I just don't see what's so hard about desktop Linux at this point. In the last 3-4 years, I've installed various Ubuntu flavours on hardware varying in vintage

I just don't see what's so hard about desktop Linux at this point. In the last 3-4 years, I've installed various Ubuntu flavours on hardware varying in vintage from 2005 to 2012-ish, with no problems, every bit of hardware just working. In 2012 I even put puppy on a Toshiba laptop from roughly 2000, that wqas still going strong-ish with Windows 98 (!) but could obviously not run any browsers newer than IE6 or whatever it was. No problems. Compared to when I was first dabbling with Debian in the mid-oughts, it's no more hassle - in fact, less hassle - than installing Windows in my experience. To be clear - I am doing little or no customisation at all (beyond obviously installing stuff that I need). I expect it to Just Work. And it does. Whether the slightly rough-and-ready replacements for essential consumer apps are suitable is another matter. GIMP is obviously no Photoshop. My experience of using OSX on a daily basis is that I use very little of the Apple specific stuff, and that I need 16gb in there because it leaks memory like billy-o. My awful code does enough of that without Apple helping out, thank you very much. Other than that, it's fine-ish.