Does it take longer? It almost always just works for me. I tell my package manager to install the package I want and then it's taken care of, and updates are automatically managed. There's no hunting around different websites for the installer and then going to the website to update every time the application launcher detects an update when it runs, which is the opposite of when I want to update it.

I don't know what issues you're facing, so I can't comment on it directly. I've installed three different distributions withing the past 1.5 years, all which use different package mangers. Each one was faster than settings things up in Windows. The difference is my Windows install I installed a ton of things over time, most of which I wanted immediately when swapping. I don't know how long it took in total for Windows, but I promise it was significantly longer.

Also the distro I'm using now, Garuda, has a tool to install a bunch of common applications that runs at start. You just tick the ones you want and it handles the rest. A lot of distros have something similar, which is really fast.