> You try to justify your avoidance of Linux by complaining of extremely low-level stuff (init stuff, networking, event notification systems, etc) and now you are talking about higher level "user needs".
...? What is so difficult to understand about this? Try to pay attention: the way the computer works is fundamental to how user interaction works. That you can't seem to grasp this is mind boggling.
> I link to an article about how people using FreeBSD are also successfully using it as a daily desktop and how the shortcomings are known-yet-solvable. Your answer then is that "you do things that others don't do" (yet, people using Windows do it?)
Yes. Every day. All the time. Why do you think the vast majority of the desktop market is dominated by Windows? There are thousands of workflows, often with specialty applications, that are best served by Windows and largely ignored by everyone else. Hell, even something as simple as file sharing is a pain in the ass outside of Windows. Linux gave up and just implements SMB and pretends to be Windows for that task.
> So what is it? What is your use case that requires you to be nit-picky about the low-level and at the same frustrates you at the high-level? What are the "different things that you do" that can only work on a proprietary OS? In a world with so many different-yet-imperfect ecosystem of different desktop systems, what is it with Windows (aside from convenience and familiarity) that "works with you, instead of against you"?
So many ways, lets pick an easy one: It allows me to run multiple versions of the same software, on the same system, often at the same time, without any VM or container nonsense and without having to compile anything myself. It lets me put applications wherever I want, including removable media and network shares, without trick-fucking the filesystem to make it work. It lets me use software delivered directly from the developer without having to wait for middle men to package it, which includes alpha and hotfixed versions.
What is all this useful for? A bunch of shit, but lets go with the easy stuff: I can test software very very easily and ditch it very very easily if it doesn't work for me. I can get specialized builds from the developer or even just some hobbiest who happened to have the same needs as me without having to reconstruct a build environment. I can similarly run really old software that suits my needs and who's only modern equivalents don't work as well.
> All of my frustrating asshole preaching boils down to convenience and familiarity should never be an excuse to accept giving away your freedoms.
And mine stems from believing that I am the best one to decide what tradeoffs I want to make, not some holier-than-thou computer nerd on the internet.
> However, if I were you I'd also consider the possibility this frustration you are feeling is due to the sad realization that you are trading away your freedoms for convenience and familiarity and that some dude on the internet is making you face that.
Laughable. The fact is that a lot of my frustration is from having watched the open source community continue to make things more complicated and fragile while continuing to alienate themselves from everyone else and being evangelistic, condescending assholes for about 20 motherfucking years now.
Did you know that at one time I was president of a LUG? That I've contributed to open source projects? Built my own distribution from scratch? Used Linux on many different computers over the course of the past 20 years?
Yet you assume that because I don't like your waifu-OS that I must be some kind of scared newb, comforted by the existence of the start menu and double-click installers (note: I don't even like packages of any kind, including executable installers).