MacOS, iOS, and Android are all unix like OS's that had the wherewithal to hand UX to product people and not engineers.

You end up with very popular operating systems.

Again, the thing perpetually holding desktop Linux back is that it is made by people who like Linux.

I disagree fundamentally. You're describing locked-down UNIX in name only operating systems, controlled by a single corporate entity with an iron fist.

If Linux was like that, it would have no value. Why not? Because these operating systems already exist.

Linux distros are open-source. That means it is fragmented by nature. This is unsolvable - because that is what open-source means. I can fork something, and that's that. If we say "no forking", then it's no longer open-source. This is the Catch-22.

If we want a defragmented Linux, we already have plenty of those. If we want to defragment Linux, it loses literally all of it's value.

The UX on Linux is, IMO, much more intuitive than Windows, and it's not even close. The problem is that it's not like Windows. That's why I use it. That's why everyone who uses Linux uses it. If we wanted an operating system like Windows, I would use Windows.

Downloading software straight from an app store is easier than downloading an exe online. The file browser is easier to use. Updates are easier to do, they're done system-wide. KDE is much, MUCH more cohesive than than Windows GUI. The installers are much more modern. Users are much more intuitive. Permissions are more intuitive. The file system actually makes sense. I mean, really C: drive? Back slashes? Come on now. dbus is better than COM or COM+. Editing a config file is more intuitive than regedit. The search functionality is more intuitive. And on and on.

I mean, picture a typical usecase: install a browser. On Windows, I boot up. First I see if it's already installed. I search, and I get web popups. Okay, not what I want - I don't want to read about Chrome on wikipedia. Okay, I finally get to the Chrome website. I click "Download". Edge tells me not to do this. The computer tells me it's dangerous. Edge tells me it's faster than Chrome. I ignore. I click through the installer. It's installed. Now, I might have to reboot for some reason. Edge then prevents me from making it my default browser. I do it anyway. Finally, I have Google Chrome.

On Linux. I search for Chrome in the search box. It's not installed, but there's a link to the app store. I click it, and I click install. There is no installer, it just installs it. Chrome is now installed.

Linux distros are really good, if and only if you go into them acknowledging they are their own thing, with their own methods.