I've been a windows/linux/mac guy since forever (I do not care at all about the OS, I just care about getting shit done), and Windows is worse than the XP and 7 days, but not by much. A caveat here is that I'm assuming windows people are savvy enough to know about massgrave, and as such remedy 90% of the shit experience with vendors filling up an otherwise acceptable OS with a bunch of garbage.

The only thing in Win11 user experience wise that absolutely drives me up a wall is the new right click menu forcing me to hold shift to get the usable menu instead of the "Win 11 is smart and this new menu UI is easier to use" menu.

Other than that, it feels like win 10 (and 7 for the most part) for anything else that matters (for a normal user).

All of that being said, yes, the experience of a naive consumer buying a windows laptop is awful, but not due to the OS itself, rather the amount of bloated useless shit vendors ship with the installed OS.

Chromebooks themselves can actually be great machines for hacking (in the traditional sense, not the modern security/jailbreaking sense). E.g. https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/9145439?hl=en is arguably better than a direct typical Linux install because it's an isolated environment which won't break the main function of the device as you tinker.

As the page notes though, the real problem for kids is the devices are of course locked down:

> Important: If you use your Chromebook at work or school, you might not be able to use Linux. For more information, contact your administrator.