Not trying to be a jerk to you but this is the type of response that keeps Windows firmly ahead of Linux. Most users don't care who in the Linux ecosystem is at fault for things not working, they just know some function that works without a thought on Windows is an issue on Linux and they don't care about who in what stack is to blame. If they have to research which combination of distro, desktop environment, and bundle of hacks and flags they need, they'll go back to Windows where the scroll wheel just works. Ditto for all the excuses and finger pointing over audio, printing, and dozens of other pain points that have lingered around for decades.

>this is the type of response that keeps Windows firmly ahead of Linux

and that is fine. they can keep using a continuously worse and hostile OS while linux just keeps on improving with or without them :)

The surveillance, ads, and preference reverts just work as well. Choose your poison.

The problem is that people expect Linux to work exactly the same as Windows. But they simultaneously expect it to fix all the things Windows has broken. Those two aren't compatible.

Linux desktops having different design philosophies is why they're any good. if they worked like Windows, they would suck ass, and nobody would even think about switching. I mean, really? Windows or shitty cheap Windows? Come on now. We need to think about what makes Linux intriguing in the first place.

You can talk about design philosophy all you want. You can confirm that Windows sucks all you want (I agree).

That doesn't change the fact that my external monitor doesn't work and will never work on Linux/Unix (random example, I can give you tons of others of things not working).

Is it Linux's fault? No. Does it make Linux suck in that it is completely unusable for most people? Yes.

Apple (and System76 and Frame.work) understood this and are changing this fortunately.

It’s not like those are better. I switched back from Fedora KDE a month or so ago. If it isn’t mouse scroll wheel it’s fractional scaling in X11 applications. And if it isn’t that then it is broken hibernation. And if it isn’t that it is broken fan control. And if it isn’t that then it’s device driver support. And if it isn’t that then it is that one application that supports Linux but actually doesn’t well enough to be usable.

There is always something messed up. At least with Windows, people have spent time building scripts to remove the garbage.

> fractional scaling in X11 applications

Very real, no solution either. The only solution is Wayland.

> broken hibernation

This is broken on Windows, too. Basically, suspend to RAM just doesn't work properly/reliably on a bunch of laptop manufacturers firmware.

> device driver support

Pretty much not a problem on x86 and commodity hardware. It becomes a problem on ARM because ARM is a hot mess, but then again that's the case on Windows, too. Some laptops have strange hardware, unfortunately. This is becoming less of a problem as time goes on.

> supports Linux but actually doesn’t well enough

Getting better with containerization deployments like Flatpak.