I don’t support Linux fanatics who insist that Linux is for everyone and anyone. It is vastly different (IMO in a good way) than your typical Windows OS but once you spend some time figuring it out, following “cumbersome” installation instructions might take no more than 5 minutes.

This article is on the other side of the spectrum. Presenting the Linux desktop as a “collective delusion” is, at least, disrespect to all the people who struggle to make it real.

I know people who switched to Linux as their main OS and claim to be more productive than they were on Windows because they can adapt the desktop experience to their workflow and there are no unnecessary distractions like popups and ads that Microsoft likes to overuse in their latest OS versions.

LibreOffice is just good enough for most paperwork with good MS-Office compatibility (neither I nor anybody I know ever had a single problem in years).

Of course there are drawbacks, but most of what the article mentions are purely over-generalisations, distribution-specific quirks or “I can’t be bothered to spend 5 minutes to learn something new” type of arguments. In Linux, the time you spend learning something new is a good investment.

Finally, I myself am a computer geek who likes to meddle in programming. For me, using anything else than a *nix-based POSIX-compatible system (except, perhaps, for Haiku) would be a nightmare.

Linux is not a religion. It’s a tool, and you should always pick a tool based on whether it can perform the needed tasks and whether you are comfortable with it, without fanaticism. And Linux is objectively better than Windows in some respects, and vice versa. So, if I were to follow the author’s logic, the Windows desktop would be as much a collective delusion in my eyes.