This is more or less the opposite of my experience which has seen Linux installs get so easy that I can guide my 84yo mother over the "phone" (Nextcloud Talk bu

This is more or less the opposite of my experience which has seen Linux installs get so easy that I can guide my 84yo mother over the "phone" (Nextcloud Talk but you get the idea) through one where installing Windows on the same hardware is (if not impossible) a lot harder due to the need to get hold of and install vendor drivers. The same goes for installing applications where sudo apt install name_of_application is far easier that find installable on web, make sure it does not come with a bunch of spy/malware, run installer, answer inane questions to be left with yet another auto-updating program built in a toolkit which looks radically different from all the other ones on the system. Is the Linux experience perfect? Certainly not, there can be hiccups - try guiding someone on the other side of a phone line through connecting one of those Dell USB3 docks which needs that Synaptic-provided DisplayPort driver - but compared to Windows it is a breath of fresh air. Since Linux in general only serves one master - you - where Windows has to serve at least two - Microsoft first, you may come in second but it is quite possible for some other vendors to push themselves in front of that queue - this is hardly surprising.