Every time this happens, I wonder why people do not just drop Windows entirely.
Not really, unless they're doing something special. But if they're doing something special, they're not average users.
In my experience with Linux desktop, this could be "have the touchpad work the same as it did on Windows", "plug in an extra monitor and have it behave somewhat normally", or "play this game". But yeah, I guess that as long as we only expect "average users" to only use a web browser to look at Youtube, it's fine.
I have no idea how touchpads behave on Windows, but in, say, Gnome or KDE, you can adjust it through the GUI. Extra monitors work fine on Gnome. Steam works fine in general, across distros.
Like, I understand that my MRI operator can't just install Linux on their PC. But the majority of people are usually not dependent on Windows-exclusive software, especially in the smartphone era.
I know things have improved a bit after 10, but I used to say that it is easy to see who is using windows because they always brought their mice with their laptops.
Perhaps a far more polished and documented version of Qubes with various btrfs trees selectively presented cleanly to appropriate VM containers. Focus on the user UX meets the dev/ops UX but without gimmicks, not-invented-here, or fragility. All of the various desktop-laptop things need to work without surprises and be easily configurable with a UI. For fleet management, a desktop OS really needs simple, programmatic/declarative/imperative MDM- and/or chef-like configuration agent or hooks.
That's something you can make happen if you're paying people... but it's pretty hard when you aren't.
Why should someone work on something they're not thrilled about? (from their perspective)
You absolutely don't have to. There's no reason for normal users to ever touch the command line, every essential task (installing stuff, updating) can be done through the GUI on most distros. Certainly the main ones like Ubuntu, Fedora and openSuse.
> the software you are used to is not available
This is the main issue. The average user has a meltdown if a single button moves. I still remember the Office ribbon fiasco, Windows 8 fiasco, etc...
But we, consumers, have gotten so accustomed to the jank of Windows that we perceive it as intuitiveness. But is it really so? Just consider: what would Grandma have an easier time using? Elementary OS, or Windows 11? To me, the answer seems obvious. But we don't optimize for Grandma.
2. Enterprise software runs on Windows, that creates enough lock-in for Windows to always be a majority.
With one difference: I'm not scared of software upgrades. The number of times my laptop was semi-bricked by an update, usually graphics driver, which required frantic googling for random commands, GRUB scripts with enormous disclaimers about how mistyping something will brick the laptop for good, discussions about Nouveau and how it's lal Nvidia's fault really... That's bad, always was, never got better for me, and I really don't miss it.
Moving between between versions is a different matter. Yes, Windows does it better, but not reliably enough for me to trust it. So for both Debian and Windows it's a case of replace the drive, and do a fresh install. In Debian's case, zstd < /dev/sda >/mnt/usb/sda-backup.zstd also works, if you have time to kill. Copying everything to a squashfs image also works well.
If your using Ubunt then your experience will be different. People who choosing Ubuntu over Debian is as perplexing to me as people voluntarily using Windows.
At the same time, Linux on the desktop fails often for everyone in between: the learning curve is still higher (especially for people coming from Windows), and some very specialized professional proprietary software can be missing.
Luckily, as mentioned in the article, Microsoft tries to make the balance more equal.
Writing this as a person who has used Linux for the last 15 years with a 2-year break for macOS and back.
I don't think the learning curve is higher at all. It's roughly the same as with Windows. But if you're coming from Windows, the fact that you have to mount a learning curve for the new OS can be a real friction point. When most people learned Windows, they did so over time, without pressure. If you're switching operating systems, you likely want to become competent in it very quickly. That can make it seem like the learning curve is higher when, in fact, it's just that you're trying to run up that hill faster.
Some [1] Linux distros were even trying to emulate this experience (which is a dead end obviously)
[1] Like Linux XP https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=linuxxp
That said, Steam OS for desktop (if ever) would be a serious contender, since a big chunk of high-end PCs are only used for gaming and internet browsing.
The answer is no, not unless an absolutely crippled version is sufficient for your needs.
Even more reason to switch.
The last time I checked, Thunerbird can't flag a contact for reminder, or set the same category for an email and a task?
The mid-oughts battle over this in the international standardizations space is pretty fraught: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standardization_of_Office_Open...
And even now, even though there is a "standard" and schemas for, MS's apps mostly ignore them, or use undocumented extensions (as far as I'm aware), so it the whole thing was truly straight from MS's embrace/extend/extinguish playbook.
Primarily because there isn't a fully-functional equivalent.
But also new people grow up with their school-provided Windows/Apple/ChromeOS laptops and only know mobile phones beyond that so the trend is probably not all that positive.
So few people actually use Linux and they use wildly different versions of it.
The apps are quite specific to me, but I imagine there are similar killer apps for other windows users.
Man, I'm not so sure about that. The M-series Macbooks are just crazy good for speed and battery life. The basic bottom-tier Macbook is $1000 and will do for a vast majority of people. A $330 Windows laptop is going to be a phenomenal heap of junk. People were running Ableton on 16GB M1 Macbooks a couple of years ago.
There are good alternatives to Ableton, but once you get to know a DAW it is hard to switch. And running a DAW with an ecosystem of 3rd party VST plugins and low level access to audio hardware on Wine sounds like a recipe for a bad time, but I confess I haven't tried it.
So, yes, these things are possible, but it is still easier to just use Windows.