Just a note: Windows software for controlling hardware is highly likely to assume a)direct access to the hardware (sometimes mediated thorough ancient APIs and assuming the existence of defunct expansion slots) and b) assume meatspace time can be counted using OS timing ticks (which get stretched out as modern VMs timeshare with other processes underneath the virtulized hardware). It is awfully tough to replace them sometimes.

Stick with Windows. Microft will deliver paradigm shifts and you will have no say in the matter. They are already removing options for disabling Copilot, and for all the promised backward compatibility they are letting go of features that lots of old Windows software depended on, as they introduce features similar to ones in Linux. I cannot really fault them for all of these changes, but the difference is actually one of choice and privacy, and not really the one you seem to think it is.