I'd say Linux desktops have been good enough for a long time, but never broke into the mainstream for the reasons you cite. ChromeOS is the closest thing I guess, but outside of schools and a few other institutional uses, Chromebooks are not very popular.
Linux is not preinstalled. There are some ThinkPads* and Dells with Ubuntu or Fedora but you need to know that.
And people how know will and must reinstall anyway Arch, Gentoo, Suse, Debian, Fedora or Ubuntu.
The Steamdeck is an excellent proof how a full featured Linux (SteamOS is based upon Arch) is shipped well. Not a unmaintained or googlyified closed-source derivate of Linux (Android and ChromeOS).
* I ordered an X13 Gen1 AMD with Linux for fun. Worked well, installation was clean. No 120$ for Microsoft and its stock owners. You shall not feed the bad guys. Especially when you will never use Windows.
Steamdeck is a gaming console not a general purpose device from the perspective of most people (yes I know it's a standard PC and completely open but that's not something most people care about). Linux is more or less just an implementation detail. Obviously not as extreme but a bit like PS4 being BSD but I don't think it's that different from Android/ChromeOS. Arch is there just to run a completely proprietary layer which is the only thing most people who use it interact with >90% of the time.
Additionally, to note that while PlayStation, Switch, Android/NDK, have some form of POSIX support, in some cases with overlapping 3D APIs with GNU/Linux, most of the studios don't bother with GNU/Linux, and rather let Valve do the work with Proton on supporting the execution of their Windows versions.
SteamDeck is only a successful by making Linux irrelevant, after all its key feature is doing Windows API translation.
SteamOS only purpose is for Valve not to pay Windows licenses.
I will consider SteamDeck a success, in games not sales, the day all top level games played on it, were actually developed for SteamOS in first place, and not Windows games running under Proton.
> I will consider SteamDeck a success, in games not sales, the day all top level games played on it, were actually developed for SteamOS in first place, and not Windows games running under Proton.
Yep. Removing unnecessary API-Layers, a lot issues and lifting the maintenance burden from Valve. I play only games with native ports e.g. Counter-Strike 2, Unrailed[1], OpenRA. I still wonder why Valve doesn't feature Steam Awards for the best native Linux ports, separated for indie games and triple A games. Combined with reduced fees for successful participants. Would allow Valve to focus solely on Linux. Stop harming Linux by directing money to games which don't support Linux.
[1] Kids? Guests? A party? Play it. It is Mario-Kart ported to the 21 Century. Best with gamepads.
They're pretty incredible machines for the price. I bought one a year and a half ago in an emergency, as the networking on my laptop died over the course of a few days and I needed something for browsing and email. I got the Linux dev environment set up on the Chromebook and I actually kept it instead of getting a new expensive laptop.
They are. The problem is that they are for the educational market. Especially with Google's exit from hardware, they're basically mostly cheap devices for kids. And, if you do build a nice one, you could probably get a lower-end MacBook Air for about the same price which would be almost as low-maintenance to use if you wanted it to be.
The cheapest Air is $999 for a fast but pretty limited 8G device. That budget gets you a 16G Meteor Lake Chromebook which runs Debian cleanly in a VM. It's true that Apple is doing a better job than it used to in serving the budget market, but Macs remain pretty exclusive. Similarly a low end Windows laptop with WSL is a better budget choice, though IMHO very inferior to the Chromebook in Linux integration.
The thing is that I don't really want a budget Chromebook (which certainly exist).
I want something for travel mostly. Ended up getting a new iPad Air recently which isn't all that light but probably fits my needs best as it now has a pretty functional keyboard and can easily be used without the keyboard as an entertainment/consumption device.
I'm not sure. IMHO it's good enough for power users and people who don't really need much besides a browser and maybe do light office work etc. or completely fixed/define workflows. In between there is a huge gap that's quite hard to cross due too generally poor and inconsistent UX, various package installation, configuration issues and various UX patterns that are hard for many non technical people to grasp.
OTH Windows and macOS "just work". Well maybe not so much for Windows but at least it's a lot easier to find someone who can help you.
Also Linux hardly offer anything at all for this segment. If you use only your PC for gaming, office work, media creation and similar stuff what value does Linux offer you that would make it worth switching (even if Linux UX was much better than it is switching still requires significant effort and still a lot of hops to jump just to do what you already know how on Windows)? I think approximately none at all.
Chromebooks on schools is basically a US thing, in Europe most parents buy regular computers to their kids, and only top tier schools do anything beyond having a computer room class for "lets do something on the computer today".
After the Windows XP price reductions gave the first blow to the Linux netbooks market, the tablet market finished it off, for regular consumers.
Linux VMs on macOS and Windows are "The Year of Linux Desktop".
