On a serious note, having used Linux on and off since the 90s (aah, Slackware, how I miss installing you from floppies … not), Linux has, IMHO, actually been desktop ready for ages (though definitelly not in the days of Slackware when configuring X was seriously interesting for a geek and pretty much an impossible barrier for everybody else).
The problem have always been applications not having Linux builds, only Windows builds, not the actual desktop Linux distros being an inferior desktop experience than Windows (well, not once Gnome and KDE emerged and made things like configuring your machine possible via GUIs - the age of the RTFF and editing text files in the command line before that wasn’t exactly friendly for non-techies).
In other words, from maybe the late 00s onwards the problem were mainly the “networks effects” (in a business sense of "apps are made for Windows because that’s were users are, users go for Windows because that’s were the apps are) rather than the “desktop” experience.
The almost unassailable advantage of Windows thanks to pretty much just network effects, was something most of us Linux fans were aware since way back.
What happened in the meanwhile to make Linux more appealing “in the Desktop” was mainly on the app availabilty side - OpenOffice (later LibreOffice and derivatives) providing an Office-style suit in Linux, the movement from locally hosted apps to web-hosted apps meaning that a lot of PC usage was really just browser usage, Wine improving by leaps and bounds and making more and more Windows applications run in Linux (most notably and also thanks to DXVK, Games) and so on.
Personally I think Linux has been a superior experience on the server side since the late 90s and, aside for the lack of Linux versions of most commonly used non-OS applications, a superior experience in the desktop since the 00s.
To make a long post short, windows is shitty but its setup bullshit is very straight forward and clear to deal with, linux is great when it works but its setup bullshit is byzantine as all hell. I got Linux working with only light bullshit on a laptop but just gave up entierly after 3 days of trying to get different distros at different advice working on my desktop.
I suspect Mint would work fine on that same desktop at this point, since it was just very new at the time and support take a bit to come in, but now its all set up how I want. Perhaps when windows next shits itself and I need to re-format anyway.
“No, you don’t understand, Linux is not desktop ready, I know that because I installed Fedora back in 2008 and it was kinda wonky.”
On a serious note, having used Linux on and off since the 90s (aah, Slackware, how I miss installing you from floppies … not), Linux has, IMHO, actually been desktop ready for ages (though definitelly not in the days of Slackware when configuring X was seriously interesting for a geek and pretty much an impossible barrier for everybody else).
The problem have always been applications not having Linux builds, only Windows builds, not the actual desktop Linux distros being an inferior desktop experience than Windows (well, not once Gnome and KDE emerged and made things like configuring your machine possible via GUIs - the age of the RTFF and editing text files in the command line before that wasn’t exactly friendly for non-techies).
In other words, from maybe the late 00s onwards the problem were mainly the “networks effects” (in a business sense of "apps are made for Windows because that’s were users are, users go for Windows because that’s were the apps are) rather than the “desktop” experience.
The almost unassailable advantage of Windows thanks to pretty much just network effects, was something most of us Linux fans were aware since way back.
What happened in the meanwhile to make Linux more appealing “in the Desktop” was mainly on the app availabilty side - OpenOffice (later LibreOffice and derivatives) providing an Office-style suit in Linux, the movement from locally hosted apps to web-hosted apps meaning that a lot of PC usage was really just browser usage, Wine improving by leaps and bounds and making more and more Windows applications run in Linux (most notably and also thanks to DXVK, Games) and so on.
Personally I think Linux has been a superior experience on the server side since the late 90s and, aside for the lack of Linux versions of most commonly used non-OS applications, a superior experience in the desktop since the 00s.
To make a long post short, windows is shitty but its setup bullshit is very straight forward and clear to deal with, linux is great when it works but its setup bullshit is byzantine as all hell. I got Linux working with only light bullshit on a laptop but just gave up entierly after 3 days of trying to get different distros at different advice working on my desktop.
True. Linux supports a lot of hardware. However some distros support some better than others.
Basically before you buy hardware you need to check if it works on Linux. Usually it does, but better check throughly
I suspect Mint would work fine on that same desktop at this point, since it was just very new at the time and support take a bit to come in, but now its all set up how I want. Perhaps when windows next shits itself and I need to re-format anyway.
Ironically, for me, Arch has been the “Just Works” Distro lol.