I got tired of everything taking so much effort. I was almost always able to eventually wrangle what I wanted out of the OS, but every change I wanted to make and thing I wanted to try needed so much searching and learning. I wanted stuff that just worked, even if it was "dumber."

That, and some parts of the community I ran into were really prickly. One that was especially memorable: I was asking for help on a big-ish project with a lot of followers and helpers and didn't expect the lead dev to answer my question, but when he did, he felt the need to make a snide as hell comment about how I have no business being there if I'm going to forget to start a service. On top of the exhaustion I was already feeling, I had a massive moment of "okay my guy, I guess I'll just fucking leave then."

Anyway, it just feels better being a poweruser on windows. I know enough to keep it clean, safe, and slim (like using powershell to disable the bits they don't expose to a settings UI, for example) – to truly admin my machine – without having to work so hard for it day in and day out.

Broken bootloader.

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It just doesn’t work. It’s a simple as that. Things are constantly breaking. When they do I look up support articles that are written in fucking Klingon and sent to the terminal to type in commands that always return some sort of generic error “command not found” or some shit because the solution is written for a different one of the 862700422 available distros.

I have no idea how to install all the different program types (flathub, db, appimage, etc.). Windows has exe. I click “install” and boom, it’s done.

Sometimes I try to remove software in the package manager and it acts like it is uninstalled but it’s still fucking there.

I can’t even select a file because there are no previews. Just a gazillion blue squares with names like “dlcosn_3947912947”.

And other reasons, but I digress. I don’t have time to learn a new career, I just want a computer that works.

I really, really want to love Linux.

Mate introduced me to Red Hat in the very late 90s and I keep trying various distros every year or two - last time was about 2020 so my views here might be a bit out of date now…

When Ubuntu launched I truely believed this would be the start of genuine transformation. While I do see the overall progression in modern distros - installing them is easier than ever - but at its core, it just doesn't seem to truely improve when it comes to usability and user friendliness. As others have said, small changes or issues might require hours of research or a game of copy/paste/pray with commands found on a long lost forum page.

MS make plenty of mistakes and dumb changes but windows has had significant improvements over the years both to the interface but also functions:

W2k/XP dragged us kicking and screaming out of DOS and into the modern era.

Vista made much needed changes to security/driver issues - but it was still a slow pig - particularly updating.

Win7 fixed what Vista should have been - faster, cleaner and simpler, BSoD mostly a thing of the past now driver manufacturers have caught up from Vista fixed updates a bit.

Win8.1 improved boot speeds, had a lot of good under the hood changes that improved deployment and self-repair, good tools for power users (we just don't talk about that start menu)

Win10/11 greatly improved the updating process - still far from perfect but significantly faster and more reliable. No longer the upgrade lottery it was in XP - 7 era.

Not wanting to start a fight here, just my perspective - unfortunately, every time I install Linux, the visuals look good but it always feels like a fancy modern skin over top of something akin to Win98. Sure, it's fast, secure as a MF and not riddled with modern bloat but genuine advancement of the platform feels absent.

Maybe it's because I don't live elbow deep in Linux like I have in windows desktop for the past 20+ years. I do know that it's versatility and power is incredible - from phones and Pi's to world class infrastructure, so maybe that's it. It's designed for maximum power and flexibility that it's not really suited as a general purpose desktop for the masses like windows. It might always remain as a oddity at the desktop level, insanely powerful in the right hands and just a little too complex and less refined to appeal to those not willing to go deep into really learning it.

Couldn’t have dual monitors due to Nvidia drivers not working correctly. Couldn’t play Overwatch. Deep Rock Galactic ran very badly and slowly. I’ve used Linux in the past for years but it’s just not good on a gaming laptop.

Lobotomy is the correct answer.