I would agree that targeting a single OS or hardware setup makes things easy but we already deal with a lot of fragmentation in the PC sector anyway. Look at hardware setups on PC vs standardized hardware on consoles. This is what makes consoles easier to develop for but we do just fine developing for all the different hardware setups that exist.

But as far as Linux, if you are developing for Linux most likely you are targeting and testing for Ubuntu. This is why I personally recommend Ubuntu if you are looking for stability or your focus is for example gaming. Because chances are that game you want to play or that software you want to use was tested for Ubuntu. Frankly with Linux, it's Ubuntu and everyone else trying to come in far a distant second.

Even Steam and GOG officially support it and recommend it. That not to say other distro's aren't worth using but there is a baseline distro in Linux and it's clearly Ubuntu.

I'm gonna toss my ¢ in here. I'm deftly avoiding flatpack and snaps for as long as I can for just such reasons. (That, and Flatpack does make a huge impact on drive space if you ever use a tree viewing program.)

On the flipside, distros like Mint or Ubuntu can also be harder to use due to their reliance on older packages. For example, a good half year ago or so at this point, my father had obtained a flatbed scanner for reasons. Problem is, there were no drivers for W7 and beyond and Windows XP had been neatly evicted from our house a long time ago. The version of Simplescan that was currently on Fedora had neat things like multipage scanning and so on. The one on Mint was some ancient version that didn't even allow you to scan multiple pages per query.

Game development has changed quite drastically over the years. Actually make games for consoles weren't that easy because you'd get used to the hardware then next generation they'd change things. For the PC though they don't often program games directly for hardware. They use API's to talk to the hardware.

As for Ubuntu, of all the distros I've tried it's honestly one of the worst. It always crashes and the less said about it's Unity interface the better.

It's my primary OS.

I use it because it's free, quite secure, well supported, user friendly (I use Ubuntu distribution) and the free softwares available are more and more performant, user friendly, stables which fits the needs of most people. To quote some:
- Chromium,
- Libre Office,
- VLC & Kodi,
- RetroArch,
- ...

You have also some good free software for graphic works:
- Gimp,
- Inkscape,
- ...

A software to manage your music library: Rhythmbox

A media-server: Plex

And so many more...

And it supports more and more games incl. one of my favourite: Red Alert (via CnCnet or OpenRA which is a different game but still...). :-)

But it's not my only OS. For more advanced photo editing or video editing I use OSX.
Windows is my least used OS.

With that said, at least security updates won't break your workflow, remove features you're relying on, or drop support for hardware you are actually running. (This also applies to Debian Stable, Red Hat Enterprise Linux and CentOS, and other stable/LTS/enterprise distros.)

So, if you want a system where updates won't break things, try a "stable"/LTS distro like the ones mentioned. If you would rather get the latest software, you can use something like Fedora/Arch/Debian sid, which get extremely frequent updates, with the downside that, since the updates are frequent and the software is new, software changes might break things.

There is a real choice here, depending on your needs.

Windows has quite often been quite fragmented, due to the overhauls Microsoft itself does between different Windows versions. E.g. with Vista and 7 Microsoft completely overhauled how the UI works from Windows XP and started adding all kinds of additional things to the UI (Aero-related)... then in Windows 8 and forwards, they suddenly decided to go to the exact opposite way, getting rid of Aero that they had been pushing so much to every user on the previous Windows versions, etc.

I still recall how even GOG installers pretty much broke down in Windows 8. In Windows 7, when you installed a GOG game with their installers, everything was fine a neat, game manuals in their own folders in the Start menu etc., as GOG had designed them specifically for Windows 7 (and Vista, and XP).

Then I installed the same games in Windows 8 (could have been 8.1 as well)... suddenly it was a complete mess as Microsoft had changed the structure of the "Start" hierarchy etc. Suddenly the start view in Windows 8 was full of GOG game manual shotrcuts grouped together, without you having any idea to which GOG game each manual belonged. Something to do with how Microsoft wanted to abolish subfolders from within the Start hiearchy in Windows 8 and later.

If you complain that it is confusing to the end-user how there are different kinds of desktop user-interfaces for Linux, I personally have had much more problems learning Windows 8 or 10 user-interface after Windows 7, than I've had learning to use different Linux desktops. Same when I moved from Windows XP to 7, I had to re-learn how to use Windows, so much had changed. Normally I select XFCE in Linux (if available) because I like its simplicity and lower system requirements, but it doesn't take much for me to learn pretty much any other Linux desktop within minutes.

Agreed.

With respect, the majority of people here don't know anything about professional-level development or the implications at scale that pertain to it.

You are missing the point. It's far easier to troubleshoot and develop for a standardized hardware vs non standardized hardware. Sure when that hardware changes you have to find how much you can squeeze out of said hardware again but that doesn't change what I said above.

Any game developer will tell you it's far easier to target and support consoles than PC.

API's are not some magical thing that solves all your problems. A lot of things can impact what components your application can run on from the game engine used, from selecting DirectX or Vulkin from game bugs that may be found on for example Nvidia GPU's but not AMD.

Here is a good rundown of the game testing process:

https://www.testbytes.net/blog/types-of-game-testing/

Games developers don't magically pull minimal hardware requirements out of thin air, then have to do significant testing on all types of PC setups to generate a bare minimal that will run the game.

Testing is far simpler on console because everyone is using the same components.

Ubuntu doesn't even use Unity in 18.04 LTS. They switched to Gnome and it works great. So not only are you wrong but you are basing your opinions out outdated experiences.

I've never had the security updates break my workflow. SELinux's troubleshooter interface is quite easy to use. The most issue I've had is Citra not being compliant. (Read/write permissions to places not normally R/W)

My bigger issue is prerolled programs that rely on ancient build systems like Travis. OpenRCT2 won't run because it's expecting some outdated version of LibZip. Citra won't run because it's currently asking for a lib that isn't even packaged in Fedora. (Libsndio)

More annoyingly, the LDD report for OpenRCT2 shows it as lib complete. (Before you ask, I'm not going to go symlinking since that can break things horribly.)

Chris Seavor of Conkers Bad Fur Day expressed during his commentary, that developing for consoles was harder because they keep changing it every generation where’s PC makes incremental changes over time. So no, not every developer thinks that.

9_9

Ohhh okay then, I guess I’ll just reformat my computer and enjoy a 100% headache free experience with no nasty surprises.

You certainly won't get 100% headache free experience with no nasty surprised if you install Windows. You probably have a better chance with Linux...

My Recent experience installing Windows 10 on my Ryzen / Vega based laptop:

After installing Windows, I was stuck with the Standard VGA Adapter. WIndows setup didn't pick up the Vega Adapter.
- Hmm. Maybe the Vega is just too new. I'll hit Windows update.
- I'm reminded of one of my favorite things about Windows - updates have to be installed in order. So, after three iterations of Update->Reboot, there are no more updates available, and I'm still stuck with the Standard VGA Adapter.
- I head to AMD's website. Browse around for awhile, and discover they don't offer a driver download for the mobile stuff - that's up to the OEM's. I head to HP's website to get the driver. This takes some more browseing around to find the correct driver and model. Good thing this stuff isn't stored in a central repository, paging around multiple websites looking for drivers is fun!
- Install HP's driver, reboot. Yahoo, I've finally got the proper Graphics driver. What's this, more updates available? Oh, now Windows Update finds the Vega adapter and offers an update. Install update, reboot.
- Now it's time to check out how this Vega performs in Windows - ah crap. Bluescreen, related to Graphics Driver. Reboot. Back to the fucking Standard VGA driver.

That's it. That's as far as I got. Guess who doesn't have Windows 10 on his Laptop?

I don't ever intend to be a Linux user, because my sum total impression of Linux users is that they spend all their time whining that nothing works on Linux.

dtgreene was talking about Windows updates breaking the workflow.

The windows way - see attached.

I used a (brand new) windows 10 laptop for a time. I disliked it from day 1. A major OS upgrade turned sour and made the OS unstable ( read : couldn't boot anymore ).

So I did return to a second hand pro laptop with Win 7 + Linux . cheap, powerful enough and solid.

Then I needed a small form laptop ( as my employer sometimes sends me quite far from home and changed its laptop use policy to ban any personal communication with its hardware and replaced the harware with a POS tablet like thing, I opted to have my own laptop with me ), and took an old X230 on which I installed Linux and only that.