I don't use Linux b/c it's the best desktop. I use it for two fundamental reasons:
1. With enough time and effort I can make it do whatever I want it to do (that can be done).
2. I'm a Python web developer and we deploy to Linux so it means I only really need to learn one OS (time to learn is in limited supply for me as man who cares about family life).
What this means practically for me is that 95% of what the OS provides works the way I want it to. I have a handful of things I customize and I've scripted those (Linux is great for scripting) so it's easy to apply when I refresh my OS every 1-2 years.
It also means I don't have to do things the Apple way, I can make it work the way I want it to work (within reason).
It also means I don't have an OS that will put advertisements in the start menu (that was the last straw for my family using Windows, everyone uses Linux now).
I realize if I was a lawyer and needed Microsoft Office or a designer and needed the Adobe Suite, then I couldn't take this approach or would need to run a different OS in a VM. I wish the Linux desktop would be an attractive target for all popular commercial apps to support it. But I'm not holding my breath, that's not why I use it.
> 1. With enough time and effort I can make it do whatever I want it to do (that can be done).
I did this when I was younger. Now I have more money than time, so I'm prepared to pay to spend less time making stuff do what I want it to do.
> It also means I don't have to do things the Apple way, I can make it work the way I want it to work (within reason).
I used to fine-tune my system with the weirdest shit, every corner of the screen did a different thing, all 3 buttons did different things to windows depending on where you clicked.
Now I just use macOS pretty much vanilla out of the box. If I use Linux, I just use the defaults.
Copying over settings to multiple computers is just way too much bike-shedding for me.
Regarding copying over settings between macOS and Linux, powerusers usually maintain their own dotfiles and it's not a problem to make it somewhat OS-agnostic, so you can set up a similar environment within minutes.
"Bikeshedding, also known as Parkinson's law of triviality, describes our tendency to devote a disproportionate amount of our time to menial and trivial matters while leaving important matters unattended."
ie. spending way too much time configuring your working environment vs actually working.
1. With enough time and effort I can make it do whatever I want it to do (that can be done).
2. I'm a Python web developer and we deploy to Linux so it means I only really need to learn one OS (time to learn is in limited supply for me as man who cares about family life).
What this means practically for me is that 95% of what the OS provides works the way I want it to. I have a handful of things I customize and I've scripted those (Linux is great for scripting) so it's easy to apply when I refresh my OS every 1-2 years.
It also means I don't have to do things the Apple way, I can make it work the way I want it to work (within reason).
It also means I don't have an OS that will put advertisements in the start menu (that was the last straw for my family using Windows, everyone uses Linux now).
I realize if I was a lawyer and needed Microsoft Office or a designer and needed the Adobe Suite, then I couldn't take this approach or would need to run a different OS in a VM. I wish the Linux desktop would be an attractive target for all popular commercial apps to support it. But I'm not holding my breath, that's not why I use it.