I remember in college we had access to a Unix box via these computers that remoted into it. I don’t know the technical details, but I was able to log in with my account and it was presented as a GUI on my end. We used No Machine as the client if that’s relevant. I wonder how something like that can be set up.

They could call it SIMP, for specialized image manipulation program.

Well the comparison I’d draw is not even needing to worry about that kind of thing on Windows. I went from getting about 200 to 300 Mbps on Windows without doing anything besides connecting to a network to getting 10 to 30 Mbps on Pop!_OS and Linux Mint (Before fixing this issue.)

The strength of Windows is not easy access to more settings (especially after they split the setting between the new settings app and the old control panel), it’s not needing to access most of them in the first place. That will vary between users and use cases of course. Some people moved to Linux well before the enshittificafion of Windows got really bad because it suits their needs better.

I don’t know if I agree with entirely. A good UI lets you configure your system without knowing much about it. E.g. if you want to change Ubuntu’s Wi-Fi power save setting you edit a hidden text file (I don’t remember where it is off of the top of my head.) I didn’t even know that this file existed without a helpful AskUbuntu thread and that editing it would greatly speed up my connection. If a UI option existed, I would probably have found it while poking around the network settings screen.

That’s what a good UI does: it lets you mess with your system without need for a help forum or leafing through documentation. You can look at where settings are supposed to be, find what you’re looking for, and even explore new settings that you don’t know about.