All these recent Windows to Linux converts, whining about how Linux should be more like Windows, should be going to ReactOS. They want open source Windows, not open source Unix.
I really think its just not that common. There are ways to do this for the few and not pollute the OS for the many. Steam does it for their use case. If it were a more common of a need, then I would expect distro maintainers to take care of it. The same way they did for 32bit libraries back in the day. When is the last time you had to install a 32bit distro along side your 64bit distro so you could run 32bit applications? Sometimes I need a bleeding edge build of an application. I run a stable distro. So build the application myself or install a quick chroot These days there is distrobox that makes it even easier. There are solutions. Easy from my perspective. That's why I think, if this was such a common need, distro maintainers would provide a simple solution (automatically done for you).
The linux way to handle it is with a chroot. Used to do this back in the day to get 32bit libraries on a 64bit distro that didn't include 32bit libraries. chroot is the basis for modern containerization technologies. These days, I usually use it for bleeding edge application builds that don't have a build for my distro, yet. Distrobox makes it pretty simple. With distrobox, you can install the application you need in the OS that supports the application you want, then just map the binary into your OS.
I gamed on it when Proton magically made it so games I bought on Steam worked. Otherwise I just gamed on an Xbox before that. I only recently switched to popos, (still gaming on it). I started on Slackware 3.4 and switched to Ubuntu in 2006-2007. I think as long as you aren't on the LTS version, you should be good. In any case, it's not a permanent decision and seems like every distro is crazy fast at installing these days. Worth a go whatever you try or where ever you land.
I was just trying to be gracious. You are citing a misnomer. The water is free because of competition, not because of any law that forces the restaurant owners to give the tap water away for free.
Really? Which states? Pretty sure there are no state or federal laws. County maybe? I do know in California, it's a state law that restaurant customers must first request the water, before they can be provide the free tap water. I think it's just a misnomer that some states require free tap water for customers.
Microsoft agrees. Azure Linux is getting more and more beefed up all the time. Soon it will be a full fledged consumer OS and not just for Azure containers.
Those companies are the ones paying for Linux development. Thirty plus years of companies developing and improving Linux. Most have their own Linux OS. IBM owns 30% of RedHat. Linux hasn't been a hobbyist OS since the early nineties.
Because those engineers were free to create the value that they needed and only the value that they needed. Windows Server and OSX Server were/are not unfettered. They, therefore could not offer a better value.
Google and Amazon are competing with their own Linux OSes. Even IBM bought 30% of RedHat almost 30 years ago. Windows is developing their own Linux OS now too, Azure Linux. Windows Server is down to 40% in their cloud Azure environment. I'm just guessing that's because many long term contracts are ending and the companies associated have been migrating away from Windows Server. Hence the need for Azure Linux. OSX server flopped big time twenty years ago. Apple had to shutdown their entire XServe division. You don't always have to sell the software or OS to make money off of it. Especially when there is heavy competition. It's like restaurants in the US giving away free tap water when you sit down to eat. There are a lot of ways to compete for dollars in a capitalist world.
/u/Zak did a pretty good job summing it up.
These servers are hosting custom software. The devs can develop for any hardware and OS combination. So the choice is largely performance, features, and price. Free is the best price in a capitalist world. Free isn't the only price though, companies are just fine spending money if they are getting a better value. They just aren't with Windows Server and didn't with OSX server, they don't offer a better value. They aren't more performant and they don't offer any features that make it worth the money or risking vendor lock-in. With Linux, if the value you need isn't there, anyone is free to create the value that is needed, with zero limitations. And they only need create the value they need.
https://blog.system76.com/post/pop-os-letter-from-our-founder
At the bottom, "Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS users will receive an upgrade notification in the OS starting January 2026. If you wish to upgrade to Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS before then, after backing up your files, open Terminal and run"
Probably the Feb numbers should reflect a larger migration to the latest Pop.
Same way I felt when I got my Sound Blaster Live sound card working under Linux back in the day. Had LICQ running, with the volume all the way up on the speaker just in case I got sound. I woke the whole house when a message came in. "Message for you sir!" Good memories.
Open source Windows obviously. https://reactos.org/
All these recent Windows to Linux converts, whining about how Linux should be more like Windows, should be going to ReactOS. They want open source Windows, not open source Unix.