In 1984 I bought my first computer. I was torn between buying a Commodore 64 or the new Atari 1200xl. I bought the Atari because it had the superior hardware. Unfortunately everyone I knew had the Commodore and most of the available software was for the Commodore. My hard lesson was for any computing platform software availability is an essential consideration.
For this reason alone Linux has been, remains, and may always be a tiny niche platform...
As far as I know.. the Commodor64 is still great for hacking (with raw data).