Canonical has been doing some great work with Ubuntu. Though now I wonder if the desktop Linux is dead. With WSL rapidly improving with each release, how many devs really want to deal with the configuration of a Linux system?
With the Steam deck motivating developers to get their games running on Linux (mostly via Wine), with better performance, I see the opposite potential. Linux share on Steam has been steadily growing.
To be fair Linux on laptops is still occasionally problematic from a battery life POV, but we're often comparing community support to vendor official support not just the operating systems. Increased motivation from vendors to support Linux should help round out hardware support.
The problem for me is that to use WSL, I still have to use Windows, which is odious to me for reasons that WSL can't ameliorate. Additionally every time you get set up on Windows you still have to deal with its deficiencies in getting to your desired WSL setup, namely deficient package management and terminal emulation solutions. (Windows Terminal is pretty good, and it's what I always go with for now.)
WSL will never help Windows with being slow or huge (20+ GB for an install, even without any applications? what the absolute fuck) or rude or unpredictable or opaque.
As for my toolchain: for people like me who use distros a bit off the beaten path, the fact that WSL is more or less incompatible with a real init system gets in the way, too. Nix support has also been spotty, coming and going and being blocked and unblocked at various times since WSL1.
Idk, dude. I actually like Linux on the desktop, Windows does a ton of things I don't like, and setting up a Windows machine seriously sucks. I don't think WSL is or wants to be for me.
So WSL doesn't help me, really.
For some folks, like you, this might actually work. But they've lost me as a user since more than a decade and I doubt I'll come back out of my own volition. Even with WSL, Windows is full of bloat, slowness, and I am fully exposed to Microsoft's user-harming antipatterns.
My developer tool chain generally involves writing backend services. I made a toy project using WSL and VSCode's remote extension and the experience was almost seamless. I was able to get Docker to work, installed GoLang, built my services, use the terminal to push code.
Windows 11 does run only on limited amount of hardware.
Because of covid, availability of hardware is limited anyway.
Old Mac and Windows computers do not run newest macOS and Windows anymore. So I have installed Linux
Factory customers etc don't want to deal with Windows on factory floor anymore, so they are porting software to Gambas on Linux.
Usage of desktop Linux is increasing all the time.
On Linux, I can install many dev tools at once. It's easiest to dev on Linux. Harder on Windows. Hardest on macOS. Yes, I did spend many hours debugging macOS to show local website at work.
macOS and Windows shows all kinds of extra confirmation questions if I try to run executeable I compiled.
??? Windows and Mac are way more work to set up than Linux because they fundamentally lack systems for managing software comparable to a decent package manager. Everything is a manual, pointy-clicky nightmare, sometimes lightly papered over with hacky hodgepodges like Chocolatey or supplemented with third party tools that are a bit better on macOS but still have to fight against an indifferent base system that cyclically breaks them (Nix, Homebrew), but ultimately still a mess.