Given a few bumps and dings, I am now fully transitioned to Linux, and it gets better literally daily. So that’s my mental calculation of cost/benefit.
For the typical user, the operating system is fairly inconsequential, so there is no compelling reason for most people not to use Linux distributions. But there is a learning curve especially for substitute programs for video and photo editing programs that don’t have the same level of support and documentation as their Windows counterparts. Also there are many features we end up taking for granted.
Last night I fired up one of my old computers that has a very expensive sound card for a home recording studio. It dual boots into Windows XP or Windows 98. Believe it or not I still have a backup tape drive that I made during Windows 3.11 days. I actually have some old files backed up on tape that I keep meaning to archive. The latest drivers for that tape drive are for Windows 98. The latest drivers for the expensive sound recording card are for Windows XP. It is possible that both of those pieces of hardware may have some support in Linux that is not available in later versions of Windows.
I got a little sidetracked... when I was using Windows XP last night, I noticed that there are features in Windows 7 that I take for granted that found again that Windows XP does not have.
[[But there is a learning curve especially for substitute programs for video and photo editing programs that don’t have the same level of support and documentation as their Windows counterparts.]]
No learning curve needed- dual boot- I run both windows 10 and windows 7 in a triple boot scenario- both my windows are very very rarely allowed access to internet- and are mostly just for running windows only programs or games- I get all my internet stuff done on linux- then at end of evening i reboot into windows, do my photoshop work (I do photography and psot process them) and then right before bed reboot back into linux and suspend for evening-
For the windows programs i want to use without the minor hassel of rebootign to windows, I run them in virtual machines running windows- (I even have phtooshop in a VM just so i don’t have to keep rebooting whenever I mgiht want to do photoshop work quickly)
My computer works far less hard when running linux- the fans very seldom ramp up and sound like they are abotu to explode- but when i boot to windows 7- oh my word- the machine just sounds like it wants to explode- windows 10 is better- but still works the computer a lot harder than the linux system does for some reason-
Anyway- I tried gimp in linux- nope- not for me- photoshop is still king- so i had to find solution- triple boot was the answer- as was virtualbox for quick photoshop work-