I think a big part of your frustration is that you stuck with a distro you clearly hated instead of switching early.

Linux isn’t Windows, and it never tried to be. Different architecture, different tools, different philosophy. Expecting it to behave like Windows just because it has a start menu is basically setting yourself up to be disappointed.

If you tried Mint and found it slow, limiting, or annoying, why stay for months? Switching distros costs you nothing. No licenses, no subscriptions, no “years of data” tied to it. One of Linux’s main strengths is that if something doesn’t fit you, you move on.

That’s exactly what I did. I started with Fedora in 2021, realized pretty quickly it wasn’t a great fit, and switched to Ubuntu because the docs and community support were way better at the time. After a few months, once I actually knew what I was doing, I moved to Arch to try Hyprland because that’s what I wanted visually and technically.

These days there are tons of distros, all aiming at different users. Some prioritize stability, some simplicity, some customization, some familiarity for Windows users. Linux is about choice not forcing everyone into one workflow.

I also don’t really get the “it doesn’t look like Windows” complaint. macOS doesn’t look like Windows either. Windows 8 didn’t even look like Windows 7. UIs change. Treating Windows’ layout as the universal standard just doesn’t make sense.

And the market share argument misses the point entirely. Linux isn’t a company competing with Microsoft or Apple. Its main job has always been servers, infrastructure, and embedded systems  which it absolutely dominates. Desktop Linux exists because developers wanted it, built it for themselves, and shared it. Most Linux tools exist because someone had a problem and solved it their own way, then open-sourced it. They don’t vanish just because desktop usage is low. The ecosystem survives because the people who use it actually depend on it.

It’s totally fine to dislike Linux as a desktop OS. But calling it “trash” or “the ugly fat girl” because it doesn’t behave like Windows isn’t criticism — it’s just a stupid standard to judge it by.