On big difference between Windows and Linux is that Windows will work around hardware that is not configured correctly or isn’t compliant with whatever spec or protocol (eg USB). You get errors on Ubuntu because there might be something wrong with your setup. Windows would ignore 5”these issues or have a patch to work around.

Learning curves are real but Linux is way easier to screw up than MacOS. I farted around for a couple days last week getting my Nvidia card to work (switching from AMD). It was not trivial. macOS truly does “just work” unless you’re setting up a hackintosh. That said, the reason I like Linux is because it’s your machine and you cans get it to do pretty much anything you want, whereas MacOS has many limitations. Those limitations aren’t that relevant to most users though, hence the popularity.

Intel Arc Pro is the only GPU attainable to normal people that supports SR-IOV. in general using a couple cheap cards is more reasonable than one expensive card that handles all those functions.

Turing or newer. 20XX or 16XX and newer.

Worked great in VM with Nvidia A4000. Zero problems, just a learning curve to use rpm-ostree and brew instead of dnf.

I don’t think Ubuntu is ruined so much as that Bazzite is very focused on the gaming use case and is a better choice if that’s what you want to do. I use Ubuntu and have tried Bazzite (in a VM with an Nvidia GPU pass thru). Bazzite made the Nvidia based install incredibly easy, and is a particularly good choice for VFIO. I personally use Ubuntu specifically because it’s the same OS as my cloud servers. They solve real problems in that space.

The battery life on my MacBook M1 Max is better than the machine it replaced but nothing to write home about. I bought my wife an M4 MacBook Air and honestly she will misplace her charging cord for days because she didn’t need it. It’s remarkable. For most devs, a powerful Linux desktop (or cloud server) and a MacBook Air is a very powerful combination.

Usually it’s some proprietary or commercial app unavailable for Linux. I have a fairly powerful workstation and ran Windows on a VM with GPU pass thru for those use cases, but at some point I upgraded my MacBook and use that for most work. The Linux machine effectively operates as a server. I haven’t used Windows for work in many months and recently removed a GPU to save power and heat.

What is your job?