I am often using RPi4 with Raspberry Linux (64bit) which apparently is based on Debian, and the experience doesn't really differ from using e.g. Linux Mint XFCE on my x86 laptop. At least I don't get any feel, as an end user, that the Raspberry Linux OS would be "special need", besides of course running on an ARM CPU device instead of an Intel/AMD CPU, but as an end-user I don't see the difference. I use the same or similar applications on both, install them the same way etc.

Using that logic, Windows has "branches that are special need stuff too", like Windows 11 ARM that runs on the new Snapdragon X Elite laptops. Does that pose some problem to Windows users, too many choices of Windows branches or something?

Is that really a thing? Most distros offer several different default desktop environments to use, like Linux Mint offers Cinnamon, XFCE or MATE by default, and I presume you can use other desktop environments too if you want, just replace it later.

I personally tend to use XFCE because I like its simplicity and small memory footprint (since I tend to run Linux (Mint) also on older PCs that might e.g. have less memory, and generally I don't see the point of wasting precious RAM to something stupid like how the GUI looks and animates); someone else might like to use e.g. Cinnamon, MATE or some other because reasons, maybe they feel XFCE is too plain and not colorful enough, I don't know nor care.

I generally am otherwise pretty agnostic about GUIs ("desktop environments" in Linux). As long as it doesn't get too much on my way and lets me run my programs, ok then. I used e.g. GNOME on Rocky Linux 9 before, partly because it was the default option and partly because I wanted to test something new. It sure felt different from Gnome, how the desktop works (e.g. you can't put shortcut icons on the desktop, different philosophy there clearly), but I got accustomed to it after awhile, doing things a bit differently than in XFCE. I've heard GNOME resembles a bit how e.g. Apple Mac does things, not sure as I've never used Macs but apparently Mac users like their design decisions, even if they resemble GNOME.

The reason I didn't like GNOME that much in the end were technical, ie. it was unable or poor at changing the scaling of the desktop, for instance if I wanted to change the scale from 100% to 125% to make everything a bit bigger for my weary eyes on that small laptop screen. Apparently it was something that GNOME didn't handle well at least back then, while e.g. XFCE seemed to achieve it better. So it was good then I wasn't really forced to use GNOME then, if I found quirks I didn't like.

Now, when it comes to Windows 10/11 GUIs... I think they actually are still quite bad, messy with they split-brain design where some options are behind the classic "Control Panel" while others are in the newer format; some options are both (but the more advanced stuff tends to be behind the classic Control Panel items). That is just obnoxious and confusing design, feels like some kind of interim solution until Microsoft can finalize their design towards the new user interface. I was a bit surprised actually that Windows 11 appeared to be just as messy in this department, as Windows 10, not sure if there was any advancement in that department?

That messy split-brain Windows 10/11 GUI actually does get in my way from time to time, but I've learned to cope with it. If there was an optional supported GUI that was cleaner, I would probably use it instead.

The only positive thing I can say about Windwows 10/11 GUI is that it isn't as bad as Windows 8/8.1 GUIs. which really were abhorrent. WTF was MS thinking there, other than trying to push all PC users to MS touchscreen devices? I didn't want to try to even cope with 8/8.1 GUI atl all, but stayed in Windows 7 until Windows 10 finally fixed Windows 8/8.1 poor designs, for the most part.

I still miss many things from Windows 7 GUI, like subdirectories in the Start Menu, Why did MS have to get rid of those? E.g. I recall in Windows 7 all my GOG games would get installed under a common GOG.com subfolder within the Start Menu, which was nice. In Windows 8 and later, not anymore. I just have to cope with that unwanted feature now because Microsoft forces it to me.

Or, in Windows 10 all the 7-zip context menus were easily available behind a single right mouse click. In Windows 11, not anymore, now they are hidden behind "More options" or something like that, which slows down my 7-zip operations with needed extra clicks. Another GUI change that I hate, but Microsoft forces me to use. (Maybe there is a way to change this behavior, but at least it isn't obvious.)

If there was a different official Windows 11 GUI available that changed that, I would rather use it instead.

Quite often, seeing how wildly different e.g. Windows 7, 8, 8.1, 10 and 11 are to each other, in various ways. And the main problem is that MS doesn't really give us a choice, if we don't like some of the changes.

Also you forget that even Home and Pro versions tend to be different in some ways, like if you want to use the Policy Editor. That is why the "Windows 10/11 Powerscript security hardening"-instructions I linked earlier had separate instructions for Home and Pro versions, where in Home you had to download and install a separate tool to edit the policies.

Unsupported by MS, which means you don't know for sure if they will complicate or even be unable to use them anymore with some future Windows feature update.

These third-party utilities which change the Windows GUI can always be a bit problematic in the long run. I used to use TeraCopy at least in Windows 7 as it offerent some good features like checksum tests for the copied files, but in the end I uninstalled it and stopped using it because its changes to context menus got broken somehow, I don't recall exactly but some problems came in the long run and I thought it was better to stop using it for now. Especially as it wouldn't naturally get any updates either when I ran Windows update (that may have been what broke it in the long run, I would have had to remember to update it separately from time to time).

I have no idea what you are trying to say there ("GUI change", what is that, and why would it create "2 different branches" of something?), but if Windows was more like Linux, then I could at least freely choose from a few different GUI options (e.g. a classic Windows 7 GUI, which I'd probably want to use for now), and they would all be supported by MS as well, and receive updates whenever you run Windows Update.

I would see that as a welcome change, and I wouldn't have to cope with the negative GUI changes in Windows versions past 7. Or alternatively, if there was some lightweight Windows 11 GUI I could choose, I would probably use it at least on PCs which have less RAM, just like I prefer to use XFCE in Linux due to its low memory footprint and simplicity.

If you want to e.g. run some 32bit stuff in your 64bit Linux, you install the needed dependencies, not "start a new branch". Here's and old example:

https://askubuntu.com/questions/454253/how-to-run-32-bit-app-in-ubuntu-64-bit

(I don't know if the example of "running 16bit stuff in Linux" is a valid case, I am unaware of some 16bit Linux stuff Linux users would want and need to run; unless you mean e.g. MS-DOS games, for which there is DOSBox for Linux.)

I don't know why your examples seem so odd, things that don't really happen in real life?