Windows and Mac Os, for all their faults, are unquestionably ready to use in 2026. If you are a Linux on desktop advocate, read the comments and see why so many are still hesitating.
>Windows and Mac Os, for all their faults, are unquestionably ready to use in 2026.
Quite ironically there're people refusing to leave Windows 7, which has been EOS since 2020, because they find modern Windows UI unbearable. Windows 11 being considered that bad that people are actually switching OSes due to it. Have seen similar comments about OSX/macOS.
The big difference between those and Linux is that Linux users have a choice to reject forced "upgrades" and build very personalized environments. If had to live with Wayland could do it really, even if there're issues, but since my current environment is fine don't really need/care to. And it's having a personalized environment such a change is a chore. If was using a comprehensive desktop environment like GNOME (as many people do), maybe wouldn't even understand something changed underneath.
LOL
I installed a new windows 11 yesterday on a fairly powerful machine, everything lags so much on a brand new install it's unreal. Explorer takes ~2-3 seconds to be useable. Any app that opens in the blink of an eye under Linux on the same machine takes seconds to start. Start menu lags. It's just surrealistic. People who say these things work just have never used something that is actually fast.
Linux is faster in some places, maybe. But still with many issues like some applications not being drawn properly or just some applications not available (nice GUI for monitor control over ddc)
I want to see a screen + sound / video recording.
It was easy to fix, but issues like this prevent common folk of using Linux.
2. Could be nicer. All it does shows edit fields and that's it
Since then, I found kde actually supports direct control of monitor brightness from its UI. That's what I call nice!
Everything actually feels significantly more solid/stable/reliable than modern Windows does. I can install updates at my own pace and without worrying that they'll add an advert for Candy Crush to my start menu.
I also run Bazzite-deck on an old AMD APU minipc as a light gaming HTPC. Again, it's a much better experience than my past attempts to run Windows on an HTPC.
As with everything, the people having issues will naturally be heard louder than the people who just use it daily without issues.
For me, Wayland seems to work OK right now, but only since the very latest Ubuntu release. I'm hoping at this point we can stop switching to exciting new audio / graphics / init systems for a while, but I might be naive.
Edit: I guess replacing coreutils is Ubuntu's latest effort to keep things spicy, but I haven't seen any issues with that yet.
Edit2: I just had the dispiriting thought that it's about twenty years since I first used Ubuntu. At that point it all seemed tantalizingly close to being "ready for primetime". You often had to edit config files to get stuff working, and there were frustrating deficits in the application space, but the "desktop" felt fine, with X11, Alsa, SysV etc. Two decades on we're on the cusp of having a reliable graphics stack.
I feel the same and find it a bit strange. I am happy with hyprland on wayland since a few months back but somehow it reminds me of running enlightenment or afterstep in the 90s. My younger self would have expected at least a decade of "this is how the UI works in Linux and it's great" by now.
Docker and node both got started after wayland and they are mature enterprise staples. What makes wayland such a tricky problem?
But then I try and focus on what each author thinks is important to them and it’s often wildly different than what’s important to me.
But a lot of internet discussion turns into very ego-centric debate including on here, where a lot of folks who are very gung-ho on the adoption of something (let’s say Linux, but could be anything) don’t adequately try and understand that people have different needs and push the idea of adoption very hard in the hopes that once you’re over the hump you might not care about what you lost.
But with Linux being mostly hobbyist-friendly a number of folks have custom setups and do not want to be forced into the standardized mold for the sake of making it super smooth to transition from Windows.
I have such a setup (using FVWM with customized key bindings and virtual layout that I like, which cannot work under Wayland), so can I donate some money to Microsoft to keep Windows users less grumpy and not bringing yet another eternal September to Linux. I like my xorg, thank you very much :).
Windows uses _you_.