Technology

That's security through obscurity. It's not that Linux has better security, only that its already tiny desktop market share around 2003 was even smaller because of different variations.

no, its absolutely not. its choosing software components based on known security vulns or limiting exposure to a suite of suspected or established attack vectors. its absolutely not security through obscurity. these are fundamental choices made every day by engineers and sysadmins everywhere as part of the normal design, implementation and maintenance process. there is nothing "obscure" about selecting for certain attributes and against others. this is how its done.

perhaps you disagree with this.

That's again blaming the Microsoft user for not understanding computers but not blaming the Linux user for running as root.

? its not the users job to understand OS security. to expect otherwise is unrealistic. also, virtually no "average" linux user, then or now, ran/runs as root. the "root X" issue related to related to requiring XWindows to run with and maintain root privs., not the user interacting with X running as root. it was much more common in the XP era to find XP users running as administrator than a "Linux user ~~for~~ running as root" because of deep, baked-in design choices made by microsoft for windows XP that were, at a fundamental level, incompatable with a secure system - microsofts poor response to their own tech debt broke everything "NT" about XP... which is exactly the point I am trying to make. I am not sure your statement has any actual relation to what I said.