I like Linux better

All the other reasons don't really matter.

It's not only what you can do, but what it won't do to you.

Using your computer is not wrong. You shouldn't be punished for it.

Using your computer is not an imposition on someone else. You don't owe anyone for the privilege of using it. You have already paid for it. The OS vendor doesn't have a lien on it; they aren't paying you to rent ad space on your desktop.

You bought it, you own it, you can break it if you like but it's not anyone else's place to tell you what you're allowed to do with it.

Your computer is yours -- just yours -- and it shouldn't be spamming you with ads, filling itself up with junk, or telling you "you're not allowed to do that because of the OS vendor's deals with Hollywood".

I'm not anti-commerce or anti-corporate. My preferred browser is plain old Google Chrome (with uBlock Origin). I buy games on Steam. The game I spend the most hours playing on my Linux system is Magic Arena, hardly an anti-commercial choice. But that's my choice. I buy computers from Linux-focused vendors (currently System76) and I expect my computer to be mine, not the vendor's to do with what they like.

Others have already answered your specific points, which are all (sort of) possible on Windows. I would like to present a quick list of things are not possible on Windows, this is split in 3 parts: Truly impossible, Possible but so convoluted it might as well be impossible, and possible but much harder than what it should.

Truly Impossible

• Choose your preferred program for things. Sure you can do it for simple stuff like text or video, but what about my graphical interface backend, my file explorer or my DE.
• Choose your disk format. Again you can use an incredible array of (I think) 3 formats, and while I also only use ext4 on Linux I know BTRFS is there for me if I ever want to switch to a modern filesystem.
• Customise your system. Again people are going to claim that this is possible on Windows via regedit, but it's not on the same level, I can't have a Windows version stripped of controller support or wireless support if I know I'll never plug a controller or a wireless card on the machine.
• Upgrade every single component of your system in one go. Because the way programs are installed on Windows you need to upgrade each one on its own.
• Fix issues with the system, say you found a bug on Linux if you have the expertise you can 100% fix it, on Windows the best you can do is report it and hope for the best.

Almost impossible

• Using a tiling window manager
• Virtual desktops that actually work

Harder than what it should

• Customise Super+ commands
• Prevent auto updates

Personally I don't care so much about the things that Linux does better but rather the abusive things it doesn't do. No ads, surveillance, forced updates etc. And it's not that linux happens to not do that stuff. It's that the decentralized nature of free software acts as a preventative measure against those malicious practices. On the other side, your best interests always conflict with those of a multi-billion company, practically guaranteeing that the software doesn't behave as you. So windows are as unlikely to become better in this regard as linux is to become worse.

Also the ability to build things from the ground up. If you want to customize windows you're always trying to replace or override or remove stuff. Good luck figuring out if you have left something in the background adding overhead at best and conflicting with what you actually want to use at worst. This isn't just some hypothetical. For example I've had windows make an HDD-era PC completely unusable because a background telemetry process would 100% the C: drive. It was a nightmarish experience to debug and fix this because even opening the task manager wouldn't work most of the time.

Having gotten the important stuff out of the way, I will add that even for stuff that you technically can do on both platforms, it is worth considering if they are equally likely to foster thriving communities. Sure I can replace the windows shell, but am I really given options of the same quality and longevity as the most popular linux shells? When a proprietary windows component takes an ugly turn is it as likely that someone will develop an alternative if it means they have to build it from the ground up, compared to the linux world where you would start by forking an existing project, eg how people who didn't like gnome 3 forked gnome 2? The situation is nuanced and answers like "there exists a way to do X on Y" or "it is technically possible for someone to solve this" don't fully cover it.

Not be spied on by microsoft

Soon with Plasma 6 and Wayland, you can let your Desktop crash but still keep all your Windows after the new Desktop spawned. This also means you can replace your KDE desktop with Gnome, XFCE Hyprland and some others whithout needing to logout or close applications.

Additionally you can save current states of the application with Wayland. Shit is getting so interesting right now.

Source: https://m.youtube.com/watch?si=sAlIcn5meSCDKq3K&v=jlDhpFjBWiw

Open a link in any browser i like. Say "no" to updates. Have a main menu that doesn't look like a kiosk at the mall. Have my habits on my computer kept to myself. Install applications from outside an application store. Not need an antivirus software.

Use a system that's not a personalized ad billboard

Haha it's very easy now: I have an os with no adds.

I am the one telling the os when it updates or not and when it reboots or not.

I have a working terminal so I don't need dozens of shady softwares to do basic stuff like transferring a file on a local network.

And the biggest ones: I can disable my firewall and no defender will erase files from my computer without my consent.

Video games work surprisingly well today. Recent ones at least.

Docker! I have never experienced a more unpleasant software than Docker for Windows.

Update the OS and all installed applications using a single command.

Have an actual sane developer experience? There is a reason why almost every developer that uses Windows actually uses WSL.

Connect a printer and have it just work.

It's easier to run C/C++ compiler (GCC) on GNU/Linux

Most if not all of these seem very easily done on windows. You can create scripts as you like and set up environment variables like vlc. Control of updates I’m not so sure about, I haven’t messed with it I just let it auto update.

Modify the software.

Install software updates when you want, and not lose half the day while they install.

1. adjust the drift speed of a thinkpad trackpoint
2. stream audio from one computer to another one (or a phone) with ease (thanks pulseaudio)

Use only the amount of CPU power I need, and have my stuff be top priority, rather than picking up the dregs when Windows indexing and updates and other services have a little bit of CPU to spare.

I can actually use my computer on Linux!

unlink

Specifically the operation of removing a file from a path without requiring the file to be unused. Open references to the file can still exist by processes.

FYI you can use LibreOffice with a ribbon-like toolbar or better yet experimental contextual groups.

I can use my computer without it installing software I don't want (like when Windows installs candy crush) and without it advertising to me.

Sanely use multiple workspaces.

If by adobe you just mean photoshop, that works fine on linux, or you can get the version of GIMP with the photoshop menus. Wider adobe, that's a vm.

MS Word, I reckon Libre's fine but YMMV, there's office 365 anyway.

Games as noted are mostly there.

Many torrented apps : If you mean the *arrs etc, they go fine, better even (more contained, safer) in docker

Android apps: We've had Waydroid for a while now.

Hopefully that puts the FOMO to rest...

In a nutshell:

• Have (real) user control.

Find my hosts file without googling where it is.

Pass-through hardware in Docker.

1. sudo dd if=never_gonna_give_you_up.mp3 of=/dev/sda

2. Say "It's a UNIX system! I know this."

3. Make your capslock LED blink along with network activity using a built-in kernel driver

4. Fix bugs yourself

2. MS word (yeah, I don't like Libre and most of Libre Suit) it's not as good as MS suite, of c, but it's really bad.

Have you tried onlyoffice? Its interface is closer to ms office and an online version can even be self hosted and integrated with nextcloud or seefile.

It has apps for Linux and Android

https://www.onlyoffice.com/

Edit:

Here is the link to the standalone desktop app (not the online version): https://www.onlyoffice.com/desktop.aspx

And here is the link to the supported OSes for the desktop app (incl download links): https://www.onlyoffice.com/download-desktop.aspx

Finally, here is the link to the github repo of the desktop app: https://github.com/ONLYOFFICE/DesktopEditors

Possibly dumb question, but... can Windows pipe things? Like, can I pipe a grep to a text file, or send stdout to a text? Or, like, tee a command onto the end of a config? I don't use this a lot in Linux, but I have never done in Windows and literally don't know if it can be.

Not update if I don’t want to

Desktop customization; I am using KDE Plasma, and I have two panels: one on the right, which has a "task manager", and the top panel which has an app-launcher, pager, clock, cpu load, and the system tray. I don't know if you can even have two panels in Windows.

Modularity: Switch whatever component with whatever you see fit. You can switch out the desktop environment you're using, switch out the sound server, the init system, the bootloader, etc.

You can update flatpaks using a bash script, you can even make a command to update system packages and flatpaks, by just adding alias update="sudo pacman -Syu && flatpak update" to your ~/.bashrc file.

Compiz Fusion wiggly windows/cube