I was ready to install Linux. I installed a new 1TB ssd in my laptop. I shrunk the windows volume using Windows' Disk Management.
Then I started reading the Arch wiki on this task. It forced me to learn things like MBR vs GPT. Then it said Windows by default makes an EFI partition way too small so I have to re-create a new partition by temporarily mounting EFI, saving the files, deleting the EFI partition, and recreating a new one.
This seems like a horribly complex task and I can envision about a million unwritten things that can go wrong that the answer would be "well duh, that's obvious if you had any experience with linux disk partitioning. I myself bricked a dozen PCs."
Deleting the EFI partition, if it goes wrong, by definition my system would be bricked until I could figure things out.
Also, everything must be typed into terminal exactly with no error and one chance. (If the typo causes the command to error, phew. if the typo causes something else to happen, beware)
How does someone browse this forum and get to the point of installing Arch without intimately understanding that Arch is infamously, abnormally difficult to install? Proving GPs point perhaps
If you had tried Ubuntu, KDE Neon, CachyOS, ElementsryOS, or really any other distro, this would not have been your experience.
Arch is a Manual experience designed for power users. It is not a good choice for even your average Linux user, let alone a first time Windows convert dipping their toes.
This is the issue though, Windows obscures the natural complexity of many things and picks defaults that serve to lock you into the ecosystem. You have expectations about how easy certain things should be that you are unwilling to let go of, and you dismiss the things that other systems make easy as irrelevant.
If Windows had never hidden the natural complexity of EFI, or chosen sane defaults, your experience would be better. It is absolutely insane to blame that on Arch.
After leaving that comment I had a moment of doubt that maybe I had gone too far, but no, you've reassured me. The windows user wants to stink up a power user distro to make it a fisher-price toy. Disgusting.
Then I started reading the Arch wiki on this task. It forced me to learn things like MBR vs GPT. Then it said Windows by default makes an EFI partition way too small so I have to re-create a new partition by temporarily mounting EFI, saving the files, deleting the EFI partition, and recreating a new one.
This seems like a horribly complex task and I can envision about a million unwritten things that can go wrong that the answer would be "well duh, that's obvious if you had any experience with linux disk partitioning. I myself bricked a dozen PCs."
Deleting the EFI partition, if it goes wrong, by definition my system would be bricked until I could figure things out.
Also, everything must be typed into terminal exactly with no error and one chance. (If the typo causes the command to error, phew. if the typo causes something else to happen, beware)
So yes, I have a lack of taste.