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For Windows, software compatibility is actually excellent: a lot of 32-bit Windows 95 software still runs perfectly on Windows 11 64 almost 30 years later. Nothing remotely close exists for Linux.

I would need to see the numbers on that. A lot of software written back then assumed full admin access at all points and I bet there is quite a lot that actually wont run on a modern system anymore.

What's worse is that software compiled for the current version of Linux X will not necessarily work for the current version of Linux Y. Linux distros insist that all the software must be compiled for their current releases or provided as source code.

This is no longer true with things like flatpak. The kernel itself has even more legendary backwards compatibility promises than even windows does. It is mostly the userspace in Linux that is a mess in that regard - but flatpak, and containers in general, fixes that.

However, savvy readers of this article will notice that Linux offers flatpaks, snaps, and AppImages. I'm not going to write an insightful treatise on their shortcomings, so I'll just say it bluntly: these are all lightweight virtual machines.

They are not virtual machines - they do what most Windows apps really do: ship with all the library code they need to run. There is no visualizing the kernel at all - that is closer to what Windows compatibility layer does (not quite, more emulation of kernel APIs like wine - but closer than what flatpak is doing).

It's crazy to think that they solve software incompatibility in Linux, they just work around it by making the user allocate and run gobs of binary code, unnecessarily taxing their storage, CPU and RAM. What's worse, you can just as easily run them under Windows' WSL. So what's the point of having Linux installed on your computer in the first place?

This coming from an OS that ships a whole another OS with its OS just to get a decent terminal?

Regressions are introduced all the time because Linux developers spend very little to no time checking that their code changes don't cause regressions or breakages outside of the problems they're trying to fix or features they're implementing.

Remember that time a windows application update crash half the world?

Linux hasn't seen any AAA titles for many years now,

Huh? Most Windows games run just about flawlessly on Linux now or with minor tweaks. The only real big problems here are ones with kernel level anticheat software. See the above comment about that kernel level access to arbitrary programs...

Countless software tiles in Linux have a huge number of bugs and missing features

... Really? It is software. It has bugs. All software does. Even that which runs under windows.

And once you start looking for people to answer your questions, you'll see the real face of the Linux community.

I have always found the Linux community to be far more welcoming than any Windows community I saw...

None of those arguments are good. Half apply to Windows just as much as Linux. And others are woefully outdated that I had to double check the article was not decades old.

Linux has been ready for the desktop for a long time now. Maybe not every system and every usecase but far more than not. Most users could switch over to it if they wanted to but they don't not because of a fault of Linux but because Windows is also good enough for their usecase and they have no reason to switch. And their system already came with windows and that is what they know.

Gaming has come a long way in the past few years to a point where quite a few gamers are starting to switch. And if you look at devices like the steam deck the default option that works well enough is what windows out - or else you would have seen most people installing windows on the decks. People do, but only a tiny fraction of them.

Far more I feel are actually migrating to Linux on their main systems instead. Largely in part because of what Windows are doing to their latest version - it is all give people a reason to move off the defaults as they are trashing them with the latest releases. Have a slightly old computer? Need to buy a new one or else you cannot upgrade. And if you do upgrade you get ads, recording of everything you do and so much more shit that people are actively getting fed up over.