Linux, the Steam Deck, consoles, and other tech gripes

I really love the idea of Linux taking off. It would not only be the beginning of lightweight operating systems in modern day as a gaming system, but also would start a "we don't like megacorporations" movement that may save the free and open internet. It would mean that people would hypothetically start developing and/or improving personal cloud programs, meaning more selfhosting. All of these things that are a wet dream for tech-lovers would start to occur or at least become more common. As a tech professional, it would also give me a LOT more work. The Steam deck is even moving this into the mainstream, with Linux now being on AT LEAST 1m new devices basically overnight (I even bought one for myself, thanks Dad!)

The problem with this logic is a complicated one because, frankly, Linux kinda sucks as far as a usability standpoint is concerned. Historically, Linux installs would just break for seemingly no reason ESPECIALLY when dualbooting on the same drive. An easy solution to that is to dualboot with two different drives, but w/e, it shouldn't be that hard. Now, there are three big issues: first, so much of the operating system needs to be done through the command line. Debian/Ubuntu uses .deb files as an installer, Arch/SteamOS has its own, the list goes on. There is no standardized "I don't want to run 10 commands to compile this code from scratch" button. So, since most stuff is made for Debian, you are confined to one of those OSes or to a lengthly install process to get the .deb files working.

Next, xorg is kinda poopy. Wayland is much better, but there are significant problems. First, it works best with KDE, and that is one part of Linux that, despite the fact that you can, is wildly unwise to change within your operating system. So you are now essentially hard limited to something with KDE, or maybe Gnome if you don't mind it's issues. Then, if you have an nvidia GPU you can't even run Wayland in the first place, so that's also out.

Finally, Linux commands are wildly inconvenient. Sure, for people that have worked with Linux for years they are perfectly explanatory. But for you, dear reader, what does the cat command do in Linux... What does it stand for? If you guessed reading a file, stemming from the word concatenate, you would be right! Realistically, why not make it called 'readfile' or even 'rdf' or something? It takes literally an extra half a second to type out "readfile" vs "cat" so it doesn't really make a difference. There are a lot of commands in linux that also have crazy options in the command tree that are so unusually stupid or have arguments that are only just "-s", that are also case sensitive so "-s" and "-S" are different. If I want to screen -S gameserver, why cant I type screen -resume gameserver and have it understand that I am trying to resume something, and then check the 3 aspects of screen that "gameserver" could refer to, and resume the best option? It is just bad design.

The other sad thing about this whole tech gripe with Linux is the fact that I really wish we could get console-convertible Linux boxes. Like, if I could throw full blown Linux onto an Xbox Series X and get a desktop like experience, I would ditch my current gaming PC for that. I think it would be wild to be able to tri-boot Xbox OS, Windows, and Linux on a single XSX and leverage the extremely affordable power of a gaming console as a desktop. Like, it is VERY hard to get an XSX performance machine in the same form factor for even close to the $500 mark.

So all that being said, do I really want Linux to take over? Of course, but I really don't want to have to be the person that does it.