Pop is growing in popularity for all the right reasons! I hope it works out great for you! A few tips I would give is to make sure to do backups and look into things like Timeshift to make unexplainable errors and potentially wonky package installs easier to undo!

I’ve been in your shoes many many times. My needs and expectations change every few years. I recently bought a Steam Deck and have been using an OCI image called Bazzite based on Fedora Silverblue the past few weeks and it’s been great exploring Linux and feeling the real ownership of the things I run and host.

I’m a tinkerer at heart, have two Raspberry Pis, one running as a router and the other running as a general server paired with my Synology DS720+ as a self hosted everything else, email, online docs, cloud server, Jellyfin, etc.

If you want it to be easy look at some distros like Bazzite which has a good gaming focus. Or Linux mint which is great as well.

Look at alternative software for what you’re using, music software has Ardour for a DAW or Audacity/Tenacity for general audio editing. Kdenlive works great too or davinci resolve if you really need more oomph.

AMD hardware always works better with Linux so if you have or can upgrade to AMD stuff make that a bigger priority especially since they focus more on FOSS software and release a lot of things as such.

You don’t have to feel guilty about not cutting off some programs and web apps. As a photographer I’ll probably never be able to leave Adobe sadly but I’ll just accept that.

Don’t be afraid to try things and experiment, it’s the fun of it. Looking and trying new things. It’ll be a great way to get back into it!

Man that truly has been my experience as well with getting to know Linux from my late childhood/early teens to now. Free was fun, tinkering became more fun and then Microsoft doing the worst company decisions for what I need made me feel disgust about it.

It feels more like you’re working with the community instead of working against Microsoft.

Getting my education in Microsoft IT Environments and this is spot on. I’ve been using Linux on and off for about 10 or so years and now and getting around to learn Microsoft Server, Azure, Powershell and other Microsoft products.

It all feels like a constant pain of trying to read jumpy and unclear documentation, getting through obscure hoops, not finding anything when searching for errors. It’s like I have to either be hand-held by Microsoft against my will or contacting a senior sysadmin who’ve stumbled across it from his senior or messed about for long enough to get a solution going.

There’s always speedbumps no matter how easy you’re trying to make it. Instead of universal solutions it’s so targeted you have to save your own. In the end you have a cluttered library of obscure powershell scripts that configures the most weird things that are either very poorly documented or only referenced once somewhere else or not at all. In the end, it never feels like you have control of the system. The only thing that makes things secure are hopes and prayers and that one setting doesn’t affect the other because you’ll never know.

For me, like you said in your post, I’m a tinkerer, I love configuring, making things do things the way I want it and generally trying out new things.

But most of your points I feel stand true, for the absolute average user not giving a care, having the warranty and more technical support available from their laptop/computer manufacturer is probably the way to go. Unless they want to try something different for the hell of it. I find installing and using Linux in its most basic form today is nothing hard with the right distro, and finding a distro to get started with that is stable and easy isn’t a difficult task either. Freezes, strange hiccups and weird hardware errors is what made me switch recently, I’ve been using Linux on and off for years depending on what my use-case is around the time. Getting a free speed boost, having a faster computer, getting loaded in quicker and just in general getting a different feel for how you use your computer could be a nice plus for some. Like people liking OSX because it feels different or vice versa. It’s an available alternative.

My arguments could still be considered edge-cases, I don’t really disagree with that but it’s still something. Like Valve choosing Linux and pushing Proton development because it works for them and they can make it work for their end-users rather than having to jump hoops with Microsoft, forcing Microsoft accounts and a heavier OS. Their reasoning can be put into the average end users as well I would feel like.

But in the end, the average user browses the web, watch online content, stares at Facebook and maybe plays The Sims 4 on low settings or something. They have no real reason to switch because what they use works for them so why would they bother? If they like things the same, they’ll stick to the same. If they want to try something different, at least there’s alternatives.

I tried Solus OS when it first arrived and it was in its first releases and I absolutely loved it. It felt very stable and well made. How do you feel it handles Qt and GTK apps?

Currently I’ve gone back to Linux after having some issues with Windows that I can’t get past so I’ve tried KDE at first because Plasma was cool back in the day. But it felt too buggy, lack of getting things feeling “dynamic” and animated as I like it.

So I moved over to Gnome and have been loving it. Since I’m also on a laptop it’s been working even better. There’s a few things I dislike in terms of how things work. Sometimes Gnome feels forced, like you have to make things work the way Gnome intended. Notifications are always an annoyance too and how they work.

I try to make things the way I want with extensions however, Dash to Panel, ArcMenu and a few others.

Even with its shortcommings it does feel like a more dynamic and animated experience that I like, I do enjoy rounded corners and such too so it feels nice. The development is active and open so hopefully it becomes better. Feels a lot more stable than KDE too which is a cherry on-top!