And I can just take about any Linux distro, install it to about any computer and have an extremely nice device to work, play games, and handle almost any daily task with. I call that a huge success.
And the latest gen finger print scanner only works between 10-50% of the time depending on the day, humidity, etc., no matter hof often you re-enroll a fingerprint, enroll a fingerprint multiple times, etc.
And the battery drains in 3-4 hours. Unless you let powertop enable all USB/Bluetooth autosuspend, etc. But then you have to write your own udev rules to disable autosuspend when connected to power, because otherwise there is a large wakeup latency when you use your Bluetooth trackball again after not touching it for one or two seconds.
And if you use GNOME (yes, I know use KDE or whatever), you have to use extensions to get system tray icons back. But since the last few releases some icons randomly don't work (e.g. Dropbox) when you click on it.
And there are connectivity issues with Bluetooth headphones all the time plus no effortless switching between devices. (Any larger video/audio meeting, you can always find the Linux user, because they will need five minutes to get working audio.)
As long as desktop/laptop Linux is still death by a thousand paper cuts, Linux on the desktop is not going to happen.
I really wish it was seamless and good, but it just isn't (and frankly it's a bit embarrassing it isn't given desktop environments for GNU Linux have been in development for 20+ years).
For example the laptop I had from my previous employer (a pretty beefy Dell) was failing to go to sleep, I had to unplug the charger and the HDMI cable on my desk each night, otherwise every second night it was keeping my monitor lit on the lock screen; when low on battery it clocked the CPU down so much that the whole system froze to a grinding stop not even the mouse pointer was moving, and even after putting it back on the charger it remained similarly unusable for a good 10 mins..
Like I have been using Linux since the Xorg config days when you could easily get a black screen if you misconfigured something, but at least those issues are deterministic and once you get to a working state, it usually stays there. Also, Linux has made very good progress in the last decade and it has hands down the best hardware support nowadays (makes sense given that the vast vast majority of servers run Linux, so hardware companies employ a bunch of kernel devs to make their hardware decently supported).
This doesn't happen on my ThinkPad but does on my MacBook. If anyone else faces these kernel panics on their Mac, you have to set your monitor to a hard 120hz rather than a variable rate on the macOS display settings. KDE handles the variable rate just fine on the ThinkPad for me.
I moved to Mint almost 4 years ago at this point, running it on a now fairly old Dell G5 from 2019. Runs as smoothly as ever.
I had one problem during this 4 year run (botched update and OS wouldn't start). Logging to terminal and getting Timeshift to go back to before the update did the trick. Quick and painless. I could even run all the updates (just had to be careful to apply one of those after a reboot).
I have no idea what you are talking about. Maybe I am just very lucky with Linux.
I think desktop Linux will not improve until people start acknowledging the issues and work on it. It's the same as the claim that Linux is very secure (which Linux fans will often repeat), while it has virtually no layered security, and a fairly large part of the community is actively hostile towards such improvements (e.g. fully verified boot).
I have both Linux machines and Macs and Linux has always been objectively worse when it comes to driver and software issues. It's just has a large number of paper cuts.
I use both Linux machines and Macs (at work) and Macs has always been objectively worse when it comes to usability ajd development. It's just has a large number of paper cuts.
Well, show me that magic OS that works on "just about any computer", because I am sure Windows ain't that. OSX only works on their select devices, and Windows have its own way of sucking. Let's be honest, there are shitty hardware out there and nothing will work decently on top. People just try to save these by putting Linux on top and then the software gets the blame.