The Linux you remember is very different than what I remember. To say that back then Linux was unusable on the desktop would be an understatement. Yes, you had Red Hat, Mandrake (later Mandriva) and SuSE that were trying hard to provide a usable desktop distribution, but nothing was working well. And people needed Win32 apps because there were no alternatives usable for Linux.
There was a reason why you could buy Linux in bookstores for years. People were actually using it. For instance, SuSE had quite a stronghold in Europe. I was still in high school and I knew quite a lot of people that were using SuSE Linux.
coupled with Linux's security
What security? It's running every application unsandboxed and each X11 application can read all keystrokes, mouse events, make screengrabs, etc. Linux on the desktop is way behind macOS and Windows when it comes to security. It's just not a very interesting target, because of its small marketshare.
One can only hope that distributors will follow the lead of Fedora and move to Wayland soon.
At that time Windows security was a joke. You could write anywhere on the whole disk and you could "read all keystrokes, mouse events, make screengrabs" as well.
Gee, I've been using Windows since version 3.1 and never ever, ever had a major problem with the allegedly bad desktop security. Also, Linux since RedHat 5...and I've definitely spent way more time configuring Linux to do shit that Windows does without any configuration than I ever spent on Windows security issues.
Windows has always had the best desktop system and it still does. Some loud minority always talks about how great the Mac UI is but I think it's hideous and most of the world agrees with me since nobody copied the Mac OS' major UI gimmicks (and if they did, it was seen as a stupid unpopular mistake).
Anyway - I run all three in my business and I'm well versed in each of them. Linux is great for servers and I need Macs for iOS stuff, but nothing beats the sheer convenience of Windows, the best desktop OS that ever was.
Maybe one day Windows will become open source and all the Linux folks can stop trying to catch up on the desktop. Until then, I'll gladly throw my money at Microsoft for providing such a beautiful system for me to use.
These days less of a problem. Message injection/sniffing between applications in different contexts doesn't work. Unless you're the administrator, in which case it is game over already.
Right, well as you point out, nowadays Wayland is default on major distributions like Rebecca Black OS and some minor players like Fedora.
In any event, when a user is compromised, it's lol Windows. But when Yahoo is compromised, is anyone opining security in Linux? Or are these social engineering hacks?
There was a reason why you could buy Linux in bookstores for years. People were actually using it. For instance, SuSE had quite a stronghold in Europe. I was still in high school and I knew quite a lot of people that were using SuSE Linux.
coupled with Linux's security
What security? It's running every application unsandboxed and each X11 application can read all keystrokes, mouse events, make screengrabs, etc. Linux on the desktop is way behind macOS and Windows when it comes to security. It's just not a very interesting target, because of its small marketshare.
One can only hope that distributors will follow the lead of Fedora and move to Wayland soon.