The vast majority of people just want a computer to do computer things and could care less about what it does other than that. Microsoft will continue to make installing Linux a huge pain and the manufacturers of hardware will continue to prefer windows for kickbacks and internal politics. There will be an uptick, but the fragmented ecosystem, lack of support for even just a handful of programs (thanks anti-cheat), and the fact they dominate the market will mean windows users will almost all use whatever windows forces them to use.

Anyone who thinks this is the last straw underestimates the tolerance of the general population to anti user BS. I would say the only thing that would meaningfully change market share would be if somehow MS changed every background to a dick and refused to change it because that is what their product team said people wanted. Even then it would only be like 5% who would string together both the will and the know how to switch their OS.

As long as anti cheat keeps only supporting windows you will need it to experience all games. You can go through the labor filled process of trying to VM windows with GPU passthru, but at that point are you really much better off? I swear one day we will get to a market-share that is worth supporting, but it just isn’t there yet. Even fresh titles like Battlebit support anticheat that is incompatible with linux.

Linux mint has delivered me a consistent experience on the verge of boring (Good for an OS) with great driver support and minimal intervention. I have wandered a long path of distro hopping and can say if you want to screw around, learn linux, and have to care about maintaining it (Like a car or house) try EndeavourOS or other major distros. If you want an OS that works for you without much intervention, give mint a try.

The default Cinnamon DE is quite light, but it also comes with an even lighter XFCE version. I prefer Cinnamon because it just hits the right spot for what I knew computing to be.