There’s a certain value gained from those. Contacts/apps/photos sync and backup. And atleast on Android, you can skip it and use regardless.

This is about MS making the UX worse without any user benefits.

Not enough profit for the shareholders if the school is free. Also, how can they pay for the biggest military in the wolrd if they keep funding needless items like school lunches and resources.

The average user doesn’t install windows though. They buy the pc/laptop with Windows on it already, and use it till it’s in the ground.

And I cannot just install ubuntu/mint on a laptop for someone and walk away either, cause if/when anything breaks, the fix isn’t approachable. And trying to tell someone to use the CLI when they’re not tech savvy is not user friendly.

I’ve been running debian as my main and my home-server OS for a couple years now. And I’m really happy for it.

But it hasn’t been smooth sailing. I’m even on fully AMD systems. There’s a bunch of stuff, biometrics and otherwise, that just doesn’t work without random workarounds or even not at all.

And this elitist approach and tone is what turns a lot of folks away from even trying linux. Also, sure CLI might be great for a lot of devs, but regular users do need a GUI. And that is not fully there yet.

I totally see your point and I tried GNOME first to have a uniquely Linux experience. I do agree with you. But the inflexibility of GNOME by default made it a much harder flip. I tried it with PopOS too, after using Debian for a while.

Plus tbh, I don’t think with still how much you need to use the terminal for linux, anyone would be mistaken in the transition. Windows has kludge from the 90s for their settings and linux still needs terminal.

I tried PopOS and the pop store is not the best, and gnome is too foreign for someone coming from windows.

And also, too fiddly to make it work with a number of third party extensions vs the customization being built in.

KDE is heavier but also seems more streamlined and Cinnamon is fairly decent too.