Linux is in a terrible position right now, I think right now might be the worst time to use Linux in a while, especially with being somewhere around halfway between the long, long Xorg/Wayland transition. People are right to be skeptical of whether it's worth the effort, but I am excited to see some problems being tackled that never really had great solutions in the past. (Examples: Mixed fractional DPI, proper and fully baked HDR and color profiles, high and variable mixed refresh rate, standard IME protocols, a good modern accessibility protocol in planning, possibly quite good open source NVIDIA RTX 20xx+ drivers soon?!)
I'm not sure if Linux will ever be pressure to MS for desktop Windows, though. Valve seems to be the most likely party to make it happen, but much like previous cases they're really carving out a new space for Linux to potentially hold a strong position in, not really competing on MS's home turf of desktop and laptop computers. Though, it is promising that Valve has built their commercial products on a fairly standard desktop stack, as it does seem to be leading to ecosystem-wide improvements that will still improve the situation for people who are willing to make concessions to use alternative operating systems.
I'm not sure if Linux will ever be pressure to MS for desktop Windows, though. Valve seems to be the most likely party to make it happen, but much like previous cases they're really carving out a new space for Linux to potentially hold a strong position in, not really competing on MS's home turf of desktop and laptop computers. Though, it is promising that Valve has built their commercial products on a fairly standard desktop stack, as it does seem to be leading to ecosystem-wide improvements that will still improve the situation for people who are willing to make concessions to use alternative operating systems.