I've been using Linux on the desktop off-and-on for 20 years. I used OSX for awhile 2008-2015 when they clearly had the best hardware, and the OS was pretty nice. I've been using KDE since then, and I recently installed Bazzite (Fedora+KDE-based) on my sans-windows gaming PC. I also started a new job this year, where I have to use the company-provided MBP for compliance reasons, after having not used MacOS since 2015. So all this is pretty fresh in my mind, and I'll say that 2025+ KDE is by far the best out-of-box experience for power users. It mostly just works, and anything you want to tweak is easy to find in the settings. Setting up modern MacOS with things like more keyboard shortcuts for window management, focus-follows-mouse or even remembering where windows where after waking up from sleep requires you to buy an app or pay a subscription.
Linux may break more often, but you can almost always fix it with a quick google search. If it doesn't do what you want, there's certainly a setting or config or free app you can install that does.
MacOS may break less often, but when it does you're mostly out of luck. It may do what you want more often, but if it doesn't you have to buy an app, if its even possible at all.
> Linux may break more often, but you can almost always fix it with a quick google search.
And that’s where the problem is: a quick google search. Laughably trivial for technical users. Non-trivial for the majority of the population.
I love Linux and it is completely viable as a desktop operating system, but it’s far from ready for mainstream without better support.
For a rough analogy, I’d compare it to an old car before electronics. An old car is easy to work on and reliable if you do the maintenance. But an old car wouldn’t be reliable for somebody who doesn’t do any work on a car and outsources the maintenance.
Linux excels when things go right. The failure modes are substantially worse and far more likely to occur. It doesn’t matter if they’re rare. They’re not rare enough. And there isn’t support when things go wrong.
For example: It’s difficult to make the macOS UI fail to start through configuration. You never need to directly touch configuration. (And you can’t modify or delete macOS system files.)
With Linux, some normal problems just have to be solved in the terminal. This allows you to put the system into a configuration where the GUI does not start.
Have also been using Bazzite since march on my home desktop and you are spot on. I think the main reason for average person linux being difficult these days are laptops with weird hardware configurations.
I use MacOS at work and although it is miles better than windows, if I had a choice, I would also use Linux for work.