I used Linux on the desktop for 11 years from 2002 to 2013 or so, mostly on Gentoo or Arch with KDE, but I tried other distros (Ubuntu, Fedora) and DEs (xfce, gnome) throughout that time. I always dual-booted Windows for gaming.

I still run Arch on my home server and we use RHEL on our servers at work. I use Windows w/ an X server to run konsole and other apps remotely at work.

Point is, I'm not an amateur. I use Linux daily, just not on the desktop. I gave up on the desktop years ago because Windows was good enough and was more stable and reliable. Simpler, even.

Since a lot of time has passed, I was wondering if things have fundamentally improved. From what I read, it seems like it hasn't, but I thought maybe I was just getting biased information.

I got a new laptop without a discrete GPU, so there's no reason I couldn't run Linux on it for everything. It's got a second M.2 slot, so I could buy one and try a Linux desktop again without much trouble. I just don't want to waste my time if the situation is still as it was in 2013: "usable but buggy and inconsistent with no real advantage over Windows."

edit: VirtualBox didn't work as well as I'd hoped so I installed Arch after shrinking my Windows partition by 64GB. It's fine so far. I tried KDE w/Wayland and that was a mistake and waste of an hour. I've got things set up enough to not be frustrated and am typing this from Firefox in Plasma. I'll update in a week or two.