[runjake]

  > Just switch to Linux already. 

I did this. Again. After running Linux as my main desktop OS from about 1992 - 1999, and some years since then.

  > It's really there. Some compromises required, sure, but they are already far and between.

I'm not sure about that, and borderline disagree.

There are a lot of compromises:

- The Linux desktop is far flakier and far less elegant than Windows and especially macOS. KDE's a little less flakey than GNOME, I suppose.

- A lot of the apps you love don't exist on Linux.

- The Linux replacements for the apps you love are way less functional.

- Keyboard shortcuts are chaotic unless you spend a lot of time deep diving on how to configure them coherently across applications.

- Odd behaviors with snap/flatpak apps, but those will get worked out with time.

Pluses:

- The underlying Linux OS is rock stable with compatible hardware.

- You can customize your desktop pretty much infinitely, if that's your thing.

- Everything is free.

- Logging is, compared to macOS and Windows, excellent.

- If you're a developer, everything is more compatible on Linux.

Anyways, after a year, I went crawling back to my Mac. I still have a Linux desktop SSD in the PC, ready to go, but I rarely pop in anymore.

That said, if you live the terminals plus browser lifestyle, you won't miss much switching to Linux desktop.

Edit: for context, I used UNIX and Linux way before I ever used Windows or DOS. I have, in the past, done deep dives on Windows, Windows kernel, Windows and .net programming, etc. I just prefer *NIX.

[jacquesm]

It's just what you're used to. I wouldn't be able to get through my day on a windows box, I'd be so frustrated.

A lot of the apps that I love don't exist on windows. Unix vs windows is like a very large and well stocked toolbox versus a set of nail clippers and a bent hairpin.

[runjake]

I agree. I did hold out for a year on modern Linux desktop, but I think the relative elegance of macOS has ruined me, I think.

At some point in the next year or two, I plan to re-dogfood Linux desktop with i3 or Sway, as I effectively work in a tiled arrangement and it's far more stable than GNOME.

I don't really use Windows, but when I do, I'm pretty much in a web browser or WSL. I don't have much interest in the rest of it anymore, especially with the ruination Microsoft is committing.

While I've done a lot of Windows programming and PowerShell and whatnot, I'm a UNIX native, I'm old, and I'm sticking with some variant of it until EOL.

[firebaze]

Let's just agree to disagree. I grew up with Windows, learnt programming on it, was C++ proficient, COM, COM+, switched to C#, .NET, WinForms, WPF ... and that was when it got too much. If you know Windows, you probably can at least feel why. I earned quite a lot of money with Windows.

I had tons of apps on Windows, and all alternatives on Linux are better to me (IntelliJ vs. Visual Studio, VS Code the same, CodeLion). I had a MacOS stint in the middle of the transition, so maybe that's a difference.

But still: I'm not you, you are not me, and that's okay. I'm just proof that it is probably subjective, and not objective, what you describe.

And regarding the desktop OS experience: couldn't disagree more. But, as already said, probably taste :)

[lstamour]

If Adobe or Serif announced Linux support, I’d switch in a heartbeat. I was about to add DaVinci Resolve to that list, but they actually released official Linux support, so I can cross some video editing off my list. And one presumes all web-based tools such as Figma also work well on Linux these days, so… the list of tools that aren’t Linux compatible might be vanishingly small now. But not zero, sadly.

[init2null]

Too many dev commenters will hand-wave away complaints about graphics work on Linux. Bitmap and vector graphics are terrible, and I have tried the options. RAW photo editing is mediocre. Font rendering and color management has always been behind.

When I switched to a Mac, it wasn't that MacOS got vastly better. It was that Windows has been getting dramatically worse.

I that being said, Resolve and Blender on Linux can nicely serve subsets of the creative community. We just need more.

[firebaze]

Figma works perfectly on Linux¹. If you don't believe me, let's privately talk.

E-Mail me at [e-mail], if you like.

¹ our (sub-orga-wide) UX crew uses MacOS, almost all Devs use Linux, and both of them use Figma

[runjake]

My hope is to find a viable enough setup to return to Linux, preferably on a modular component, unified memory ARM64 architecture of some sort, but I'm flexible.

[pmontra]

> A lot of the apps you love don't exist on Linux.

About this point, I switched to Ubuntu in 2009 after I realized that all the apps I was using in Windows XP were open source and available on Linux too. Some of them were actually Linux native and were much faster there, example: Gimp.