> Desktop Linux has gotten better

This is on me for being a bit too snarky.

So yes, Desktop Linux has "gotten better". What it hasn't done is solved any of the systemic problems.

The Open Source development quirks that created the shitshow of the 1999 is still here. Gnome is better but still suffers massively from mainstream features being declared stupid by the maintainers. (A power button that turns off the machine? Heretical.)

Valve's recent successes are pretty illustrative here. They used their money to directly hijack the projects their products rely on.

For what it pertains the comparison, Windows is not without this "slow" improvement either. 95 and 98 are lightyears behind contemporary Windows in so many ways. Until quite recently it still made about as much sense to use Linux as it did back then; Not much.

Take your Linux Laptop example. Sure, Linux finally kind of worked on some specific models that were tested for it. Meanwhile, Windows had moved from "it'll work with some mucking about with drivers" to "It works universally, on practically all hardware". Really, by the mid 2010s Windows would finally be quite tolerant of you changing the hardware.

Hence my original point; Desktop Linux hasn't really caught up with Windows in any meaningful sense. Windows is just nose-diving into the ground in the last few years.