Freedom respecting operating systems have been painless for most machines for at least a decade at this point, for that long anyone could have installed an easy distro and just used it normally. The problem now with getting people to switch is that they expect zero adjustment period, when they could just get used to something new that still functions 95% the same as Windows on the user’s side.
I don’t know how rare it is, but it hasn’t really been painless on laptops from my experience. I’ve had to deal with trying to find the right kernel parameters to stop my laptop from freezing, to having an incredibly high default scroll speed which I’ve still haven’t figured out how to change, to having to ask the orange alien place to figure out why my Internet card was not working. It may just seem like a hassle to some people, but I believe for most, it’s enough of a hassle to just give up and go back to Windows.
