Ive been using linux as my sole OS for the last 20+ years. Nothing windows based, anymore. That said, i find questions like this a bit disingenuous. There are a LOT of reasons why it aint the year of the linux desktop, and if youve been using Linux for any amount of time, you likely know this too. That one or two cruicial apps, games, compatibilty between office suites, ease of use for those who aren’t technologically inclined, forward momentum, hardware incompatibility (broadcom, realtek come to mind specifically, im sure theres others)

i'm too tired

It really do be video games. It's not often I run something that absolutely wouldn't work in Linux but it happens enough that I can't be bothered to set up dual-booting.

I have decisional anxiety and every time I go to try and pick a version to install I get recommend like 5 different builds, get intimidated, and fall back to my safe space

I use Linux on my laptop, but also have a Windows machine that I only use for gaming and those few random applications that don't want to perform well in wine.

I use Linux at work regularly, and often prefer Linux and suggest Linux for work projects. It's an extremely capable OS for infrastructure and embedded applications. It's a pain as a desktop though. It's just clunkier and harder to do things. Intermediate level configuration tasks which you can do with one dialog in Windows require editing shell scripts and decoding APIs designed by mathematicians in the 70's on Linux. It's just too much when I want to relax after work.

Also I like gaming, and gaming through a compatibility layer like Wine is always annoying. I don't want launching a new game to be a project in itself.

Vidia gaems

And I'm scared of learning a new operating system.

i'm really stupid and it seems excessively difficult

too sleepy

I can barely manage to do the dishes most of the time and you expect me to learn a new OS?

Most people have a valid excuse, like their one really important software or favorite hentai game doesn't work under wine. For example, I wanted to buy a specific android tablet, but a small number of cool exclusive features are windows only, which is annoying af. Do I subject myself to full-time popups, nagware, random restarts, fake restarts, etc. of windows, do I dual-boot and have to restart my computer for weird context switching, do I own 2 computers, or shall I forgo that one one cool software/feature?

If you're thinking you'd really like a minimalist, classic desktop experience, like say a windows 98 vibe but also frugal on your GPU/RAM/CPU stuff, I heavily recommend the MATE with brisk-menu installed.

The most beginner friendly version of think is the official https://ubuntu-mate.org/ ISO.

Personally, I prefer debian for servers, and Garuda (arch) for desktops/laptops. Garuda has a lot of desktop environment options, I use the Garuda MATE ISO. Garuda does a lot of hand-holding for you in general, but also has a lot of gamer specific things.

Another thing, I like using my computer to actually do things. I don't think dicking around for hours/days because some random thing (your OS, or drivers, to be specific) doesn't work by default is fun or interesting. It's something most linux evangelists seem to not understand about normal people, and when normal people use windows, the network effect usually forces windows on me somehow. Ubuntu MATE and Garuda MATE have been pretty good about "just working". Your luck on brand new/obscure hardware laptops is going to be tested.

I am afraid of the terminal

Gaming and troubleshooting knowledge. I make my living using my computers, and if something goes wrong and I can't fix it on the spot, i'm screwed.

Last time I tried a dual boot, my rig had a wifi dongle that took me about a month to get working. It was great for a time, then all of the sudden it stopped and I couldn't get it back. Terminal entry stuff should be a rarity too, I'm not afraid to go into it or Windows power shell but it has its own language and I don't have time to teach myself. It seemed like every time I tried to do something, it NEVER produced the result other people were getting, and then I couldn't find the error that I was getting.

I want to switch quite badlly tbh, but I really do need it to be as simple and reliable as Android. Once my home server is built, I'm loading a Linux distro on it to start, then I'll add a dual boot to my main rig.

tried it and it fucked my computer up

I got gun shy after failing an attempt at dual boot years back.

I gave it a go and ended up switching back to Windows. While I liked it overall even if aspects of it were pretty annoying, I need Google Drive to function and sync my files locally for work. There's no native client and none of the third party ones worked like they were supposed to. I could have dual booted, I guess, but nah

The file system. I can't touch that mess. And because I know Linux (Unix) will never adopt the windows file structure. I have given up on the idea of switching to linux, I am too attached to my partitions

Plus there are no professional grade CAD software for linux

I basically only use my windows PC to play games and Linux just has too many compromises on that front. I have a steam deck and while I'm impressed at how far Linux gaming has come, it also reminds me of how far it has left to go.

It’s a preference thing. I just like Windows better. I know bash decently well, use WSL and have no qualms about using the Linux CLI, but for a GUI I’ve always thought Windows did a better job. For a “it just works” system it’s also worlds ahead of Linux (insert “well ackshully this specific distro does X now”), and I’ve stayed with Windows the whole time. I manage Linux servers at work, and also Windows servers and I can manage both from my Windows machine without having to jump around.

Now macOS? I won’t touch with a 10’ pole.

I have a bad history with Linux, but in the future I plan to conquer this weird dimension as the current one (windows) is going to shit

I got a new laptop recently and decided to try Linux again. That being said, I ended up jumping into Fedora Sericea to experiment with both the immutable image thing and to try i3/Sway, so we'll see how that goes

I only use my machine for work and I'm required to use Windows 11. I wish I'd gotten into Linux when I was younger and computers were still fun but I've come to hate this little electronic box.

Gaming, even though that's come a long way thanks to Proton. Steam Deck has impressive compatibility, even if it can be janky at times.

My main reason for not running Linux these days is that iRacing doesn't work under it, and I'm not convinced the software and drivers for steering wheels and pedals work either.

I've used Linux and simply had no use for it. My DAW of choice is Ableton Live and there's no Linux version. I tried running it through windows emulators but that was just finicky. The only big name DAW I know about that has a Linux version is Reaper, which is fine, but I'm not that great with Reaper and the stock fx aren't great. I don't know of any free software style DAWs for Linux that would work with vsts and ASIO.

I did use Ubuntu on a Chromebook for a long time when I was trying to learn more coding, but then I figured out I don't enjoy coding. That's probably my main reason for disliking Linux. I don't wanna mess around in the guts of code, it's tedious and uninteresting to me. I just want it to work already.

I'm afraid of messing up a dual boot install

Gaming. For anything work/school related I'll use a vm or ssh into the school labs if i think the task will be easier on linux

For development, Linux is soooo nice. But when I want to play games, anticheats don't tend to be happy running under wine. X11 is also ancient garbage, and Wayland is just not ready.

So instead, I run windows. When I need to do Linux stuff, I use WSL. VSCode lets me run it under WSL as if it were running on Linux directly, and very few of the things I've used under WSL have complained about it.

As soon as Wayland is actually ready, and companies stop their anticheats from getting mad under wine, I will switch back over.

I use a browser and Notepad and that's pretty much all I do on my PC. I do so little with it that learning how to use a new operating system seems far more effort than it's worth.