I need iRacing and the software for the rest of my sim rig to be fully supported. This means “SimHub” for my wind sim, the “SimRig” app for my motion actuators, “SimCommander” for my wheelbase, and there are a couple others like “The Crew Chief” etc. oh and whatever emulation layer for iRacing; as there’s no Linux version; would need to not get me banned from the anti-cheat software.
I put my money where my mouth was though! I used Manjaro+Gnome for 2 or 3 years on my main machine, dual booting Windows only to sim race. I quit Adobe and Maxon and switched to DarkTable and Blender for photos and 3D modeling. All my 3D printing software and slicers have native Linux versions. I used Chrome, Chromium, Firefox, Dropbox (have since switched to NextCloud self-hosted). Docker was a dream and so fucking fast for web development. I still keep a Linux VM around just for Docker web development.
Here’s the thing… on not one but two occasions my machine refused boot to a GUI. I’m speaking as someone who uses server Linux daily for work, Mac OS daily for work, and Windows daily for play. If Linux distros and GPU makers don’t get their shit together IT WILL NEVER be the year of Linux on the desktop. Exactly 0 times has Windows failed to boot to a GUI for me (short of a hdd or GPU hardware failure) and Mac OS has also not booted to a GUI 0 times. As long as seeing a desktop on boot is not a 100% guarantee when running Linux, it’ll remain as something only nerds or enthusiasts do.
I love Linux, but I’d say it’s a safe bet to say I’ll never sim race or run iRacing natively on Linux short of Microsoft and windows disappearing from existence overnight. It just won’t happen.
For web development or 3D modeling and hacking around? Gimme Linux or Mac OS! WSL is like 99% there but no where as performant as the aforementioned. Also with WSL simple fucking things like networking become a proxy-firewall-ssh-tunnel nightmare.