The amount of comments in here that are conjecture or just straight up bullshit is off the charts... my tech illiterate wife, and my 80+ year old grandparents use Linux without any problems.

Every few years I try Linux again. At this point I've decided that when I can install linux, and use all of my hardware/software without having to open a terminal window, I'll try it again. Until then, I only use it when I'm paid to.

When I've tried Linux in the past, it's way too much work with limited selection of apps. It's more of a toy to play around with. Learning all the command line stuff, editing text files and selling up jobs, etc. It wasn't for me.

Mind you, last time I seriously looked at Linux was when Red hat was still free. I know things have changed since then.

I tried to install a package and apt started uninstalling my desktop. Maybe if I didn't panic and hit Ctrl-C I would have gotten all the packages it was removing replaced with shiny new ones? I doubt it somehow.

All the customization you can do is neat, but after that I was pretty much done with fiddling with my OS and finding FOSS versions of stuff I was already used to and wanted something that would just work. These days I have a small form factor PC with Mint that I run some server apps on, but I'm holding off on making it my daily driver again until Microsoft really puts the screws on the consumer.

I used Linux Mint for several years on a dual-boot laptop. I rarely found myself booting Windows. While there was a learning curve, Mint was fairly accessible out of the box and was generally a delight to use. Until it wasn't. At some point, the drivers for my video card updated, and just flat broke everything. And I can't really use a computer on which I can't see the desktop. I waited. And waited. A fix for the driver may have eventually come, but after awhile, booting into Windows just became my default, until eventually I just wiped the Linux partition to recover the storage space.

It was fun while it lasted, and I may choose one day to give it another go for the fourth time. This wasn't the first time I've had something like this happen. First time was with Fedora, and the second was Ubuntu. Each time, I had the same "it worked until it didn't" experience, and each time it stopped working was usually some kind of broken driver making my hardware incompatible.

The inability to play most games.

The first time I used Linux, I couldn't get it to work with my NIC so I couldn't play Counter-Strike. Big nope.

The second time, it wouldn't work with my GPU properly so anything that used 3D graphics either didn't run at all, or gave single digit frame rates.

The last time I tried, Wine just wouldn't work with anything or would constantly crash.

Until Linux is just super easy, plug'n'play, "it just works" like Windows, it will never become my daily use OS. The only thing I would run Linux on currently are purpose specific machines using a raspberry pi or similar computer, a server, or my phone.

I used Linux for maybe 15 years and I have to say I absolutely love it. I even attended Fedora Flock conference, I was really into all the FOSS world. But at some point I guess I got really tired of editing text files on a command line and googling to solve specific problems or just plain OS settings.

I can't say that I don't miss it though and especially more now than ever the itch is there and I am curious to install and use Linux again, so I dunno..

I got tired of having to endlessly maintain it, vs windows which generally just works (no fighting with audio drivers, wifi drivers, gpu drivers, suspend to disk works without glitching, etc) and i like playing video games without having to deal with wine. Still run linux on servers, and my work desktop and laptop are linux since we have an IT department which maintains it for me.

I tried Linux mint, I really liked it but I needed Autodesk software and that don't work on Linux 😞

I use both. Linux as a homserver runs a bunch of docker containers and a Nas/personal cloud. Desktop and notebook runs Windows because compatibility and honestly Linux as a desktop still sucks ass. I tried it the first time in the mid 90s and even after all the promises and a quarter of a century later its still shit. Just take the L Linux and be what you are; the best server os.

Games and Photoshop. Linux is nice, but if you're a serious gamer its not even in the solution space.

I've used both regularly for years and went back to Windows when I switched to PC gaming and it's just so much better. Everything just works on Windows.

Linux really needs to work on improving its user experience if it wants to be a true competitor to Mac and Windows. All these little config tweaks and command line prompts you have to do to get things working on Linux just isn't going to win a bunch of people over who are used to things being a few clicks on a wizard to get working.

Edit: it's been years since I last tried Linux so maybe things have changed.

I tried to use Ubuntu for a bit but I just wanted to have regular Firefox with the built in updater, turns out this is way more of a hassle than it is on Windows.

It shouldn't be that hard to "install" a program like Firefox directly from a website but all you get is an archive thing that you have to manually "install" basically, it's tricky enough that someone wrote a tool just do do this: https://gitlab.com/Linux-Is-Best/Firefox-automatic-install-for-Linux

APT and Flatpacks are all cool but an offline installation should still be available and easy to use without being forced to use a terminal. Maybe I'm incorrect and I would love to hear about it but this is my experience.

Steam for whatever reason is basically installed the same way on windows as on PC in terms of user experience, you download a file and double click it. Maybe it's Mozillas fault? Who knows, it's frustrating in any case.

Ltt made a video on this, they switched to Linux for some time and documented their experience as windows users

I need iRacing and the software for the rest of my sim rig to be fully supported. This means “SimHub” for my wind sim, the “SimRig” app for my motion actuators, “SimCommander” for my wheelbase, and there are a couple others like “The Crew Chief” etc. oh and whatever emulation layer for iRacing; as there’s no Linux version; would need to not get me banned from the anti-cheat software.

I put my money where my mouth was though! I used Manjaro+Gnome for 2 or 3 years on my main machine, dual booting Windows only to sim race. I quit Adobe and Maxon and switched to DarkTable and Blender for photos and 3D modeling. All my 3D printing software and slicers have native Linux versions. I used Chrome, Chromium, Firefox, Dropbox (have since switched to NextCloud self-hosted). Docker was a dream and so fucking fast for web development. I still keep a Linux VM around just for Docker web development.

Here’s the thing… on not one but two occasions my machine refused boot to a GUI. I’m speaking as someone who uses server Linux daily for work, Mac OS daily for work, and Windows daily for play. If Linux distros and GPU makers don’t get their shit together IT WILL NEVER be the year of Linux on the desktop. Exactly 0 times has Windows failed to boot to a GUI for me (short of a hdd or GPU hardware failure) and Mac OS has also not booted to a GUI 0 times. As long as seeing a desktop on boot is not a 100% guarantee when running Linux, it’ll remain as something only nerds or enthusiasts do.

I love Linux, but I’d say it’s a safe bet to say I’ll never sim race or run iRacing natively on Linux short of Microsoft and windows disappearing from existence overnight. It just won’t happen.

For web development or 3D modeling and hacking around? Gimme Linux or Mac OS! WSL is like 99% there but no where as performant as the aforementioned. Also with WSL simple fucking things like networking become a proxy-firewall-ssh-tunnel nightmare.

I hate the CLI and every time I had an issue every manual or forum or user would give me the solution using the CLI.

Also gaming. There is lots that runs fine on Linux now, but there is also lots which does not. Especially gaming peripherals like my Fanatec wheel and pedals.

I got my wife a netbook when they were popular. It came with Windows 7 Starter Edition. Shit was kind of slow, but it worked. I thought about installing Linux cause people say it's lighter and faster. When I started looking up Linux there were so many versions. I can't tell the difference between a Mint, Cinnamon, KDE, etc. As a noob (I'm still a noob) I don't know which one to choose so I settled on Mint cause I liked the theme. After the install it was slower than Win7SE. VLC video playback was trash. At the time I was using Photoshop 6 and Gimp was a not so great alternative. In the end the experiment failed. The netbook ended up being donated to the sis in law (teen). Best thing about Linux is the ability to run it off a CD/thumb drive. I think I'm too use to Windows though.. It's not worth the headache to switch Operating System unless I have to. I won't switch to Apple/iOS cause I'm use to Android. I currently run Win10 on my desktop/laptop and Win11 on my wife's Surface laptop. I fucken hate how Windows is always asking me to sign on with their account. I probably switch to Linux if Windows ever goes full online subscription base.

mostly because I had to stick on Windows for video games. and for now, the amount of effort I'm already putting into making Windows functional when it's supposed to work out of the box, makes me scared of going back to Linux. Mostly a worry about changing so many habits and diving back into the unknown

It's more of a "why do I keep Windows on my main machine and only use Linux for my servers?"

The answer is two-fold

a) most of my games and a (dwindling) amount of productivity software are windows based. I know things are improving... But the fact remains that I am still literally invested in some software that is only supported on Windows (that pile is shrinking).

b) there are a few everyday tasks that are still just too frustrating to be practical for non-technical people. For example, why in the fuck do I need to deal with user and mod permissions for files on an external harddrive? I get why for system files, but for media files on an external drive? It's a level of pedantry I'm just not ready to deal with.

Basically visual arts software and some writing software. Additionally I have a free version of Ableton Live Lite 11 (so one music-making application as well) that came with my keyboard.

I mostly do photography, writing, and other visual arts type work on my two computers. I use quite a few photography and painting applications (Photoshop, ArtRage, Rebelle, Lightroom, Inspirit, and a few others; I'm also looking at BlackInk), as well as Scrivener and MS Office when I'm writing. I don't know if any of those run well or at all in Linux or in Wine, etc. Also I stopped flirting with learning programming and there wasn't much point maintaining a Linux machine after that. I think Linux is better than Windows all around, and I hate Windows, but it's just because I use certain apps and from what I've heard and seen the Linux apps just aren't as good.

TLDR, creative software that won't run on Linux (to my knowledge, anyway).

Last time I tried Linux was about 10 years ago. I installed multiple different combinations until I found one I liked (I forget which though). I was attending university at the time (chemistry) and had it dual booting so I could switch back to Windows as needed. I really tried, but everything on the Linux side was just so buggy or complicated.
I was using Open Office or something similar, mainly for spreadsheets, and I just kept needing to switch back to Windows so I could spend my time getting the actual work done, rather than trying to figure out how to make the computer work. It was so long ago that I don't remember the details, but I vaguely remember it repeatedly freezing up on me for relatively simple spreadsheet tasks.. the kind of stuff they teach in beginners or maaaaybe intermediate Excel tutorials with 10-50 rows of data.
Eventually, I gave up on trying to do any of my work in Linux and figured I'd come back to it when I had some free time. When I finally had some free time, I decided to wipe the current Linux install and try something else. I had gone through the installation process so many times before that I thought I remembered the steps. Well, I didn't, and I managed to delete something super critical and couldn't even boot to Windows anymore. After much trial and error, some kind internet stranger offered to help walk me through it.. the only problem was that they were only familiar with Arch (?), so that was the distro we were going to use to get me back up and running. We got it fixed so that my computer dual boots, but I have to supervise the boot process every time since the default boot is Arch, and I'm just not ready to deal with that.
I've casually looked a few times to see if I can figure out how to change the boot order, but I'm too scared I'll end up worse off, so I've just left well enough alone since then.

I have an Android phone and rooting it is always the first thing I do, so it hasn't scared me off tinkering altogether, but I hardly touch a PC outside of work anymore, so there's just no motivation to try again.

A few apps like Photoshop and Fusion360 keep my running Windows. The graphics card situation is also a giant pain in the ass, my laptop has a Radeon and a RTX 3080 and I can't get any kind of prime offloading to work. I'd really like to use the radeon unless i'm running something intensive that needs 3d acceleration, but i think I'd likely have to reboot to switch between them.

That leaves me running the RTX chip the whole time so the laptop draws about 40W at idle, when running windows it's more like 10W because the nvidia chip is completely off.