I tried Windows 10 for a couple of weeks and while it was better than I expected it's still a mess.

The short version is that the Windows ecosystem is plagued by legacy software (even Windows itself).

As a daily windows user I'd say the main problem is hidpi support. It can't do mixed dpi environments properly, which is the typical experience when you use a (hidpi) laptop combined with an external monitor. Microsoft blames this on legacy software, but even office doesn't work properly.

A secondary issue are forced updates breaking things, which i've had on two of my 4 windows laptops so far. Finally, the mess of legacy and new settings screens is annoying, but once setup it doesn't matter much, so it only affects the first-run experience.

Aside from those i think w10 is nice. I wouldn't mind replacing my mini with a windows machine, and if apple doesn't update it soon i probably will.

It's a challenge. Given that most of my work is operations for Linux systems, containers, Kubernetes - either to bare metal in my garage, AWS or GCE, it could be (reasonably) argued that maybe I should be running that on my local system.

I just got the Kaby Lake XPS 13 Developer Edition. If you want to be cutting edge and "refined", you'll have issues. By cutting edge I mean things like:

XPS13DE ships with Ubuntu 16.04, kernel 4.4. Switching to an external DP/TB3 monitor kernel panics. Switching to 16.10, kernel 4.8 makes Network Manager unhappy.

Using the Kensington SD4600P dock I bought (because the Dell docks are, to all reviews, horrible, and buggy), you can't run multiple displays except through Windows - OS X, Linux, ChromeOS can only drive one.

Not major issues, to be sure - but they do challenge where I want to be, a 'just works' experience (that I -used- to have with Apple, but less and less so recently), neat and polished (it is so nice to just put my laptop in a vertical dock at my desk, plug in a single USB C and get:

- power to my laptop

- 4K DP

- external keyboard, mouse, speakers, etc

all from that one little cable.

There haven't been any significant UI paradigm changes in Linux desktops for quite a few years. They've become boring technology, for the better.

That's good to hear. I used to enjoy the GNOME2 and KDE2 and 3.5 days but after that I switched to Mac OSX (as it was then). I am now running macOS and Windows 10 but with a Linux console box (WindowMaker on VNC, classic eh) but don't feel a strong desire to switch back after my attempts with Unity and GNOME3. XFCE is still there I suppose.

I'm glad they're settling into boredom - I just want to get stuff done without faffing around. Gone are my days of ndiswrapper for fun and XFree86Config for kicks. Actually, they're probably long-gone for a lot of people....

Does sleep/resume work?