This seems odd to me, I've dabbled with Linux before but I'm generally a macos guy where the os is the free bit. Charging for an os is outdated surely?
The only difference historically is that with Mac you always pay for the OS when you pay for the computer, whereas this is usually but not always the case with Windows for home users. But all software companies are realizing that subscription models effectively hold people's files to ransom and force them to pay way more than they would for a permanent licence, and Microsoft is getting in on that.
With desktop Linux improving all the time, anyone who doesn't need Windows-specific software is better off with that.
Yeah good point about the hardware. It's been well over a decade since I played with Ubuntu and a few others so the support has probably improved a lot by now.