I have had nothing but abysmal experiences with ubuntu on desktops and laptops over the years. It's a combination of the general jankiness of desktop linux and their poor design choices. If Windows is lipstick on a pig, Ubuntu is a dress and a leopard skin print handbag... on the pig. The pig doesn't understand what's happening and it's even more annoyed.
There are many material reasons as to why (conventional) desktop linux has never managed to make even the smallest dent in market share. IMO and IME, failing to get above 5% of desktop users has nothing to do with the Windows licensing monopoly.
That said, I do think they should offer a license-less version of the laptop - allowing people to maintain a free and libre stack is incredibly important and an effort that I support.
e: i have expressed my issues with desktop linux before and people always ask for examples, as if i was doing something wrong or incompetently setting up my machine. My go to example is this: I installed 20.04 towards the end of 2020. I installed the nvidia graphics driver using ubuntu's built in driver manager. Rebooted. Installed all updates. Rebooted. The machine immediately locked up after starting the kernel, and was wedged so severely that I couldn't even get recovery mode to start (immediate crash). I actually contain the basic skillset to get a boot console out on serial but... why put the effort in?
Whose fault was it? I don't know, but I expect the basic QA such that when I use the built in tools to do minimal and routine configuration to my computer, it doesn't destroy my installation. This is probably the funniest example of my desktop linux woes, but it is a long list and the majority of examples are, in my opinion, extremely unreasonable for even technical users to deal with.
I have had nothing but abysmal experiences with ubuntu on desktops and laptops over the years. It's a combination of the general jankiness of desktop linux and their poor design choices. If Windows is lipstick on a pig, Ubuntu is a dress and a leopard skin print handbag... on the pig. The pig doesn't understand what's happening and it's even more annoyed.
There are many material reasons as to why (conventional) desktop linux has never managed to make even the smallest dent in market share. IMO and IME, failing to get above 5% of desktop users has nothing to do with the Windows licensing monopoly.
That said, I do think they should offer a license-less version of the laptop - allowing people to maintain a free and libre stack is incredibly important and an effort that I support.
e: i have expressed my issues with desktop linux before and people always ask for examples, as if i was doing something wrong or incompetently setting up my machine. My go to example is this: I installed 20.04 towards the end of 2020. I installed the nvidia graphics driver using ubuntu's built in driver manager. Rebooted. Installed all updates. Rebooted. The machine immediately locked up after starting the kernel, and was wedged so severely that I couldn't even get recovery mode to start (immediate crash). I actually contain the basic skillset to get a boot console out on serial but... why put the effort in?
Whose fault was it? I don't know, but I expect the basic QA such that when I use the built in tools to do minimal and routine configuration to my computer, it doesn't destroy my installation. This is probably the funniest example of my desktop linux woes, but it is a long list and the majority of examples are, in my opinion, extremely unreasonable for even technical users to deal with.