The fact that you have to ask is a major point against the Linux desktop.

I softly disagree with this statement. I was just following what they said in their comment, and what I was really fishing for was use case and circumstances, down the line in the conversation. 🙂

Probably not surprisingly, it came down to gaming and kernel-level anti-cheat software.

But your experience matters, of course. A lot of efficient and lean Linux distros can’t really afford to do a lot of handholding in order to be so lean. And reading documentation and following along with instructions definitely isn’t for everyone. But really that’s all I did to install my distro of choice. I just read the installation guide on the Wonderful Wiki™️ and I came out flying.

Linux really has matured a lot in the recent decade though, even more in the last couple of years. So maybe you’d find something you like if you gave it another go now.

I’m happily gaming and working and just regular-old computing on my PC with Linux. It can be done. I feel like maybe you had bad luck with the timing in combination with what you wanted to accomplish or achieve with your PC, or something. I dunno.

Anyway, long reply is long. Take care!