Un-fucking Windows 10 is still easier than Linux where the answers to half of my problems are "You fool, if you wanted to use more than two mouse buttons you should have used Slippery Weasel 7. Trash your install and start over with a better distro. By the way Slippery Weasel 7 doesn't support changing your screen brightness."
I have a 16-button mouse (one of those gaming ones with basically a numpad near the thumb), works out of the box. Same with a variety of dodgy Bluetooth chinesium junk, a drawing tablet, a VR headset... Maybe 10 years ago I had an issue with a 3G modem?
Put short, I cannot corroborate your experience at all.
(I have been on and off Linux the last 10 years due to gaming, but it seems I will be able to stay this time, Proton often performs better than natively Windows)
Now, in retrospect, my tone was inappropriate, I'm sorry. The very fact we have such different impressions of Linux demonstrates it's still a bit messier than it could be.
It's really easy to un-fuck windows when it dies in one of the few common ways, but in most other cases no amount of expertise can help you. Whereas with Linux, with enough knowledge and experience, you can fix pretty much anything, but you need a decent amount of it even for basic fixes.
I was able to fix some of the issues in Ubuntu by compiling kernel addons of some sort. When I switched to Arch I could with the help of their Wiki fix all of the issues, but there was lot of text config files to edit, and some more compiling of kernel stuff. Even after that I still couldn't get vsync to work properly. Watching youtube while the screen is tearing all the time is very annoying.
If you want to run linux you should get a laptop that is validated to work, like framework or validated dell laptops. At least then you might only need to fix one or two issues.
Power-profile-daemon, wayland, and running a somewhat recent kernel will likely resolve these except the keyboard shortcuts (though, likely a newer libinput with wayland instead of X will also resolce this).
Which zenbook? Ill try to find one here to validate explicitly.
Its hard to have these conversations sometimes because people use old versions of meh distros and then carry their anecdotes forward for years.
I literally cannot find a Zenbook on the market that has hardware that should have these issues. I'd really, really like to know what custom kernel patches (really?) you were taking to get hardware to work.
> I mean, my laptop doesn't overheat daily in my bag when its booted... /s
When you say booting in your bag, are you describing the act of intentionally booting it without removing it from the bag while the bag is open (because taking it out of the bag is a surprising amount of seemingly unnecessary effort) or the "why is my bag warm to the touch oh shit my compy's on" surprise wake from sleep while the bag is closed (because, at least in Windows, there are some events that can wake a compy from S3 sleep at bad times, such as moving it, not moving it, or exposing it to oxygen)?
The latter was quite jarring the first time it happened and so far the only workaround I've found is hibernating the computer before packing it up (which isn't a big deal, but bothers me anyway, because I don't move it often enough to make hibernation my default "lid closed" action).
I mean there's a serious bug where Windows will not properly realize it needs to /stay asleep/ and will wake itself up in your bag, and sometimes stay on.
Linus did a whole video on it - you have to unplug your laptop, then close it, or risk a serious issue.
Just one example of hoops that Windows users become conditioned to.
I get your point, but its not quite that bad if your careful about your laptop selection (most desktops its not a problem because you just plug in another mouse/whatever when you discover a compatibility issue). And KDE/etc is still wonderfully configurable with the control panel that ships, and there are loads of actual themes that aren't just someone changing a color and background image like windows. And it supports 3 or 4 start menu styles out of the box, with just a right click properties selection, or putting the task bar on the side of the window, etc, etc, etc.
So, yah linux is still shit, but at this point it might have finally reached the point where its the least shitty if your careful. Largely because the competitors are doing their darnest to destroy their own offerings while chasing features/etc no one actually wants (ads anyone?).
I still believe that linux is unsuitable for the vast majority of people. I virtualize all of my workstations with proxmox, and have the ability to backup and restore snapshots quickly, and without that ability, the number of times a gui recommended kernel update would just kill large portions of my system is too damn high.
Kernel 5.15 still seems to be incompatible with running two monitors on a GTX 1080TI with any of the proprietary nvidia drivers I've tried.
IME Linux is fine generally but still has some prominent rough edges that show up just often enough to make it an impractical choice for their users who encounter them.
What you give up with linux is the hardware compatibility. The linux bigots would say you get better HW compatibility but that is only true if your HW is old junk the manufacture abandoned years back.
Nvidia tends to be a bit of a no-no when it comes to linux these days because of the wayland fiasco (and others), although it might be getting better with their latest opensource driver efforts. Who knows, but the fact does remain that linux's refusal to have a binary driver ABI fsk's anything that doesn't have an opensource driver, so usually just make sure one exists before even trying the HW.
If you're running legacy OSes, you're most definitely not playing recent games with DRM or doing anything that can't be done on a recent Linux system.