You go to a Apple, Google or Microsoft conference, GUI programming talks are about how to implement good UI/UX and take the best advantage of their tools for UI development, usually with workflow exemples from concept up to final product.

Most GUI tracks on GNU/Linux conferences are about low level details how to make certain drivers work, ongoing XWindows refactorings, or refactorings on GUI libraries.

So it is clear which tech do eventually GUI focused developers go to.

I know what you mean and my frustation goes beyond that. All my servers and many tools are all Linux based, but my desktop dev environment haven't change in years (even when I hop from LTS to LTS). It's mostly abstracted with my own GUI code so when people start fucking with the underlying and regular components I can just do a quick fix on my side. When I'm customizing my Linux desktop (CLI aside) I feel like I'm wasting my time just to make things work, not have a prehistorical workflow and minimize the GUI toolkit hell. Ironically, on Windows I feel like an actual power user when I'm making scripts and automating workflows. Not sure why, it's just how I feel.

Maybe the annoyances are from the lack of a core desktop experience/"interface" (not talking about GUI) that feels familiar (especially for new users). I bet it also scares developers from other platforms and commercial initiatives. I'm all in for freedom but a "default stack" is desperately needed.

Well, you know--people have opinions.

If not, we'd all be using OS/2 on IBM PCs instead of Windows, Macs, Linux, etc.