I've never "debloated" Windows so idk about the top half.

The bottom half is accurate. Debian, Fedora, and Mint are easier to install than Windows 10 or 11. Not that Windows is difficult, it's just a bit clunky and idiosyncratic.

I assume Microsoft doesn't care much about the installer since it's generally only used by OEMs, whereas for Linux distros it's a first impression so it has to be polished.

Windows 11 without a Microsoft-Account = terminal required. Linux Mint = terminal not required.

would love to see some actual market research on this. sit down a sample of users, have them install then use some OSs. interview them on their experience. rather than yknow making up data

This sub is delusional

Why do all my homies use Linux Mint while I use Ubuntu?

Biased as fuck lol. Installing windows is not difficult. I did it first time at the age of 8 witn WIndows 98 and their newer installers are made so the general public can do it. And the bloat and spyware? Thats windows dude. Its not meant to be your OS, its meant to spy on your ass at the benefit of being familiar and (relative) easy to use. Anything you do to it post clean install is your own tinkering. Linux distros are great yall, but install difficulty is not a metric I would use to attack windows. Comparing between distros makes sense.

brother, 99% of users will never even consider installing their own os. the issue isn't that Linux is hard to install, the issue is that pretty much anyone brave enough to even mess with their operating system is either already on Linux, a boomer, or trapped by professional software that isn't available on Linux (that's me, a videographer)

the only way Linux is breaking out of extreme obscurity is if it starts coming pre-installed on commercially available and desirable hardware. the steam deck did more for Linux in a single product launch than the entire decade of combined efforts before that. before the deck i would have said it was simply never going to happen, but who knows. maybe it'll be up to eccentric billionaires that never went public with their companies to push the Linux future we all want.

I love Debian, but it's installer is shit.

Install windows, run debloat powershell script. Done.

Microsoft give no shortage of things to complain about without needing to exaggerate.

you guys have to read the instructions for Arch?

I mean I touch on them sometimes to see what has been replaced or changed because linux moves pretty fast but the steps are not complicated or hard to remember.

I installed windows 11. It was a shit show. So many updates with a 6gb iso. Took forever.

Um... My grandma installed Windows 11 on her computer and then ran a simple script I gave her after. You guys are delusional.

Installing gentoo

If you are good with a slightly more complicated install process and don't need access to Windows tools (like Outlook, Teams, Word, PowerPoint, etc), you can run Linux on bare metal to access the full potential of your hardware without any overhead from virtualization or emulation.

-microsoft

difficulity

The difficulity of spelling difficulity is very difficulit.

Hobbyist here, in my opinion reading the manual or the wiki is easy, understanding it quickly is not. You can obvioulsy follow the instructions blindly and still succeed.

For the most part is very comprehensive but sometimes you are left alone to connect the dots which is very daunting when instructions get technical and you do not understand them.

In the end it felt like one of those half semester courses Universities try to cram in.

I set up a kiosk on a Linux Mint machine today. From blank, unformatted drive to fully deployed kiosk, it took less time than just installing a base install of win11.

Windows requires pressing next 12 times, what are you people smoking and can I haz?

Mac users:

LTSC is pretty easy to install. But it's still Windows.