Why bother emulating running Linux (and badly at that) when you can run native Linux? Try something like PopOS... If you don't game its great.
Because many people want to get their work done, instead of playing around with the desktop environment, dotfiles, package managers or diagnosing / googling why their distro upgrade failed or why an app isn't working with Wayland, inconsistent global keyboard shortcuts and trackpad issues on laptops or whatever.
It's trillions of hoops for Desktop Linux to get to the consistency and equivalent working state of macOS just to get work done and many users view Linux Desktop as a piece of work in itself to get to the equivalent full supported state of Windows, hence why they emulate a Linux Desktop instead with WSL, rather than migrating files, clean installing, downloading poor app replacements and dual booting a Linux desktop.
Little to no-one has the time to try out the tons of distros or even migrate all their files and clean install for something that works less than macOS, or Windows.
Of course it is, nobody should be making MacOS with free software. To get to the equivalent working state of MacOS, we'd have to remove the package manager, add a first-party app store, add in OSCP surveillance/telemetry, remove OpenGL/Vulkan support, remove 32-bit libraries, axe the Nvidia drivers and close all contributions to the kernel. That will always be impossible, it's by design.
As if anyone told you all of that was the hard requirement for just a consistent Linux desktop.
It's an evergreen unsolvable problem for the Linux desktop ecosystem (not servers) to even point to and get behind a sane Linux distro that offers a similar integrated and consistent desktop environment to Windows and macOS whilst being free and open source which developers can simply just reference and build against and just use, rather than reverting to the closed source alternatives, because of the many Linux desktop issues.
> That will always be impossible, it's by design.
Yeah. Alternatives of alternative system contraptions with multiple combinations of bugs and hunting them up and down the Linux Desktop stack is great design! /s.
Proving my point and admitting the failure of the Linux Desktop and how 'terrible' it is and why even the majority of developers here also admitted that they don't even recommend using it as their daily driver for a dev environment.
I guess your denial is that (even when the OP asked here) the majority of developers are using either Windows, and macOS instead of a Linux Desktop to get their work done as I have repeatedly explained.
> It's perfectly fine for development, and you've done nothing to refute the idea that Linux is a great platform for developers.
Except that wasn't the OP's question. They are talking about the host platform to develop ON and not the TARGET. Even when asked, the respondents say otherwise; even when the intended target is Linux.
> If you're going to keep moving the goalpost (remember: OP wanted something developer-friendly, not user-friendly) then we're not going to be able to engage in legitimate discussion.
There is no goalpost being moved. The OP gave a simple question on which host platform to develop ON and more respondents commented about their desktops or laptops running Windows with (WSL2) or a typical macOS setup. Since you already admitted that 'the Linux Desktop is terrible' and given the responses in this post, it is clear that it already has disqualified itself as a suitable host platform to develop on.
Furthermore, proving my evergreen point for the Linux Desktop:
If they cannot use the desktop then it is pointless to recommend it as a 'developer-friendly environment' or even begin clean installing it just for a worse desktop experience for the developer, which for GUI desktop apps, there are little to no users to target compared to the likes of macOS and Windows.
And Optimus seems to be bothersome with requiring constant restarts and hassle.