The problem is that I can't still buy a laptop at Media Markt, or similar consumer store, with a Linux distro pre-installed, and if I could, it would be OEM Linux, just like they do with Android, WebOS, Netbooks, whatever.
Outside Internet places like HN, most consumers aren't going to Tuxedo, System 76, or building their own Linux PC.
Thus commercial OS platforms keep winning, and the owners are anyway the ones that sponsor most FOSS projects.
Miss Windows 7 by the way, it was when I gave up on The Linux Desktop.
Windows 8.1 was pretty solid, if short lived. New task manager, overhauled file copy, better SSD support & HiDPI scaling/multi-monitor support was hugely improved over 7, 8.1 also improved the window snapping and fixed the horrible table UI for it from 8.0
8.1 also ran faster than 7 on a lot of machines, they did a lot of work to optimize it for the crappy tablets which translated well to desktop.
Also the last version of Windows that you could opt-out of telemetry with (until Microsoft backported 10's telemetry engine to 7 and 8.1 via optional update)
Simple. Legally mandate 'empty' devices at time of sale. With fully open specs, so whomever actually wants to, 'can' support that crap. OFC the same for file-formats and general interoperability (of services).
Outside Internet places like HN, most consumers aren't going to Tuxedo, System 76, or building their own Linux PC.
Thus commercial OS platforms keep winning, and the owners are anyway the ones that sponsor most FOSS projects.
Miss Windows 7 by the way, it was when I gave up on The Linux Desktop.