ike seriously, who actually uses linux as their main os? i've tried it a few times but it's always been a hassle to get everything working properly. is it just a meme or are there actually people out there who prefer it over windows or macos?

Yeah, people really do use Linux as their main OS — myself included. It’s not a meme. But I get where you’re coming from. When you first try it, it can feel like a hassle, especially if you expect it to be a drop-in replacement for Windows or macOS.

The thing is: Linux isn’t trying to be those systems. Out of the box, some distros focus on “it just works” (like Ubuntu, Fedora, Pop!_OS), others give you full control but also demand you set things up yourself (Arch, Gentoo). If you landed on one of the latter without knowing what you were getting into, yeah — it’s going to feel rough.

Day-to-day though? Linux has gotten way better. I don’t fight with drivers anymore — my GPU, Wi-Fi, and peripherals work fine. Package managers and flatpaks make installing software simple. And updates don’t break the system every other week. On top of that, I don’t have to deal with ads in the start menu, “are you sure you want Edge?” dialogs, or random telemetry I can’t turn off.

So, do people prefer it? Absolutely. For me it’s stability, control, and not being tied into someone else’s ecosystem. For others it’s speed on older hardware, better tools for programming, or just liking how it feels once you get past the learning curve.

It’s not for everyone — and that’s fine. But calling it a meme sells short the fact that whole industries, servers, supercomputers, and yeah, plenty of desktops are happily running Linux every single day.

Big love.

I've used only Linux at home since 2008, and barring a problem with the touchscreen of my very first laptop (released 2007), it has just worked on every device I've put it on. It might help that I've never been into gaming.

A good reason to use Linux is ricing. Modern Windows looks and behaves like ass, and good luck customizing anything beyond the most basic stuff. My desktop looks like WinXP (luna), does what I want it to, and I'm happy.
As for your issues, IDK what they are. Debian just werks.

Yeah ive been using linux since probably 8th grade because windows telemetry felt creepy. Its not really that bad i think. but mostly i just do browser stuff, watch anime, work with ffmpeg and on my home server. Sometimes forza horizon 4, swat 4, touhou 6 but i havent been playing games as much lately.

Just install debian, and if you want to use latest hardware use the latest version (trixie). I had an issue with USB-C support and some driver wasnt working but i searched it up and it was easy to fix in the end

I use Debian on my Surface Duo™ in a chroot environment. The tools that I used to create the subsystem is called Linux Deploy.

I run a personal server of mine and I have no fucking idea how to do security on this fucking thing. I tried making a non-root account but i can just type "doas su" and become root, which i'm having to do for everything because I have no fucking permissions anywhere i do. That and I also have to fucking do chmod 777 on everything because my non-root account cant do fucking shit despite me editing the config. root is used when i have ssh keys while non-root account is accessed with a password. what the fuck is this stupid shit?

I have been using Qubes OS as my primary operating system for over 2 years now. Will never go back to windblows or traditional GNU/Linux desktop.

I have been using GNU/Linux as my main operating system for around 10 years now. In my opinion thinking of it as a "replacement" for Windows and OSX is a mistake. It is not, and will never be a good replacement because the Windows and OSX model is fundamentally different.
I'm not going to comment on the ethics or whatever of M$/Apple or software freedom because they're tired topics and convince no normies.
Linux, BSD, and other FOSS operating system projects offer freedom and flexibility at the cost of spending some time learning.
Windows and OSX (claim to) offer support, warranties, and stability for the price of a licensing fee and your freedom to modify/learn about the software.
To myself, and many other people on this forum, the tradeoffs for Linux are more palatable. Desirable even. I think customizing my dwm was one of the most zen experiences I've ever had.

To answer your main question: yes there are people who use Linux and it's not just a meme. They are the people for whom the hassle is either not an issue, or part of why they like it in the first place.