I’ve recently decided to test out a few OS’s, due to HW upgrades on other machines and W8 restrictions really… I like Windows 7 / 8, it’s fast / ergonomically functional and I’ve had little issues with it, on a project where we got handed W10 boxes I can’t say the same.
If Linux manages to overcome some of it’s shortcomings (device drivers / general ease of use) I think it could be a viable alternative in the next 5 years or so and as many companies etc. are hanging onto older machines with W7 / W8 there does seem to be some reluctance to upgrade. Which isn’t surprising, it’s quite funny because we had a three hour seminar on privacy and security got handed these Asus W10 laptops maxing out it’s CPU from telemetry processes.
Personally I only care about getting the “job” done, but I’m not a fan of arbitrary restrictions and decisions at the cost of user bases.
The OP probably isn’t still about but even on a 14 core Xeon UE4 has always taken about 2 - 3 minutes to start up even on Windows 8 / 10, only took 15 minutes to compile the engine though. So far I don’t have an issue with Linux bar the initial install, you should just double click driver packages and that’s it… No dropping into terminals to blacklist Noveau in several locations and writing nano text documents / config files to get stuff working.
I like the Ubuntu store but it’s extremely limited in choice, synaptic package manager does a far better job… As much as I’d like to say “Linux is the answer” it’s still got a ways to go as a OS… For game dev, I’m still researching… Between Houdini / Blender and a VM for photoshop I’m covered, Mac’s better than Windows / Linux when it comes to pro audio so that one’s a given.