Finally, unlike Microsoft and Apple, Linux distributors are not looking over my shoulder.

This may be the single most important argument for using a good Linux distribution. (I'm not talking about android or chrome, which are google's spyware built on top of Linux.)

But, like security, privacy is a process. You have to live it and be consistent to keep your privacy. Using a good OS is just the beginning of that process.

I run Mint myself, I have for about a decade. I also run Windows 10 and 11.

My wife refuses to use a Linux desktop (but will use her Chrome tablet). It's about branding and convenience. I know I like a Debian derived release for at home (I've run rpm derived ones for work too) and I know I like the Cinnamon desktop or XFCE and I'm not crazy about Gnome 3 and don't like KDE and I'll live with Fluxbox on old machines etc. That's the kind of requirements setting that's second nature to a techie but too confusing for non techies.

If I recommend a Linux, the moment I need to change or configure it for my wife to run a programme, she'll say she wants Windows. There Microsoft makes all the decisions (or Apple, as I think there are still people running Macs somewhere) and a programme either runs or doesn't, there's no "if we change this and configure this and put this element there, we can run this other versions". It's simple.

Anyway, I like Linux, I use Linux but we can't pretend there's a single Linux Desktop to compete with MS.Apple.

Furthermore, we can't deny there are whole ecosystems of both hardware and software that simply MUST use Windows, full stop. Something that requires Windows to run becomes a deal-breaker for many, and no, there usually aren't viable substitutes for many of them, especially if they're custom jobs.

I put it this way. Something must be compelling for so many businesses to use Microsoft Windows (to the point I see "Activate Windows" watermarks almost everywhere that they're willing to put up with its headaches over whatever headaches Linux may produce.

Two main reasons for Windows insistence

Reason 1 MS Orifice

Lots of companies use it and insist on it.

Reason 2a 2b WIN32/WIN64

So much software uses this API

I actually dislike MS Office, it is a very weird UI

"Something must be compelling for so many businesses to use Microsoft Windows"

Inertia, mostly. If a company has used Windows for 20+ years, they need a very good reason to change, since change costs. So it is not so much a compelling reason to use Windows, it is lack of a compelling reason to use Linux.

Also, many companies use other Microsoft software than just Office and Outlook. For example, Sharepoint and Microsoft Dynamics. Or they may use legacy systems that only run on Windows servers.

But, yes, for the average office worker, Linux is fine. But the server software is harder to migrate.

Said by someone who is a daily Linux user and hasn't used Windows for years (except when trying to help other people who have problems with their Windows machines).

Inertia can shift. Lotus 1-2-3 was something of a standard for a very, very long time until the rise of the 3.1/Orifice combo.

Active directory, Sharepoint and credential management are in many ways now the golden handcuffs for persistence of MS in the enterprise. Can linux do that kind of centralised user and permissions control over a domain? Yes. Can it do it in a unified UI with assurances that all the bits work, and have technical support? Certain large linux distros can; but it comes at a cost.

For home use I am completely sold and swapped to linux full-time best part of a decade ago. I fear the fragmentation and choice that is a major selling point for home use; are also the blocker for enterprise uptake on the desktop.

"except when trying to help other people who have problems with their Windows machines".

Likewise. I just carry a bootable USB with a Mint ISO on it. It can take as much as 20 or 30 minutes - exploring the new OS - to "fix" any WIN problem I have come across..... Including the install.....

I will offer dual boot, but "that's much too complicated" - "I really want something (usually it is Libre Office) that JUST WORKS when I want it". Everything else is a bonus.

You are me and I claim my five pounds (which I shall forward to Mint or Mozilla or others; without donations they will die).

Coincidentally, I updated to Mint 20.3 not half an hour ago. To do that I had to click - I think - three buttons, and didn't even have to stop what I was doing until the obligatory reboot. Apparently, Linux is too hard for those used to Windows.

I'll bite: Linux is hard to use, given that out of our 2 large screens + one telly, the pi (bought for curiosity, really), only picks up up correct resolution on 1 out of 2. On the other screen resolution defaults to such that makes your eyes water after a minute or two. On telly - nothing at all. This makes kinda hard to use linux on, eh? All those screens are 2 - 5 years old. Ah, and I tried pretty much everything. And I mean, I tried the bleeding obvious, on the power front, cable front, ports, on modifying every f... potential boot line (btw, pi4), not all in one go, nosir. And more than just one linux distro. And more than one probing in the forums (which got me more of the same solutions that I had seen and tested before and that didn't work).

And then, this: I plug any of my old (10 - 15 yr old) lenovo laptops that run, hell, I'll say it, run WINDOWS (7 and 10) - and the screens _just work_. In fact, I'm working off another, approx. 10 yr old 24'' screen now, at my relatives' place, via one one of those absurd mini-dp / hdmi / dvi dongle-cable combinations - it _just works_. Do I want to plug the pi into this one, and f... about with cables and settings just to see something, MAYBE? No, not really. Well, I probably wasn't paying enough attention.

p.s. 'other than that', no issues.

That sound more like you might have a hardware issue rather than anything software related. I would try a decent quality HDMI cable. As while there are no need to spend a fortune on HDMI cables, from experience i have found that cheap ones from ebay or Poundland are more susceptible to issues that slightly more expensive ones. Even if they appear to work fine for some devices they can cause issues with others.

If you read, he already said he tried switching out cables, devices, etc. without success, yet if he uses the same cables with a much-older Windows-based laptop, it becomes literally plug-and-play. That sounds to me more like a lack of support.

Hmm... Ok I'll bite too:

Apples to Oranges! It is a bit disingenious to compare a raspberry pi to a windows laptop and here is why:

The pi is a special case where you have specialized hardware running a specialized distro and this is a very pi specific and well known problem. There are literally millions of pages on the Internet addressing pi display problems on TV devices via HDMI and picking the correct overscan settings.

Any standard laptop / desktop pc running Linux with a regular HDMI port will work with any standard tv that has an HDMI input. At least, that has been my (admittedly non-representative) personal experience with using various Linux Laptops to watch media on my larger TV screen(s, I have changed TVs multiple times) over the past 15 years.

You have taken a known problem specific to the Raspberry Pi and the Raspbian platform and made a generalization which is not in any way applicable or relevant to any other Linuxes / devices. If you really want to make a valid comparison, I suggest you make a startup linux mint usb stick, stick it into one of those windows laptops and see if you can get a picture on your TV and if you don't, then feel free come back and tell us all about it, because THAT would be a more valid argument to back up your statements.

Our TV is occasionally used for live broadcasts but mostly as display for MythTV (mini-ITX, venerable Ubuntu release) or Kodi (Pi). I did have a lot of grief with resolution using our old TV, eventually traced to it reporting back its resolution as being that of a PDA! (StackOverflow strikes again?) That was cured by snipping the appropriate pin of the VGA connector.

Next question - which one? there are multiple distributions and multiple choices of UI. I don't see that as a good thing, it's just confusing for new users.

I've used Mint for around ten years. No fuss, no hassle, simple UI, no clutter no bloat, it just does what I want and doesn't get in the way. On the rare occasions I have to use a Windows PC I'm struck by what a bloated mess Windows has become.

I keep my laptop dual-boot (Ubuntu rather than Mint these days) and when I was running Mint as my main desktop OS it worked fine when it worked but trying to get anything new working on it was always a matter of days tracking through every forum and linux related stack exchange site trying to figure out which information was still relevant. It felt like walking on the ice of a deep lake- smooth and easy, but if you fell through a hole of wanting to get your video card working (maybe it's better now but when I was using it routinely the drivers for laptop 3D accelerators were really hard to configure) or wanting to use an ASIO soundcard you ended up in deep water very quickly. After a routine grub update somehow overwrote my boot sector and made it impossible to do my job for a couple of days I realised that the benefits of feeling vaguely morally superior as a Linux user weren't worth it compared to the sheer amount of time it took to configure things that work automatically on Windows.

Now Windows is my main OS again, although the operating system is nowhere near as good, the sheer amount of tools I can run on it more than compensates. I can run games without having to spend hours figuring out how to get the OpenGL driver to work and having weird random crashes! I can write music and use the many thousands of VST synths available! VSTs sometimes work on WINE but with the complexities of Linux audio you can spend a lot of time not even knowing whether they're working or not and good music tools are expensive - I can't afford to invest in something I can't use. I like Linux and I would love for it to be a practical day-to-day OS but I simply cannot do the same things with it that I can on Windows and for me having a computer is about the things I can do with it.

-> I mean Windows has its own day of the month – Patch Tuesday – just for fixes

And Linux has so many patches that practically every day is patch day. And don't deny it.

-> My Linux servers on the net are attacked dozens of times a day and to date, the score is Steven 100 - Hackers nil.

And here is the dangerous myth that is yet again being spread. If you know what you are doing you can run a Linux machine on the internet securely. But if you don't know, and new to mid Linux users do not know, you will have an insecure machine on the internet. I see attempts every day from Linux machines which have been compromised.

-> security is a process, not a product

Correct! And to know that process you have to know what you are doing. New Linux users will not know.

-> Finally, unlike Microsoft and Apple, Linux distributors are not looking over my shoulder

That point I will not argue with.

New win devices come with rafts of dubious bloatware and practically uninstallable anti-virus. Most people don't seem to notice, then get scared when you say "let's remove this and this and this. To see if that makes it faster." Linux is much more start with a bare shell and add the bits you want. Also there's no pressure to register/activate/give an email address, or worse some id to 'improve' the experience.

I have tried Linux. I can get most things to work, but have yet to find a client email package that fully supports Office 365. I'd be interested to know if anyone has found one - I currently have 6 different O365 accounts and 4 others which I can display within my Outlook (Office 2019 on Windows 10) client.

Then, there's WhatsApp - I don't like it, but I do need it. And it runs nicely on Windows 10.

Then, my web builder s/w is Windows based. And so it goes on. My working profile is predicated on a Windows lifestyle, so I am stuck with it. But I am not unhappy.

PS - I am also at the stage of Alan 100 - virus's 0. [So far!]

Alan

I'm at the very start of my non-Windows adventure having installed Mint dual-boot on my laptop and managed to get maybe 10 hours of "flight time" with it. Install generally went okay but there's definitely some oddities that have crept in, e.g. the function key behaviour has inverted so now I need to hold down the Fn button to get the basic F1, F2 etc commands rather than the audio playback tools.

I found some unexpected behaviour trying to get programs running through Wine (as there are no Linux alternatives) and I'm still not used to files and folders being jumbled up in the File Explorer rather than having folders all at the top of the list (presumably there's a setting somewhere?).

All in all, it's working (generally), but it's different, and it will take some getting used to. I also find some of the documentation a bit lacking / presumptuous at times for an *absolute* newbie,