It depends on the machines.
I'm biased towards Linux. I also really like Macs.
I've had Linux machines that just works. Buuuuut, before getting my hands on those machines I researched online and ensured that Linux works well on those. In my personal experience, Dell (Inspiron/Vostro/Latitude/XPS) and some ThinkPads usually work fine.
On such machines, everything works out of the box. I've had to do nothing special on those machines to make anything work. Things worked right from the first install.
Now, there are definitely plenty of machines out there where Linux DOES NOT work well out of the box.
So, I guess Windows gets a brownie point for that — you don't have to investigate upfront if Windows is going you work on a given consumer machine; it probably works on more consumer computers than Linux. (However, there's more to it than this if you think about how this situation came about; I don't want to open that can of worms here).
My hope is that, if enough people choose to run Linux, then manufacturers might be incentivised to support Linux better so that even more people would choose Linux, and so on.
I refuse to run Windows because:
• I honestly just really like Linux, BSD, and unixy environments.
• Windows had a clunky developer experience the last time I tried it (a decade ago); I hear it has improved, but frankly I don't care.
• Statements like "Linux is cancer" from you-know-who never sat well with me. I suspect they're still evil.
I also refrain from running Cinnamon because that reminds me of Windows from long long ago, and I'd rather not be reminded of Windows.
Having said all that, I think LibreOffice is inferior to MS Office. It was the one Microsoft product that I actually liked.
Serious question because my experience is that I install Linux Mint and everything just works. Updates never break anything. Why should they?
The only arguable pain point is maybe graphics drivers but honestly installing proprietary ones is just a few clicks these days. Plus you don't need them for office work anyway. (Maybe also some power saving features on certain lesser known laptops? As a ThinkPad user I always enjoyed great support.)
If you’re using a Thinkpad, you’re well of. Try a cheaper machine, and be surprised by exciting tinkering opportunities like fast battery drainage, issues connecting external displays, external printers not being recognised, or Bluetooth speakers not playing audio. We can fix it, my mom cannot.
Why would an employee that wasn't part of IT procurement ever be thinking about that? If you're telling me that it's impossible to hire a single person for procurement who can figure out whether your machines will run on the OS your organization has chosen, I'm going to insist that's not true.
> I’ve never had a Linux box that didn’t require me to open a terminal to fix something after a while.
I'm going to make the guess that you never run a stable distribution for your own personal desktop, like Debian stable, for example. For some reason, most individuals pretend to need a bleeding edge desktop. Organizations don't. Debian Stable is as fragile as a mountain.
Neither of these are good options.
That said, the exception is a browser, where I would prefer to use the upstream version for security reasons.
Honestly, anything that a developer has pushed. Sometimes I want an SVN build of DOSBox or need a bleeding edge feature of some tool I use all the time. On Windows, this is simply a matter of downloading a binary, but by and large Linux software doesn't work that way. Distros expect that you will use whatever version of a package they have seen fit to grace you with, or you compile from source like it is 1975.
It is not unreasonable or unrealistic to ask for a stable platform upon which one can run bleeding edge applications, yet this remains painful on Linux Desktop.
For the few cases were you need bleeding edge you can just download and run it just like on Windows. For most applications bleeding edge is really not necessary and you can just normally install via package manager.
Though I don't think the situation is that bleak. Any popular application where user have a reasonable interest in having the latest version should have some way to ship it on Linux?
Thinking about what I personally use, blender just has a tarball, no trouble, VS Codium, Godot, Unity, Love2d all have AppImages, the IntelliJ IDEs can be installed via snap. Browsers are handled by package manager. Most of my dev stuff is running on docker anyway.
Yes, it is a bit of a mess with all the different ways to ship binaries but I can't think of something I am painfully missing. I don't care about having the newest version for most apps though so maybe I am more easily pleased.
The IT department selects appropriate configurations that support the software they need. My university has no problem supporting a Linux laptop and desktop, and Germany's administration would be doing something similar.
There are many pages telling you how to debug a touchpad. I tried various incantations of installing, reinstalling, uninstalling drivers, one set or another. I ran some special commands to capture messages coming out of the touchpad - showing it actually, at some level, worked. Just didn't move the mouse. Nothing helped.
That it's even a thing to debug a touchpad is precisely what's "wrong" with Linux. Windows, crapware that it is, for me had never this kind of 1->0 failures. It's just all meh.
I dual booted a laptop Ubuntu/Windows for a while. And if a closed down Windows with the power cable connected then the NVidia card would not work in Ubuntu.
The touch pad probably need some magic numbers to reset some state.
https://askubuntu.com/questions/1330100/only-the-first-four-...
As one recent example. For me MS works much better than Ubuntu on a day to day basis. I would much prefer a Linux, but I want one that gets out of the way and allows me to do work instead of hand hold it.
Things just break with updates, or sometimes do not work. I'm on Ubuntu 20 right now and Firefox can't detect the microphone on some websites like FB or instagram, but works just fine on Chrome. On my home computer running Arch and similar setup Firefox detects the mic just fine.
It's brittle, it feels like it's duct tapes all the way down and the breakage is mostly because not many foss projects really care about backwards compatibility.
However, on topic, the awful mess that is the Linux desktop experience does not matter since we're talking about public servants and not home use.
Honestly at least relative to the general mood of the software industry I wouldn't say that foss projects don't care about backwards compatibility. The kernel is famous for caring a lot about it. The Debian project is quite known for being relatively conservative. Unfortunately Ubuntu is known for experimenting on its users but thank god nobody is forced to use that.
Browsers have supported video calls for years now. Heck there are plenty of Show HN posts about the latest in browser virtual chat rooms with full video and audio.
I don't see the issue, yes Teams is crap in Browser but most WebRTC based solutions work fine, at least in Chrome. Plus if I can avoid installing proprietary Software that is always a plus.
But for me, Linux doesn't work. Or maybe it works 90%. Something's always broken, and a different thing is broken with each update. It requires constant tinkering.
One flawless and amazing experience I had was working on Linux at a medium-sized tech firm, which had a dedicated sysadmin team who knew what they were doing. As a decent Linux user I could never maintain anything like that level of service on personal machines.
I think it's quite telling that so few vendors sell you hardware+Linux+promise of it all working well. There are quite a few who will sell you hardware and pinky promise you can install Linux on it yourself, but that's not the same.