Microsoft EVP Yusuf Mehdi said in a blog post last week that Windows powers over a billion active devices globally. This might sound like a healthy number, but according to ZDNET, the Microsoft annual report for 2022 said that more than 1.4 billion devices were running Windows 10 or 11. Given that these documents contain material information and have allegedly been pored over by the tech giant’s lawyers, we can safely assume that Windows’ user base has been quietly shrinking in the past three years, shedding around 400 million users.
Yes. Though it depends on what you want. If you are willing to learn some stuff, and don’t mind doing some maintenance, then CachyOS is hard to beat. It’s fast, up to date, has packages for basically everything, and the documentation from both them and from arch linux the parent distribution is great. Otherwise Linux Mint, PopOS, Aurora, and OpenSUSE are all good options. I wouldn’t recommend using Ubuntu directly anymore because of the enshitification canonical have engaged in. Debian is always good, but might not be what you are looking for in terms of ease of use or being up to date.