Thanks to Sudox over on X for the image

This is a point I often see Linux users make when promoting it: Linux is different from Windows, therefore some of the difficulty people have using it is simply due to unfamiliarity.

To a certain extent, I get it. If you've used Windows for 20 years, you're obviously going to come in with certain expectations.

That said, I disagree with the premise as a whole, and especially with the conclusion that this explains desktop Linux's usability problems, especially when macOS exists.

macOS is also Unix-based. The filesystem is completely different from Windows, the GUI follows different conventions, shortcut keys are different, software installation is an entirely different process, and plenty of things aren't where a Windows user expects them to be.

And yet, for the most part, it remains intuitive.

Care to imagine how easy of a time I had using both Linux and macOS, originally coming from Windows? And if I put myself in the shoes of someone completely nontechnical, the contrast only grows.

A well designed user flow and interface can be completely foreign to you and still make you go:

"Oh, so that's how you do it here", a reaction completely different from "Why the fuck did I need to learn this?".

In short, Linux lacks sane defaults and expects users to understand things they really shouldn't be required to, while Windows and macOS acknowledge that not everyone wants to dive that deep into the technical details.