and I can play at Dota max details with 120 fps (capped)
Ubuntu LTS is not a desktop oriented option, so surely it's quite behind in desktop usability. Especially when you aren't even using the latest one, but one version behind the latest LTS. That's really old. Get some up to date modern distro, select KDE and enjoy.
TL;DR: don't use server distros for the desktop use case.
Ubuntu with a Mate GUI "just works", has all the software I need and lacks BS like the Windows 10 interface.
I don't really think there's any objective barrier to using Linux for a significant percentage of people - people who don't need Adobe Creative Suite or similar monopolies. But this is the same population who probably won't both doing something unusual given they have no strong motivation.
For the last year and change, I've carried a particularly fast thumb drive with Linux Mint installed on it (it's actual mint, rather than an installer/preview image). I'm constantly surprised by how many machines it "just works" with. Laptops from many different brands, workstations and desktops, AMD, Intel, Nvidia... Everything I plug it into seems to work fine.
With that in mind, I want to echo the sentiments in other comments. I'm still using Windows, but only because of the software.
At home I run windows only because of the software I use (Photoshop/Lightroom, games, and Equalizer APO).
At work I still need to use Windows simply because the toolchains I use are often exclusive to windows (Visual Studio and Atmel Studio in particular).
All they want to do is browse the web, and not have to fight with their computer at random points. I do pity these people who spend a lot of money on their computers for it to not even be fit for purpose.. and spend more money on Norton snake oil, which only makes it worse.
I believe this is why smartphones and tablets took off so well, they just work.
That's really the key to it all. Frankly, Windows, macOS, and just about any Linux are all good enough and have been for a while now. For most people, it all comes down to what software they want to run.
Valve for linux very much exists, but definitely not everything is ported.
There are a few other things I need it for (like FPGA/circuit tools, home theater programming, etc.) but those can be easily handled by a VM.
That said, I am thinking of switching back from Mac to Windows for a daily driver, or to Linux, because these new MBPs are so bad. I need another keyboard replacement and I do not want to be without my computer for a week. This time double keypresses instead of none. What a joke, and the TouchBar makes VI hard (and no, after 31 years of VI I am not switching to caps lock).
How do you figure? Every part about Ubuntu, from keybindings to menus to window management to user interface expectations, are directly copying windows.
But seriously, who in their right mind would tolerate advertisements in software that they paid good money for?
Darn, pardon me. I should have said the Windows 10 interface. Yeah, Mate is copying Windows 7/Vista task bar stuff, with perhaps less of that system's unneeded flash.
Recently I am unhappy about the stability and also about the RAM requirements of KDE since I only have 8GB Ram. I am pretty sure my next installed Linux system will be Bodhi Linux on my Laptop.
Someone mentions restoring a Ubuntu system after a hard drive replacement. I used a live CD, to run tar with --numeric-owner and other options I do not commonly use, and gzip, to make backups onto three DVDs, and then to set up the partitioning and boot loader on the new hard drive, and then to restore all of the files. And then the new system just worked fine when booted, with no problem (actually the first time I misconfigured the boot loader, but after I corrected that, it booted fine).
Some people are disheartened to see how much you still need the command line to do some very basic things. I rather see, is good that such thing can be done by command line programs; you don't need the GUI to do so many thing like Windows needs.
But if you don't like Linux, you do not need to use it; there are other systems. But I find Linux is good.
I am more surprised how someone can do serious IT work with windows. A nightmare for me.
There was so much clicking involved that It made my left index finger start hurting. Adding a MIME type to IIS seemed like a chore.
Every once in a while I would try a new distro as live CD, just for kicks, and to see how things are different. I learned how to use my own window manager and terminal program. I found that the necessary elements needed for working Linux are actually quite small, and most everything beyond that is for convenience.
When you learn to use the terminal, your entire perspective on how to use a computer changes. No longer are you wasting time swishing your mouse around, clicking on folders and icons. Instead, you live on the keyboard, using hotkeys, personal aliases, tab completion, STDIO piping, dot files, terminal based text editors... There's a lot to master.
But don't feel put off by this, we actually have a lot of fun in the terminal. We can play music with MPD/Ncmpcpp, play Tetris, retrieve HN articles and view comments, retrieve 3-day local weather with animations, we can even browse webpages. It's actually a fun world in the terminal, and we can eliminate the need for otherwise fatty software.
If you're looking for something that Just Werks as a Windows replacement, any Ubuntu derivative will be fine. If you're looking for something that requires more work but might spur interest (i.e. hobby), you might try Arch or Gentoo. And if you're looking for rice examples, check out Reddit/unixporn.
I believe you. I grew up on a C64 and later DOS and really, I don't miss it. It's nice to have the console just in case but I don't want it to become something I have to use again. It always was that "waste of time" you're describing there and I've never seen it the other way around. I can do that swishing with one hand. One finger even or my nose if I have to. A double click does it. A GUI where I can see all the options, select them, apply and run. So...human.
Every time I use my Linux laptop I find myself googling up commands or god knows what weird solutions to problems that should be easy and are in their equivalent on Win. It's such a waste of time and I feel lost if I can't go online to do it.
There is a long way for Linux to get there and I see a solution where you can have both. It does not contradict itself. But the biggest problem out there I see is the aversion (or even hate) in relevant parts of the Linux community towards everything GUI.
I like my GUIs for a lot of things. Music playing for me almost requires album art. Instant messaging as well, I need avatars/pfps (I've always disliked IRC because of that). Checking log messages though? File management? Quick edits? Shell all the way.
The terminal definitely requires mastery, there's no argument about that, however the ability gained is just tremendous. Even the basic tools like ls, cat, grep, less, man... Are very easy to use, and are very rich with functionality.
Blech. Do you remember when games like Leisure Suit Larry went from text input to "click the right pixel"? All sorts of exploration and hilarity was lost.
You can see all the options because there aren't as many.
Yes there are problems, but for me the reasons to use linux (and firefox instead of chrome) are trust and politics.
Maybe it's just me, but I really dislike software preventing or forcing random functionality because google, apple, ms or even canonical want me to. In this respect linux is in my opinion the best option.
As for the "things should just work" argument some people use - part of it is probably still valid, but I think linux is in some respects (handling of updates, security, installation process,...) way ahead of windows for example.
Some anecdata on that: It takes ~5min when I need to do something on a windows or mac machine for me to get frustrated due to me not knowing UI details or the OS simply getting in my way (forcing updates on reboot for example). Maybe it's me, but then I'm working in web development for a while, so I suspect I'm of average intelligence.
The availability of professional software is a limiting factor in some areas (design and gaming come to my mind). But for development work I can't complain. The trend for web-based software helps too.
Think what you want about linux, all software has flaws - maybe we can get rid of some of them :)
Honestly, these things do take a lot of time. People think using Windows effectively is a trivial thing they already know, apparently because it's a GUI and it looks like it should be easy. It very much is not. I think the most important thing is, regardless of what OS you choose for your tasks, it should be based on your knowledge of how to use them properly, not lack thereof. Because whatever you end up preferring (I prefer Windows), there really are tasks in which your life is easier in one OS compared to another (I have Linuxes handy for this reason), and if you aren't aware of where each one shines, you're going to miss out and make your own life harder than it needs to be.
- GUI performance is bad. I have a reasonably high end system, but switching between desktops is choppy unless I turn my resolution down to 1600x900.
- Trackpad support is bad. It works but feels clunky. You really feel the difference when you use a Macbook for the first time in a while.
- Hibernate doesn't work. I've tried and tried to get this to work but haven't succeeded. So now I either need to keep my laptop plugged in all the time or shut it down (which is annoying, because I encrypt my hard drive so I have to enter two passwords to start).
- Bluetooth doesn't work well. I have to run a command to restart my bluetooth service every time I connect, and still sometimes have to re-pair my headphones. I use a wired connection now to avoid dealing with it.
I bought a Linux-native laptop (System76 Galago) thinking things would work out of the box, but this hasn't been the case. (Also, the Galago's battery is awful so I wouldn't recommend it even if everything worked well.)
The next time I'm ready to drop $1500+ on a laptop, I'll probably just get a Macbook.
This depends heavily on the GPU drivers used, which in itself is probably a problem, but is far from universal.
I didn't have any issues with Bluetooth & hibernate for years now, I am surprised you'd have hibernate problems on a System76 laptop as I don't even have a 'Linux-friendly' laptop per se and hibernate works.
> The next time I'm ready to drop $1500+ on a laptop, I'll probably just get a Macbook.
I use MacBooks sometimes at work and I'd say that past 2015 they've not been on the right track. The keyboard and cooling especially. Software-wise, macOS is indeed more 'uniform' in terms of hardware, so it's easier to make sure everything 'works', (which is not really a fair comparison to Linux, which works well on a much wider range of hardware, including the 2015 MBP).
As for macOS itself, you don't really have much in terms of customization options, which you may prefer, but that also means if you don't like something you're stuck. Be however prepared to pay $20-30 for every little utility from a decent file manager to window snapping, (that's right, macOS doesn't ship with a proper file manager and doesn't really support window snapping the way you'd expect out of the box).
I ran Arch Linux for about 7 years. After systemd I spent years justifying why I used it even though it would constantly break and require a reformat more often than Win7 did. I went to Ubuntu, and it was marginally more stable. But even there, I was bitten too many times. Libicu upgrades breaking everything, updating packages breaks the package manager or ruins systemctl settings. Really, the whole problem that pushed me back to Windows is a combination of constant systemd nightmares and bad package maintenance.
I've... Kind of been loving Win10. Sure, it's marginally more evil than Linux, (but less so than Google and Apple products these days), but at least I don't have to constantly wipe my machine or keep it out of date to keep using it. Weird how the tables have turned.
I have used various distros on and off over the years, but today I can run Windows 10 on a Surface Book 2, and the non-development portions of my experience are spectacular, for the low, low price of selling my soul: lazy file syncing with OneDrive, pen support combined with OneNote is spectacular. Unfortunately, WSL only gets me so far when I want to use more than vim. For better or worse, I don't get to spend all of my time coding, so I'd like Linux with a real, modern notebook experience that can let me get my work done without praying to the gods that my external monitors come back on when I plug in.
I don't have a touchscreen so can't comment on that, but pretty sure KDE has support for that stuff - their art/drawing/painting app Krita works with pens/tablets, and there do seem to be some touch gesture related options in the settings app.
Docking just works. Monitors automatically remember your config and switch when you dock/undock. Also it's very easy to make scripts to swap monitor layouts using xrandr (of course, you can do this with the settings GUI, but with scripts you have all the layouts you use just a few keystrokes away if you want to switch to a special layout).
I use 1.5x DPI scaling with my 4k external monitor. The laptop screen is 1080p, so no dpi scaling. It works well, with the one issue that you need to log out and log back in to switch the scale factor - this seems to be the same as on Windows, but not as good as macOS. One option I just started using a few days ago is font scaling. I set the font DPI to 144 (the settings GUI lets you do this), so all text appears at a normal size. Some icons are still tiny - mainly things like the checkmark in an OK button. But it's good enough that I don't notice any egregious issues and don't mind using it. The advantage of this is that you only need to restart a program for it to use a new font DPI. So instead of logging out/in, I just set the font DPI and restart any programs if I need to.
There are a few minor graphical glitches left if you use fractional (not 2x or 3x) DPI scaling, mainly related to 1 px lines sometimes appearing between lines of text in the KDE terminal and text editor. But they'll hopefully be fixed soon, and I haven't noticed any other issues.
KDE has had a bad reputation in the past, but these days it is a very polished, fast, and feature-rich environment that just works and lets you get your work done. They have KDE Neon, which is the 'official' (I think) Ubuntu-based KDE distro, if you want to try it out.
It's a bit janky but no more janky than actually running Linux on a laptop. No worries about my HDMI projector connection working, no fighting with wifi, games on Steam work, and I get a full Linux for development.
The magic comes from proxying my development servers (like Django's) through the guest machine into Windows. I've got it set up so that if I type `localhost:8000` into any Windows browser, it hits my virtual machine's localhost.
So yeah, complicated, but from what I can see it gives me the best setup I know of with the least amount of fighting with the operating system.
I think I will try this on one of my windows computers. I can't switch from Mac to Linux because I use too much non Linux software, but most of it is on Windows. Adobe suite, Ableton, Native Instruments, etc.
Does anyone know a way to virtualize Linux like the thought above please?
Works without any issues for me.
Apple seems to be the only manufacturer that so far escaped the race to the bottom and which still produces somewhat premium hardware. I want: a hidpi screen with lots of nits and a good contrast, a trackpoint or a huge touchpad, good battery life and somewhat light weight.
In the past Thinkpads worked really well for that, but recently I had multiple issues with Lenovo hardware. I'm currently using a X1C3 and originally considered upgrading to a X1C6 or T480s, but given there are known issues such as the throttling bug (https://github.com/erpalma/throttled) that Lenovo hasn't fixed in over half a year I'm very close to giving up on Thinkpads.
I think it would be interesting if Canonical offered an equivalent product for home users, understanding that the $/year would be higher. That would give all the people moving to Ubuntu an option to support the people making the OS.
I do see that donations are accepted (the prompt is on the _Your download will begin shortly…_ page), so at least there's that!
It's $7,500 + $150 per seat over 50
$150 for a single seat would be significantly less.
It was useless, and I don't really blame Canonical: Consider how much of a competent person's time the annual price back then, 190 euros, could buy. Not much.
If you want to support them monetarily, the donation thing covers that. If you want to pay for them to provide support for you, what do you expect "support" to mean and at what cost? The trope that if you pay for Open Source support, you get to affect bug fixing priorities doesn't work at the money levels that individuals (except maybe ones who have the kind of money Shuttleworth has) are willing to pay.
But even for just advice on how to perform a task or resolve a problem, if you can't get the answer right away using a Web search engine, chances are that the solution needs a competent person to pay attention for a longer period of time than your expected annual per-seat price pays for.
I don't like latex slides and I give presentations frequently for work. The only thing that has proved consistently annoying is that LibreOffice Impress is nowhere near as good as keynote.
That's moot. Linux gaming today is a lot better than ever before, considering advances in graphics APIs (Vulkan), increasing amount of native Linux games and rapidly improving support for Windows games through Wine, dxvk, vkd3d, including projects like Proton integrated into Steam client and etc.
Many former Windows gamers find it acceptable to switch. So at the very least, give Linux gaming a try and see for yourself.
Many gamers are actually very much into tweaking things as you say, from custom PC builds to game mods and other customizations. They see configurability as a benefit, not as a downside. So Linux is a natural fit.
Besides, Linux gaming is quite accessible today without any extensive manual tweaking (while you can always do that if you want to, a lot more than on Windows).
Linus itself is an excellent operating system that makes life for end users a lot easier, but I suggest the applications first approach since it is not for everyone. Even using this approach and testing it on live media first is bound to have a few hiccups, yet it is a lot better than starting out by learning everything from scratch or by troubleshooting major issues.
(Pardon me if I seem a little skeptical, I've heard this song before...)
Do you expect Windows users to run to install Linux to replace Windows? Most probably don't care or don't know how to.
So usually people who switch to Linux at least know how to install an OS on their computer.
methinks if libreoffice gets a bit leaner and featured it might be
I ran into so many compatibility problems I could barely believe it. Couldn't edit each other's headers, no maths support worked between the two, images and other objects would get randomly shuffled in the documents (one image showing up where another used to be). To say nothing of the minor niggling display differences reminiscent of the old IE6 box model problems.
I had to start sending documents in PDF, but then they couldn't edit them. That alone was enough to move me back to Windows.
For better or worse, I don't think Libreoffice can move forward until interoperability can be presumed.
For example the recommendation to learn about partitioning and stuff is "funny". Just install Linux Mint 19, accept the suggested partitions and be done already.
>2. Put the distro on a thumb drive or DVD so you can boot to it from there.
>3. Create a partition big enough for the Linux distro.
>4. Install the Linux distro in the partition.
>5. Configure Linux so you can use it on a daily basis.
I think there's a critical step missing from this list, which applies to the 'non-techies' reading the post.
(At first I wasn't going to post this, thinking that the article was only for technically-minded people, but the author calls out notes for non-techies at various points.)
The critical step is: Tell your support person, and your other users!
Many people have a support person. At work, this is your IT person. At home, this may often be a family member. For example, I am the support person for my father.
If you have a support person, let them know what you would like to do. Point them to the article, and to the other pages that you're looking at.
Be respectful of your support person's time. It will take at least an hour to go through all of the above steps; longer if something doesn't go exactly right. If you do this out of the blue, run into a problem, and have to lean on your support person unexpectedly, understand that you will be taking them away from something else unexpectedly.
Be prepared for your support person to say "If you do this, I won't be able to help you." If they say that, then accept it. If you need to go back to them for help, don't be surprised if they say "You're going to have to wipe everything and reinstall".
Back up your stuff! Do this before making Step 3. Make sure those backups are good.
You may also have other users. If your family shares a machine, then your family members are other users.
Talk to those people. Let them know what is going to happen. Even if you are just adding Ubuntu as a new partition, you must assume there will be a time when you have to leave the computer unexpectedly, another user will come in, and be presented with a weird lock screen or login screen. Walk people through at least the Ubuntu login and lock screens.
Let your other users know, if the machine is locked, restarting into Windows may mean that anything still open under Linux may lose data.
Again, be respectful of everyone's time. If you're the parent, then you can certainly say "I'm doing this tomorrow at 3 PM; come to me first before you try to use the computer after that time.", but if your child then comes back with "I had planned on working on $PROJECT at 4 PM tomorrow", responding with "Well, you should've planned your time better." is BS.
If you're interested in running Linux on your desktop, then you can definitely do it! But please, recognize that (most of) you have people in your life who fulfill either the 'supporter' or 'co-user' role, and they deserve to be brought into the loop.
(Source of rant: I once had my Dad upgrade several versions of macOS in one single jump, on some random weekday. Of course the upgrade took longer than expected, and also the jump of several versions caused lots of UI things to change. That led to multiple unplanned hour-plus-long phone calls in the middle of my workday, as this was my parents' only computer.)
My support person was my 12-year-old son. ;-)
Comparing Facebook, Microsoft, and Apple is apples to oranges. What did Apple do that threatens customer privacy and free speech?
You don’t need to switch to Linux to stop using Facebook and Twitter...
Apple affects many things negatively by being extremely pro lock-in and patent aggressive. So I'd say it's a good thing when someone stops using Apple's products and switches to Linux instead.
Apple is happy to learn a lot about you. Hence the feds can learn a lot about you through them.
But most important to me is this wretched speech by Tim Cook: https://www.macrumors.com/2018/12/03/tim-cook-adl-keynote-sp...
What a censorious tool. Soured me on Apple for, probably, ever.
I wonder if this can be applied to the majority of people. If the app is available for Windows then use the Windows version (e.g. Chrome at least until Edge uses Chrome engine) otherwise use the app under WSL.
Microsoft has made it easy to run GNU tools under Windows such that you don’t need to be constrained to Linux installs for that.
I certainly don't have the time anymore to sysadmin any Windows machines.
It's an awful lot of work to maintain this, and of dubious value with the end result being running a second-rate OS.
I am not sure why people can't just give Ubuntu a go on a brand new machine rather than maybe run it on Virtualbox. It is like cars and bicycles, people will spend all their money on a car but want or insist on some second hand stolen junk when it comes to buying a bicycle. In so doing they never get into cycling and spend even more money on their car. Then one day they hear about climate change and maybe decide to get the bike out the shed.
I feel this is the same story here, since when has there been any information privacy with these commercial operating systems? DOS 6.22 with a locked floppy drive was probably the last time. So to suddenly wake up to the 'scandal' of Facebook et al. selling your every mouse click is a bit special.
These are just observations, obviously Ubuntu linux is the best operating system there is and I would not change for a paid for OS if you paid me.
Whether I’m capable or not is irrelevant. I consider the extra effort required to configure and maintain a Linux desktop to be a waste of time, because I’m perfectly satisfied with my MacBook, which doesn’t require all that extra effort (for what I consider to be an inferior user experience to boot).
Well it doesn't help that Linux desktop is backed by one of the most condescending cultures that ever stalked the internet.
Have you considered that maybe, just maybe, the way Linux works just doesn't jive with a lot of people? Like, everything has a middleman involved. Drivers for your hardware? Have to be merged into the kernel. Applications? Should go through (all of) the distro package repo(s) unless you want it to be a pain in the ass.
We get it, you find value in the way these things work, some of us don't.
…? This is a really strange perspective, since I've found Linux to remove middlemen. No more searching a manufacterer's website for some garbage closed-source driver that has a dozen vulnerabilities and no support. No more waiting for Microsoft to roll out fixes; you can apply your own changes yourself.
Oh, Rust community would like a chance to defend their title! ;)
Ouch.
But for home use, there are simply too many cool programs on Windows to give it up. The Mint partition on my home dual boot sits largely unused. Emulation does an acceptable job for some things but it's often a sub-par experience. It's also quite tiring to have to constantly futz around with services and configurations just to get programs working, only to have that configuration break because of software updates.
In the end I find a Win10 PC with some of the guts rips out (via something like Blackbird) seems to produce the least amount of headaches and generally stays out of my way. I hate Microsoft's Windows-as-a-Service model but most of the things about it can be ignored or switched off. (And yes, one shouldn't have to but I find it better than the alternatives)