[t1c]

And why aren't more people switching to an OS that respects them (like Linux)?

[zbrozek]

My personal experience is that while Windows is very hostile (and getting worse) to its users, it's rarely broken or buggy. The system lets me get work done and not fidget with the system itself.

Linux-on-the-desktop has made great strides. But I still get screen tearing when scrolling in my browser. I still tend to find that I need 0.5 to 1 generation old hardware for the drivers to work. I don't get good battery life on laptops unless I spend way too much time fiddling with things.

And of course, a lot of professional tools don't work on Linux at all. I'm an electrical engineer and while I'm not a designer for my day job any more, I do still use professional-level tools for personal projects. They run in Windows, and Windows only. So basically no matter how much strength of will I have, those tools ultimately keep me on Windows as my daily driver.

I love a lot of Linux command-line tools and always have WSL w/Debian on my Windows machines. No more dual-booting.

[SECProto]

Yep, all this. I've tried linux half a dozen times over the last couple decades, several times it even seems to work out of the box - then a day or week later, I realize my printer doesn't work, or I unplug the ethernet and realize the wifi doesnt work, or something that had worked great suddenly stops because of some update. All problems relying on searching through decade-out of date forum posts, hoping someone else's commandline solution fixes my issue. It's too much work, so I use windows 10.

[shaism]

Because for most users the costs of getting used to a new OS outweigh the benefit of switching.

[throwuxiytayq]

No, it’s because people approximate the costs badly. Pretty much everyone I know is biased towards inaction even if the action provides immediate as well as long term benefit. Especially when it comes to technology. Even the technology oriented people.

[9dev]

Because for the vast majority of normal people a computer is equivalent to Windows. Many of them don’t even memorise concepts, but areas on the screen where to click, in the order required to achieve a specific outcome. Those are stumped when Microsoft modifies the layout of the task bar or a context menu.

And now someone tells them to install Linux, on a separate partition perhaps, with a shared boot manager, migrate their data from NTFS to ext4 into the correct folders, install their apps or equivalents in the package manager, and get used to a myriad of different interface design approaches? This is just not going to happen, unless the onboarding experience is improved by a few orders of magnitude, and desktop applications use a single, consistent, UI framework.

[baal80spam]

I'd say that for most users the main blocker is the inane (from Windows point of view) Linux partition setup and management.

[ohashi]

Because a lot of the software that people are used to or want to run don't work on it. Gaming being a huge one.

[cma]

Many games written for Windows run faster on linux now, but the biggest limitation is anti cheat for some of the larger titles. Fortnite, despite all its open platform push, probably holds linux back the most.

[baq]

Steam deck made gaming work really well, sometimes better than windows with the same hardware. It isn’t 100% compatible of course, but it does work for most things.

[anthk]

Lutris. Fedora Bazzite + Flatpak = problem solved. Libreoffice? Flatpak. Updates? Seamlessly. Anything fails? Rollback.

[FireBeyond]

I know you said Linux, and maybe have the same opinion of Apple, but if the OS does actually require TPM 2.0 (and much of MSFT's stuff tries to degrade decently, for all their faults, so this might not be immediately obvious), it's not much different than the hardware requirements Apple imposes (which to be fair, some people also see as arbitrary, and in some cases, I would agree).

[analog31]

For me, it's touch screen support. I try it out periodically to see if it's improved.

Battery life is the second issue.

[t1c]

Touch screen support depends on your desktop environment, I'd recommend giving a modern GNOME + Wayland setup a try. As for battery life...yeah, that's hit or miss. There's some management tools that can help sometimes.

[glimshe]

Linux is still a hard sell if you don't have easy access to people who know it well. Even things like adding an app to the app bar can require editing a text config.

Don't get me wrong, I love Linux and my kid uses it, but it's STILL more painful than Windows for a lot of things.

[wlesieutre]

Decision making like Gnome’s “you can’t put things on the desktop, why would you want that anyway, you’re using the desktop wrong” don’t do it any favors with getting people to switch from Windows or Mac.

[ndriscoll]

Right click -> Pin to Task Manager?

If you're using something like i3, sure, but you know what you're getting into. If you're using something like KDE, it just works.

[attendant3446]

I can only think of one reason: gaming. Gaming on Linux is much better now, but still nowhere near as good as gaming on Windows.

[t1c]

Yeah, definitely for multiplayer. Love what Valve is doing though, hopefully more companies will follow suit.

[lylejantzi3rd]

I just spent a week trying to share a new hard drive via samba and failed completely. "Respects them" my ass.

[jabwd]

I recently tried. After hours of trying my xbox controller still can't connect. Steam doesn't detect my Gullikit controller and frankly, I have to literally decide to go down this pain again to hopefully maybe switch one day.

[t1c]

That's really weird, I also have a Gullikit controller (the one with the hall effect sticks) and it works perfect OOTB on my desktop & laptop, both running Linux. Maybe try switching the mode on the controller to Windows/Android instead of Nintendo Switch?

[mepian]

Strange, my PlayStation 5 controller just works on openSUSE Tumbleweed.

[GaryNumanVevo]

Linux respects everything except for the user's time

[t1c]

Idk, I think most beginner distros are fine. If my dad (who primarily uses Apple products, browses the web, checks email, that's it) can figure out Fedora + GNOME, I think anyone can.

[minkles]

Because half the shit I use only works on windows. And no I can’t change it because I have to work with other people who’s shit only works on windows.