Yes, things are better now when it comes to installing and hardware compatibility, but for the average person the steps I took to map a network drive is not feasible to pull off. Most people just want things to work without going through multiple steps of trial and error
Here’s you’re problem: the average person has never used a network drive. You aren’t an average user.
I’m using Garuda, and have been for several years. 99.9% of the time, things just work. Then few times it doesn’t are when I’m trying to do something more advanced, and that’s fine. The experience for the average user is pretty much solved, and that’s what matters. If you are doing something more advanced, you also know how to figure out how to solve it.
Is it perfect? Of course not. However, I (and I assume you too) am the type of user who modified registries in Windows to get things working how I want. That is far worse of an experience than anything I’ve had to do in Linux (for the simplicity of what it was doing at least). Sure, MS makes it pretty easy to do some things, but they also make it almost, if not actually, impossible to do others. I was tired of dealing with that and have enjoyed Linux much more.
I didn’t like using Linux when I tried it the first few times 10+ years ago. Now, it’s pretty good, but you do have to commit to it. You have to learn how it works, just as you had to do for Windows at one point. Just because you forgot about all the shit you dealt with on Windows doesn’t mean it didn’t exist. You have to come to Linux knowing it’s not Windows, and you are not going to know how to do everything. If you come in with the mindset that it should work like Windows then you’ll inevitably have a bad time.
Here’s you’re problem: the average person has never used a network drive. You aren’t an average user.
I’m using Garuda, and have been for several years. 99.9% of the time, things just work. Then few times it doesn’t are when I’m trying to do something more advanced, and that’s fine. The experience for the average user is pretty much solved, and that’s what matters. If you are doing something more advanced, you also know how to figure out how to solve it.
Is it perfect? Of course not. However, I (and I assume you too) am the type of user who modified registries in Windows to get things working how I want. That is far worse of an experience than anything I’ve had to do in Linux (for the simplicity of what it was doing at least). Sure, MS makes it pretty easy to do some things, but they also make it almost, if not actually, impossible to do others. I was tired of dealing with that and have enjoyed Linux much more.
I didn’t like using Linux when I tried it the first few times 10+ years ago. Now, it’s pretty good, but you do have to commit to it. You have to learn how it works, just as you had to do for Windows at one point. Just because you forgot about all the shit you dealt with on Windows doesn’t mean it didn’t exist. You have to come to Linux knowing it’s not Windows, and you are not going to know how to do everything. If you come in with the mindset that it should work like Windows then you’ll inevitably have a bad time.