Wow, so many wrong comments. My parents using Linux laptops for 10 years (which i give them second hand when i buy a new one). Now i set up NixOS with auto updates, and never needed to touch it again myself.

Had a friend of mine rib me for "not just paying for a license (for windows)". Tried to explain that wasn't the point to their befuddlement. Smh

I think once Valve polishes SteamOS for desktop environments there will be actual largescale migration.

Proton covers most games that I play, only a couple exceptions involving heavy handed anti-cheat stuff like League of Legends has now. For non-gaming Windows stuff that doesn't work in Linux I would guess that a virtual machine might work.

I love Linux, but it isn't ready.

Two weeks ago my side mouse buttons started working (they require Logitech software on Windows, wasn't expecting them to work). Last week they stopped. This week they work again.

Is this major? Not at all. Would it drive my mother-in-law into a rage rivaling that of Cocaine Bear? Absolutely. Spare me from the bear, keep Linux for the tinkerers.

For server hosting it's the only way to go.

Gaming has improved significantly, although it's rather frustrating that it's by all these compatibility layers and such rather than native run.

For desktop, as a workstation and general purpose it's 'ok' with rough edges. Things like (limited tests with a couple common distros like Ubuntu/Mint/Bazzite) the nextcloud app not supporting virtual files that have been available for a while in Windows and domain auth being twitchy where I've tried.

For the end user a big part is being able to just find an app and use it, no compiling or tweaking of settings needed for it to do what's expected. Package managers help greatly, but with the huge number of distros out there it makes it really hit and miss to say just go for it. The relatively few times you can just download a Linux version of an app from a site (as people are prone to doing if they go read about something on the web) you often would have to go chmod +x it and quite possibly have to run it from a CLI rather than just click the downloaded app.

So usable yes, but in a place where I could just drop it on someone and say go to town less so...

I run Linux daily, Linux isn't ready, its really not much of a debate. If the average person can't operate it efficiently then the average person will just stick to mac or windows.

I'll admit it is closer than it has ever been thanks to compatibility layers like proton but the average user still can't figure it out so it still has a way to go.

So long as you need a terminal to do anything on a Linux machine it's not gonna get any mainstream appeal, most people can barely install a app on windows where they just have to click next a few times. Also if the laptop you buy comes pre-installed with windows what would motivate a regular joe to go out of his way to install Linux on it and risk messing things up by making a mistake. Also people don't want to replace their windows only software and gaming is another reason to stick to windows for now. I'd rather use Linux, but I'll wait till Steam has made most games compatible with Linux, and Nvidia and Amd give proper driver support for linux

Linux isn't ready. Not for home users anyway. And I've tried recently. Just constant problems that if I wasn't getting paid I wouldn't have wanted to deal with.

Mum wouldn't even notice as long as the wallpaper is the same

Linux is not ready for most people

The last time i used it was 30 minutes ago

Yesterday a guy was mad about that why everything has to go through his igpu and why not directlg through dgpu then I told bro that hdmi or anyother port on your laptop doesn't use your dgpu then he understood.

I swapped to Arch Linux in the last month and it's been great. Gaming has been fun. The Nvidia drivers are still kinda confusing, and honestly I wouldn't put my mom on Arch Linux as of right now, but it's good enough.

I'm writing a document so my SW engineering friends can swap over as well within a day and be up and running, and it's just neat to see Linux gradually growing in my circles.

If you're on Linux, don't forget to donate to your favorite SW creators even if they're less flashy than say Larian studios or what have you lol.

Bad experiences from the past are valid reasons to be apprehensive.

I have to use Windows at work and by early afternoon if I'm not forced to reboot for an update I have to reboot because the machine has basically ground to a halt.

Why does Windows slow down the longer it's been booted?

How do I make the change less scary? I made my pc like 10 years ago and not looked at it since. I just use it for personal admin now and Rome 2 total war twice a year.