Let me try to answer your question with a recent experience. I have a old laptop that I use to only watch YouTube. It was running windows 10 just fine but here and there, there would be stutters. Sometimes the laptop would hang at lock screen. When I logged in, there will the same notifications from the same apps informing me stuff like ‘network drive didn’t connect’ or ‘anti virus licence update failed’. I know it’s not sure annoying and can easily be taken care of. But I wanted a breath of fresh air.

So, I decided to install Ubuntu on it (just going for a safe choice). After installing, I realized that I wanted only two features - one to control volume with a four finger gesture with the trackpad and the ability for the laptop to hibernate to conserve battery. After installing Ubuntu, I started searching for these solutions. I found a software called Fusuma which applies setting via a config file (that needs to be manually created and pointed to), needs to started via command line and manually added to startup. A normal user would not want to go through this process. Many would rather go without comforts of touchpad gestures. And because of gnome, I had some troubles getting my volume to work. But when it worked, it worked like a charm. The config file allowed me change everything. What each gesture did - 3/4 Finger sweeps in all directions, send keyboard shortcuts, change volume, change brightness of screen/keyboard backlight. One can even configure swipe gestures when combined with some key press - for example 4 Finger swipe up/down changes volume but if I do that with shift key pressed, it can change brightness or keyboard backlight with alt pressed. This was a totally new concept that I never heard of.

These are Power User Features that usual people usually don’t wanna get into. They get it when the company decides it. With Linux, the possibilities seem endless. You can do what you can imagine with the hardware. But you need to work for it. This is why I could relate very well with the meme. Once you become an expert of one OS, windows and mac would start to seem boring but Linux will keep opening new doors for you. This rabbit hole is deep!

I first installed Linux on a 486 computer back in 1999. Can still remember staring at the screen thinking “Now what the hell do I do? Oh right ‘root’ was the username. Password entered. Now what?” Since then I’ve built many servers running Linux. Some for corporate environments. Antispam solutions. Web servers. Email Systems. File servers. I started using Linux as my primary desktop in 2000 and will never look back.

As for which is better? Windows? Linux? Mac? It really doesn’t matter to most people and there’s not one thats objectively better than another. Most people use Windows because thats what is installed on their PC when they bought it and 99% of the population would have no clue or even think of installing anything different. Once the PC is too old or so full of kludge they usually either get their ‘nephew’ to wipe it clean and start over again or they just buy another PC. Thats the main reason the Linux Desktop will never become mainstream or even start to compete with Windows. Unless somebody makes the kickbacks Microsoft gives to the big manufacturers illegal it won’t change.

Sorry…that was a bit of a tangent there…

The OS is simply a tool. It really depends on what you are trying to do and what you want to accomplish. I’m a geek. I love fiddling with stuff and I find Mac and Windows operating systems irritating as hell and so locked down that I can’t ever be as productive on Windows as I am on Linux. I use a tiling window manager. I’ve created all sorts of customizations that that I use every day. Things I could never do on Windows. Hell, with Windows 11 you can’t even move the freaking taskbar without a registry hack. What is with that?

I also run Linux on several small PCs that I use to host all sorts of home services built on Docker and some machines using XCP-NG to virtualize various OSs.

I still run Windows on one laptop for my consulting gig as its all being run in Microsoft world.

Now there’s also the whole “free” as in free speech aspect of the Linux OS vs the proprietary OS. It is definitely a consideration for me and does make me feel somewhat self righteous in running Linux everywhere I can. I also love not paying the “Microsoft tax”.

Another aspect is the connection to developers and providing feedback into Open Source tools. I’ll never forget when I bought a new Lenovo laptop a few years ago. It had some new Intel wireless NIC in it that wasn’t really fully supported by Linux yet. When I used it the connection would stay up for a few seconds and then drop. I posted something on the kernel mailing list. Within a few hours I had the developer who wrote the code to support the Intel NICs messaging me. We sent several messages back and forth and he got me to test various versions until it worked correctly. Can you ever imagine getting to communicate directly with a Windows developer? Would never happen in a million years.

What I’d recommend is find an old machine. Install an easy to use Linux Distro. Play. Try different things. See what you like. Then nuke it and try another distro. Then do it again. Play with the different software packages. Desktop environments. Get involved in some of the communities on Reddit Lemmy, Discord, etc. See what others are doing its a fascinating world and I love every minute of it. Even when sh*t breaks. I treat it as a learning experience and I learn something new every day.

You don’t have to buy a new pc just to continue using the internet. (Windows 11 forces a PC to have a modern motherboard with TPM, Windows 10 will reach End of Life and the person is fucked when certificates expire) You are not forced to have candy crush automatically installed on your machine. Your search actually can show your files and programs instead of redirecting to bing. Greatly reduced attack surface, since malware can’t go living off the land. Actually faster file transfer over the network. Full telemetry with no possibility to turn it off

The list is a bit random and examples are not that hard to find. Although, almost everything is tuneable and switchable on Windows, which helps it a lot to adapt and reduce pain points mentioned above.

The main actual problem is that it’s a corporation controlled, and they don’t have your interests prioritized.