I’m not sure I understand how your analogy fits. There’s no heavy lifting involved. 🙂 Everything works and it’s ready-made – otherwise people wouldn’t use it at all. There are also lots of distros specifically tailored to audio and studio work. Naturally, there’s some things to learn but you also had to learn things when you got into audio and presumably you keep up with the industry so there isn’t a big difference.
Check out /r/linuxaudio, lots of resources in the sidebar and very helpful community.
otherwise people wouldn't use it at all
Exactly my point, that’s just not true. There’s always some people who will use the worse tool instead of switching to the better tool (out of principle mostly), it doesn’t mean the tool is great or as good as the alternative, it just means the person doesn’t mind making their life harder than it needs to be.
Just like there were people insisting on doing graphical work on Windows back when Apple was miles ahead in that field or some places run Windows Server instead of using Linux and so on.
Heck, you’re talking about using specific distros for music stuff… If you’re going to dual boot or have a specific OS just for that, why not use the OS that has the better tools that are the industry standard?
There are tools that work on any OS. Audio processing has been developing at an even pace on all main OS (Windows, Mac, Linux). At this point it’s a matter of what flow works best for you. Windows itself is not an industry standard by any means. The OS matters very little in general beyond being able to give you real time processing and low latency. Windows could not even do low latency before 10.
Pro tools (the real studio standard): Windows, Mac
Logic: Mac
Live: Windows, Mac
Nuendo: Windows, Mac
Sound Forge: Windows, Mac
Acid Pro: Windows
Reaper: Windows, Mac… Linux!
Can you now install Mac OS on any hardware? They have the best tools for audio work, right? I can just choose that tool and install it on my… Oh wait! I can’t do that.
Do you not understand the argument you’re arguing?
Hackintosh, but Pro Tools is what’s used by the actual industry (so if you want to be serious about it you better learn to use it) and it’s on both Windows and Mac.