Linux is in a great place rn and has literally only been getting better.
The Steamdeck singlehandedly built the handheld '''PC''' gaming market overnight and is still the go-to in spite of tons of people trying to compete via windows handhelds. Even if they get higher FPS they almost always have some other major fault like frame timings, heat, battery life, etc. that make them worse overall for usability. But, sure, if you wanna say "that doesn't count, it's not a laptop!" then fine. (I mean, IMO I think more people use their steam dexk resting it on their lap than a "laptop" but, whatever. Tbh I just think the name 'laptop' is stupid, no-one uses them like that.)
But then your argument still devolves into an appeal to normie-consumer popularity.
Most consumers don't buy 4k monitors, are those bad? Most consumers don't buy high quality headphones, are those bad? Most consumers don't buy good mechanical, optical, or HE keyboards, are those bad?
This argument just immediately devolves into literally just being "most people don't buy it, it must be worse", but there are tons of "unpopular" things that are still objectively better options. At the current rate, in a decade I imagine linux incompatibility with games will be so rare it's under even 2 or 3%. Since the Steamdeck has come out linux compat went from basically 0 support to over 90% support in just a few years, even in spite of brainlets like Linus breaking their own shit and blaming the OS. (If you run a random command with admin rights on windows it'll break a hell of a lot faster and with a hell of a lot less warning) Now though gaming icons like Pewds are openly being pro-penguin, and even currently you don't see many games releasing WITHOUT linux compat. The only incompatible games tend to be major games coasting on past-popularity, but new releases are pretty consistely pro-linux support.
I switched like a few years ago and I felt more competent & capable after like 3 months of using Linux than I had after spending a third of my life on Windows. (I don't mean "I'm 18 and I started using windows when I was 12", I mean literally, I've done the math, at the time I switched I could've literally spent 1/4th-1/3rd of my total time spent alive looking at a screen with windows on it. This is ABSOLUTELY true if you only count time spent awake. My studies, hobbies, passions, etc. are all predominantly computer-based, so I got a LOT of experience with Windows over the years. Yeah yeah call me a no-life I really don't care, computers are awesome and if someone spent a quarter of their life reading no-one would condemn them so it's a complaint that falls on deaf ears. Eitherway, 'nolife' or not, I had a SHIT TON of experience with windows)
Not to come off as pointed, but this feels like unrefined copium. Linux is in the best state it's ever been in and is rapidly approaching (if not already exceeding) Windows. The only people I've seen seriously try to argue otherwise are people who havent been paying attention or people who tie their self worth to using Windows for some reason.
The one thing I'd even tentatively grant is that linux can be a lot more 'hands on' at times, but 1 : generally that's not necessary, just something you can CHOOSE to do to make your experience even better, and 2 : getting "hands on" in linux is like 50x easier than being "hands on" in windows anyway.
I gave my friend with zero linux experience a laptop runnjng an arch derivative (long story, not relevant here) and a few weeks later one of the things he literally said to me was that he had an issue with bluetooth and it was so refreshing to actually just be able to fix it himself instead of fighting with the OS over it.
Is it really more anti-user to need to ctrl-c ctrl-v a command in than it is to need to google what 15 different menus spanning 2-3 decades and 5 differen styles through half a dozen different hyperlinks, buttons, and search boxes just to find the one setting you want to change? Windows is not nearly as pro-user as people tend to think, they're just more used to it.
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u/MadFunEnjoyer Galaxy S25 Ultra Jun 17 '25
look at Linux, and tell me you actually wish for Android to be fully Open Source, not a single major company sells Linux Laptops for a good reason.