2022 was the year of Linux on the Desktop?

For me the choice is simple because a non-free operating would not be acceptable. And no, I am hardcore ideological about it, I use a Linux Kernel with binary blobs and all but the point is having system that serves me and me alone. Telemetry, advertisement, forced updates, not allowing me to do whatever the fuck I want with my system are non-starters.

Beyond the ideological I want to note that while learning curve with Linux is steep there are some aspects that make it worth it:

It is mostly a one time investment: Linux is pretty conservative. Once you get it, you get it and wont really have to learn anything new. Most of the time even the bigger disruptions to the ecosystem are not that relevant to the end user and can always be simply avoided if one chooses to, not just for years but decades or forever.

Compare this to Windows. I used Windows XP heavily and absolutely wouldn't be able to perform basic tasks on an modern Windows system. In comparison, if as Linux user from the Windows XP era were teleported into our times, they would still feel at home on today's Linux and could be perfectly productive in nearly not time.

If you are in tech, you might have to learn Linux anyway: Linux server skills are really important to have. And these skills translate back to the Linux Desktop and vice versa as well.

Also docker performance is vastly better on Linux than on Windows or Mac so that alone makes the Linux the best platform for developers. (Not to mention many tools being only Linux native or having priority Linux support.)

Also people need to stop using Ubuntu. I have been using Linux for ages and find the UI super confusing and wouldn't be able to do anything on it. It's just shit.

Use Linux Mint.

Oh and I am using NVIDIA GPUs just fine on Linux. I had some trouble with freezes and crashes but most of these got fixed in updates.

Maybe we can use Haiku as a daily driver one day but for now there is really no good alternative to Linux.

The Linux volunteer community needs an attitude shift to start recommending the user friendly method over the complicated methods. You don't need to apt install Chrome, it's in your software store, just like most other programs you probably want. If you go die-hard Linux (Arch, Gentoo, etc.) then perhaps there are too many variations in use to give a clear cross DE answer but on Ubuntu 99% of users are on GNOME with Ubuntu customisations, so you can use the Disks tool instead of dd, the Disk Usage analyser instead of a complicated du grep sort command and the software manager instead of apt for almost every common task.

Linux people are often fond of their command line and so am I, but this way any normal user will quickly shy away from the platform for no good reason. There are also people who have weirdly strict opinions about the "right" way to do things (systemd hate, Wayland hate, vim enthusiasts, bash vs zsh vs fish debates) that ruin the experience for everyone but will leave an especially bad impression for newbies. You'd better know the difference between pacman, apt, dnf, and brew before you go to the Arch forum or expect to be insulted for being such a complete idiot to even consider asking a question.

You can't even touch fintech unless your engineers work on MDM'd devices.

You can't trust every single employee to always keep their machine up to date or be on the up and up. Statistically speaking, you'll need it eventually.

It’s like saying it’s bad I don’t know how all the internal components of my car work because I rely on my car to get to work.

As far as I am concerned, my operating system is a black box for interacting with VSCode, Slack, Outlook, Firefox, and use a terminal in a user-friendly way. I don’t care how it works, its components, or how it is constructed. I certainly don’t expect to have to fix it - making the operating system reliable and user-friendly is someone else’s job.

You're technically correct, and for practical purposes incorrect.