gorio

I don't think that is the general problem. More so inconstancy. It's almost harder to quit vi then to delete your boot record. I am not sure many tools are even that powerful. Which often means you have to use many different ones, making it even more confusing. Linux lacks abstraction and makes you do things manually as root, it isn't very robust.

I don't find that annoyance particularly grave or different from other annoyances. I just updated and rebooted my Windows machine I haven't used for a month, took maybe 5 seconds longer than usual. Regardless if that happens every day that isn't something I am going to base my choice of operating system on. This is one of the problems with desktop Linux, caring about some detail (even though it might affect some a lot) rather than the big picture which affects everyone.

I think you are being unfairly downvoted. On of the major downsides to Linux is that while you can, and often have to, tinker to make it work you can break it on many levels. Sometimes it's even hard to know if it is working properly, until you realize it doesn't. Many developers uses virtualization just for those reasons alone. It might even be a major upside to using WSL, if they do it well.

Few of those fields have professional software available for Linux i.e. what is actually used in the industry. It's the students, engineers and artists that are invested enough to switch platforms. Most people are just going to use the FOSS software on Windows instead.

> That doesn't necessarily mean Windows offers a significant value proposition over Linux either.

But as far as I know that is this case. That Microsoft's offering is much stronger when it comes to large scale corporate deployments. Unless you want to make the claim that e.g. RedHat's offering is on par or better, which isn't something I have heard in the wild.

I don't see how that is a specific problem. All operating systems have annoyances. But if you are for example an engineer you won't find a competitive range of software on Linux. For someone in need of doing software engineering a similar situation have been developing on Windows. WSL changes that.

I don't see how inertia would be the reason if you also believe that it has been good enough for 15 years. I would say desktop Linux simply doesn't offer enough unique value for the effort involved in large scale deployments, unless you are someone like Google. Most things that have improved for users in recent years, like web application, actually favours Windows. Because the primary use case for desktop operating systems are becoming what is beyond that of web or smart phone applications. Leaving desktop Linux with the lowest common denominator.

I think it is more if they will encourage any use outside of the control of Google. Or if they, like with Android where they illegally obstructed companies from doing so, will even discourage it.

Then we disagree. Linux works until is doesn't, which is the problem. It isn't a handful of programs so much as a wide range of capabilities. We can all speculate the taste of the average user, but do you think companies wouldn't love running desktop Linux instead of paying millions to Microsoft? That is what everyone did when Linux actually became good enough as a server OS.

Why? As far as I am concerned these are all legacy problems. Drivers mostly work, people are aware of Linux and it can be e.g. run off an external drive. The problem is desktop Linux just isn't good enough. From a macro perspective it takes significant effort to manage, significant effort to develop for and provides significantly less value to users, developers and organizations alike. And exceptions doesn't make that less true. There is no conspiracy against Linux, or at least not an effective one. If there is anything hurting Linux it is its mainstream proponents like Google, who like to take but not give back agency. If desktop Linux was good enough, or more precisely great at what people need, they would be using it.

So your opinion is that it's ready?

Despite the wording I don't think that is the original definition? The idea is to make Linux viable as a desktop operating system, and whatever comes with that. Not running Linux as an application on another desktop. Which is almost the opposite as in leveraging capabilities outside of Linux.

Maybe more importantly redefining the goal isn't helping Linux much. I remember everyone raving about Android, but now look at the lack of vanilla graphics drivers for embedded platforms.

That said, I have nothing against WSL.

I don't see it making much of a difference for developer OS experience though? Unless you are specifically developing for example a Linux distribution.