Let me start by saying that I don't want to convince you to use Windows ;) What I am trying to do is show how it all depends from where you are coming from, where your experience is at.
> Ultimately though, it all boils down to habits and personal preferences rather than X being better than Y.
I have no problem changing systems if I see the value/advantage. I have changed systems in the past. Started with Ti994a, DOS, OS/2, Windows 95, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 10. In the middle I tried Linux, may variants: Mandrake, Redhat, Suse, Gentoo, Fedora, Ubuntu, Mint, Manjaro, and many others just to see how they looked/worked. I even worked with AIX and Solaris at work. What I mean is that I can adapt and work if needed be. My main point is that I don't suffer all of the pains, with the exception of telemetry, that Linux users have against Windows.
> Propitiatory commercial applications, sure. But there's plenty of open source counterparts. I've been using LibreOffice (and OpenOffice before then) for years and while it does lack a lot of polish compared to MS Office most of the issues with it are really just cosmetic. Plus I never liked the ribbon bar anyway. Adobe Creative Suite is a bigger problem. I have heard of professionals uses open source counterparts and getting on well with it but the last thing a person wants is technology getting in the way of their creative process (a sentiment I'm intimately familiar with from a music composition perspective).
I don't care if it is commercial or free, proprietary or open source. I care that is the best software for the job. That said, Office has become easier as I can use the Online version or Gsuite.
> I honestly prefer Linux for driver support. Windows was such a pain in the arse with having to install 3rd party drivers (though that's less the case these days) where as on Linux everything just worked with the default install. That said, you do sometimes find edge cases where drivers are missing functionality but it's not all that common. With regards to battery life, I a lot of that will also be down to tuning. Windows ships some pretty aggressive tuning features where as Linux basically ships untuned. You can do that manually and it is a bit of a joke that users have to do it manually. But I've found losing an hour or two off a 10 hour run time isn't all that painful.
The problem is that I don't see the point of expending a week trying to fine tune Ubuntu, or whatever version I want to use, when I can just install Windows 10 and it works perfectly out off the box. At least for my use cases.
> I actually find the opposite to be true. Most things are more complicated to do in Windows. Developer tools, programming language support, containerisation/docker, debugging tools, networking tools, automation (this is by far the worst thing about running Windows for me), resolving issues (far easier to fix a broken Linux install), documentation (far better documentation in Linux), error reporting, etc.
I never found using developer tools, programming languages, debugging tools, networking tools, are more complicated in Windows. Same for resolving issues (I had to reinstall Windows very phew times, maybe one or two because I couldn't fix something and it was easier to just reinstall). I don't use containers/docker, so I cannot comment there.
> Updates are a key thing too. Windows: you need a thousand different update managers running on start up. You need to regularly reboot due to Windows update (which forcefully locks you out of your system whether you want it to or not). Linux: everything is managed from one package manager and no reboots required (unless it's a kernel update but even then it installs it without locking you out and the reboot is just to load the new kernel)
This one I totally agree. Linux is much better at updating than Windows. No discussion here. The main problem is when there are non-official repositories.
> Another bugbare is having to browse for applications on the internet, avoiding phishing sites for popular software, then manually downloading and installing it. Repeatedly for some applications that don't have update managers too. Users shouldn't be doing this in 2020 -- it's just a crap way to manage software.
I don't see it as a big problem. I know the apps I want and I can just install them. But I understand how this could make life easier for some.
> That's why you use package managers ;)
The problem is that not all apps are on the repos ;) In my experience if the repo has the app, and it is installed regularly, all fine. If it not updated or does not exists, it is a pain.
> BSD is going to be much more painful for you than Linux given the complaints you're making about Linux. You're better off trying a Mint Linux. Or if you don't mind the one time pain installing Arch then go with that (Arch has no installer, you have to do it all manually. Which sucks for non-techies but once you're over that hurdle it's probably the most painless OS I've ever ran over long periods of time)
I don't mind. I tried OpenBSD, NetBSD, and DragonFly. I have OpenBSD running. As a desktop OS I don't see the advantage over Linux, much less over Windows.
> I don't rate Ubuntu much as a distribution. Canonical spend too much time reinventing the wheel and not enough time fixing the common complaints with Linux (though `snap` is an attempt at that but unfortunately even there Canonical's solution is hamfisted).
Don't get me there :)
Anyway, I always have a Linux laptop running around. I currently have Manjaro, but I will be trying Tumbleweed soon. I would love to one day totally move to Linux. I am not loosing hope.