Microsoft and Apple pervasively install thier entire platform in their Operating Systems so you can't just have what you need to have on one of their computers, you have the buy the whole platform.
The Linux Eco-system is valued at $100 Billion, has nearly 40 million LoC, and is now Global Mega-Corp Consortium Funded. Link to Linux Foundation Financial Report 2022, "Read The Report", Page 13.
Top Sponsors:
- Microsoft
- Meta
- Intel
- Oracle
- Tencent
- Huawei
- Fujitsu
- Hitachi
- Ericsson
- Samsung
- NEC
- Qualcomm
- VMWare (Now Broadcom)
Notable Second Tier Sponsors:
- Blackrock
- WeBank (Facial Recognition only Chinese Bank)
- Alibaba Cloud
Notable Third Tier Sponsors:
- Apple
If we are headed for a global AI monolith or Bladerunner type future, it will surely run on Linux! It's everywhere and Linux will never again be steered by the community.
Instead use and help make successful any Indie Operating System like Haiku, Aero, or Minix3 instead of literally working as the tinniest cog ever for a Global Mega-Corp Consortium.
You can also just use GhostBSD which is a superb Desktop BSD experience based off of stable FreeBSD that installs and works like Mint. Control your own kernel and everything about your BSD with NetBSD. Now is a great time to get into BSD with NetBSD 10 RC1. Learn it now and you'll have an OS that when released does only what you want it to do.
Finally there is the fastest BSD, Dragonfly. I made a Dragonfly BSD setup script that will turn a $250 2019 Thinkpad T495 into a lightning fast programmer workstation that does only what you want it to, and hardened. It never even makes one call out to the internet unless you typed the command in or allowed it beforehand.
If you insist on using Linux, then use a distro with an independent kernel that let's them know you would not like the Linux kernel which has been badly managed by the Dictator Linus, globally taken over.