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My cousin gave up Linux because he struggled to find answers to problems. He was really into trying to build a home server and followed YouTube videos. He used to video call with me for tech support, which was kinda exhausting like teaching a kid how to use a computer.
After a few months, he gave up on it and gave me his server filled with weird ass directories and software constantly giving errors because it's not configured correctly. It was easier to wipe and restart.
In my experience, video tutorials for it stuff are never worth it, besides theoretical fundamentals and stuff you have to know for exams. Besides that, first hand documentation and third party articles.
I've always loved using Linux, but sometimes I just need things to work; so that whatever I'm doing is quick/painless. But as much as I've switched back and forth, I keep getting pulled more into Linux, the more I learn about my (personal) technical problems
Sure, I can fix it on windows... but the more I delve into Linux, the more I begin to understand the underlying principles of all of it. And for a lot of things; the more I learn about Linux, the more I'm able to navigate across multiple OS's. Learning a little Linux has taught me a metric shit-ton about how computers "speak", and that knowledge has crossed over to a lot of different applications.
I still don't use Linux full-time. But I'm definitely starting to prefer it the more I learn. I hate fighting against locked-out bullshit on windows, when I "just need things to work". But I still like being spoon-fed sometimes, when I don't have time/patience... but I now much prefer taking the time to make my computer work for me. I've learned a shit ton about computers because of Linux
I tried it during the start of quarantine just to see what all the fuss was about but it clashed way too much with how i use computers. I have no background in compsci and my occupation doesn't involve computers at all, so every problem I experienced was completely new and the solutions were never intuitive. For someone like me who spends maybe 8hrs a week at a desktop (and that's being generous) there's no incentive whatsoever to make the switch.
People don't like to tinker or figure out things that were easier to accomplish on other OSes. That or they learned 1 way to do something and expect Linux to with that way.
My daily driver is a Mac, so use Unix, mostly because I like the ecosystem and, as a designer, I’m tied to the adobe apps. This is what keeps me on the Mac side of things.
I do have a Linux server I use as a media server and other library storage running pop_os, which I really like. I also like how smoothly it interoperates with my Mac. I will say, though, a couple of decades of using Linux on my servers have taught me a lot about using UNIX on my Macs.
I've been using Linux on my laptop for years; I use i3wm that makes using it way easier than anything Windows can provide; but on my desktop pc I have too many stuff installed that I can't be bothered to migrate all to Linux.
I really only want Linux for software dev work(docker mostly). Windows has wsl which has worked beautifully for me besides memory leaks a couple times a year. The issues I face with wal pale in comparison to my experience dealing with Nvidia drivers and gaming on Linux.
On my gaming PC: I had a lot of random boots to black screen. (Vega 56 GPU)
USB ports did not function at all with USB drives.
TF2 had terrible performance compared to windows.
There was no way to configure my sound card settings.
I still run Ubuntu + kodi on my HTPC, have done for about 10 years. Updating versions of either can often lead to time spent in the terminal. Usually nvidia gpu related. So far the issues have been overcome.
Hardware support. My laptop speakers and fingerprint reader don't work in Linux.
command line interface
I’m fine with it, but it’s cryptic and a deal breaker for many.
I don't know that I fully qualify as "gave up using Linux", but I gave it up for daily personal use, so maybe that counts? I'm definitely not opposed to picking it back up again one day, though! And I do have a Linux device (Steam Deck) that I use frequently, so it's not all doom and gloom.
For probably 10+ years, I used various flavors of Linux on my personal laptop. But around 8 years ago or so, my then current laptop was getting old and getting to the point where it needed to be replaced. At the same time, I was also wanting to get back into gaming so I opted for a laptop that came with Windows by default (Linux gaming at the time left a lot to be desired).
I did try to go the dual boot route with that laptop, but man it sucked. No matter what I tried, the touch screen functionality either didn't work at all, or it was too buggy to be useful. The graphics card performance was terrible. That was still in the era where finding the right wifi drivers could be a chore, and even then they weren't exactly the most stable. It was one problem after another. So, I gave up on Linux for personal use, entirely.
Now I have a different laptop that I specifically verified has decent Linux compatibility and there's much better Linux support for games but at the end of the day, I just find that my time and interest in tinkering with the OS has diminished, so I'm sticking with what works (even if it's FAR from perfect).
Too much of a hassle. I don't wanna risk having my setup break when... Never, really. I want to use my machine and that's it.
I want to use SolidWorks. My kids want to play Fortnite and Valorant.
It's due to lack of support by mainstream developers. I can only hope the Steam deck takes off and continues to sell; once a critical mass of people are on the platform it'll only gain momentum. We're not there yet but this is the closest we've been in 30 years.
Hardware compatibility and, unrelated to the this, Adobe sw are the main reasons for me
I haven’t given up on Linux. I have at least 5 Linux machines in the other room, including tablets, laptops, and servers.
There’s a few Mac’s in the mix too, but those are workstations.
Though I can sympathize with the complaints here in these comments. I brought a ryzen laptop home and installed a distribution on it. Sleep didn’t work. Tried 2 more distros, sleep still didn’t work. Now that laptop just sits there. My Chromebook gets more use than it. Having to shut it down and boot it back up every time wasn’t worth using it anymore when my pinebook pro does have the support you’d expect for functions you’d expect from a laptop.
The first time I gave up was basically just too much back and forth with Windows. Wine was still not there yet and Proton wasn't even a thing yet though.
I've used it a lot on laptops still, but haven't gone to a desktop mainly because friends still like to bounce between games that I have to worry if my system will even support (for anti-cheat reasons not for normal compatibility reasons)
Currently using on steam deck and it's great, am planning for next PC because it feels like too much work to do on a current one when everything is already working the way I want it to.
The Steam Deck is a great example of consumer Linux done right. You don’t even know it’s Linux. The team who developed it did a fantastic job at focusing on the full end-to-end experience.
I love Linux. But I got so exasperated with system updates breaking X-Windows and dropping me into the console with no clue what to do, for some time I intentionally deferred the updates.
I wanted a stable daily driver, so in 2015 I switched from Linux to ChromeOS. Now I'm back to Linux with the Crostini container of ChromeOS and Raspberry Pi OS on a Raspberry Pi 400.
Put me in the crowd that would jump to Linux rather than Windows 11 but my sw (Affinity Apps) don’t work on it.
Most of the other apps needed work on it. I just don’t need all the BS Microsoft push for my work machine.
Edit: Use Linux desktop on other machines.
I gave up because sound stopped working every time I rebooted.
Tried years and years ago and gave up. Was lazy, used to work on Windows servers at work and I was an Admin and didn't want to relearn a bunch of similar but different stuff. That was my mistake.
Tried again and some Distros broke stuff for me. Issue was that I did have to pick up another learning curve, so I just got to it.
Learned lots and then picked different Distros for different needs and computers. Daily drivers, I pick only solid, yet lean Distros, little tinkering and they have worked almost flawlessly for years on end. On some other machines, I dump stuff to tinker and learn some more, might break something but nothing is lost. If I break something on those, don't care. Now I run a server for fun with tons Apps for partner and I and all machines are on Linux. My TV runs off a small PC, too. No Google, or Apple, no ads on anything and server costs are dirt cheap. It would cost me hundreds upon hundreds a year to pay for 3rd party services for the same.
There are no shortcuts and in a way I wished I had stuck with it back then. But, I am happy where I am now.