Comment by 0xbadcafebee

Linux can't be a good desktop, almost by definition.

1. Look at commercial desktop OSes (Windows, MacOS). They spend hundreds of millions to develop and maintain the OS, do updates, quality assurance testing, working with hundreds of thousands of hardware vendors and enterprises, etc, just to try to not break things constantly. This is with "an ecosystem" that is one stack developed by one company. And even they can't get it right. Several Linux-Desktop companies have tried to mimic the commercial companies by not only custom-tailoring their own stack and doing QA, but sometimes even partnering on certified hardware. They're spending serious cash to try to do it right. But still there's plenty of bugs (go look at their issue trackers, community forums, package updates, etc) and no significant benefit over the competition.

2. There is no incentive for Linux to have consistency, quality, or a good UX. The incentive is to create free software that a developer wants. The entire ethos of the OSS community is, and has always been, I want the software, I make the software, you're welcome to use it too. And that's fine, for developers! But that's not how you make something regular people can use reliably and enjoyably. It's a hodge-podge of different solutions glued together. Which works up to a point, but then...

3. Eventually Linux desktop reaches a point where it doesn't work. The new mouse you bought's extra buttons don't work. Or the expensive webcam you bought can't be controlled because it requires a custom app only shipped on Windows/Mac. Or your graphics card's vendor uses proprietary firmware blobs causing bugs on only Linux for unknown reasons. Or your speakers sound like crap because they need a custom firmware blob loaded by the commercial OSes. Or your touchscreen can't be enabled/disabled because Wayland doesn't support the X extensions that used to allow that to work with xrandr. Or your need to look up obscure bootloader flags, edit the bootloader, and restart, to enable/disable some obscure fix for your hardware (lcd low power settings, acpi, disk controller, or any of a thousand other issues). Or, quite simply, the software you try to install just doesn't work; random errors are popping up, things are not working, and you don't know why. In any of these cases, your only hope is... to go on Reddit and ask for help from strangers. There's no customer support line. Your ISP ain't gonna help you. The Geek Squad just shrugs. You are on your own.

And this is the most frustrating part... the extremely nerdy core fan-group, like those on HN or Reddit, who are lucky enough not to be experiencing the problems unique to Linux, gaslight you and tell you all your problems are imagined or your fault.