Can you outline what things you were messing with? I am a long time linux user, and I haven't configured my computer on the command line in years. Everything works, so there is no need to change much. Last time was 3 years ago, when I really wanted an pipewire ahead of time, and so I spent some time installing and configuring it. That was indeed painful.
Otherwise, I fight with python on the command line, but you do that on Windows and Macos as well.
Just recently I got the urge to play dwarf fortress again. For the first time on Linux too.
Of course you need to run dwarf therapist, a 3rd party program, alongside the game to manage your dwarves. Dwarf therapist hooks into dwarf fortress to load data about your game in real time.
Of course, as I have come to normally expect, it didn't work. It could not find the active game session, despite the game running.
So you get on the linux answer machine (google) and start looking for those cryptic codes to painfully ctrl+shift+v (note: cannot have ctrl+v like every other interface on earth) and offer up to the emotionless terminal god with the hope that things work after submitting those magic characters (no response or confirmation, you just try to do the thing you want to do again to see if it worked).
This time around it was "ptrace_scope" settings. What is that? I have no fucking idea, I just want to use dwarf therapist.
So I follow those steps to make a permanent adjustment, including getting this thing called "libcap2-bin" (again, no idea what that is, could be installing a botnet for all i know). And as I have come to expect, it doesn't work.
So instead now I have to run a terminal command (i have it saved in a text file on my desktop) everytime i turn on the PC to disable ptrace so I can run dwarf therapist.
The 'funny' thing here is that you've run afoul of security restrictions, apparently dwarf therapist hooks into dwarf fortress as a debugger (=ptrace) to mess around with its interna. Why it does that is beyond me, there are better ways to achieve similar things (e.g. LD_PRELOAD).
This (hopefully) doesn't hold in the general case, but for this very specific instance the classic Windows experience of it "works first time" seems intimately tied to the fact that it is a less secure OS.
>getting this thing called "libcap2-bin" (again, no idea what that is, could be installing a botnet for all i know)
If you get it via a package manager (like apt or dnf), it's almost guaranteed to not be malware unless some nation-actor is out to get you.
Funnily enough, this is something that Windows never solved (store is garbage and incomplete, winget is powerless and incomplete) and remains a prime vector for malware after all these years, despite a bunch of bandaids that are ultimately useless.
winget seems like a minimum effort to say they have something that seems like a package manager, from what I can tell it's a big index that either hooks into the msstore, or points to a regular installer with a version number that usually runs in silent mode.
Packaging like linux has had for decades would seem like a huge uplift for windows if they could do it, especially if it could be done with modern approaches to isolation.
So... you are complaining that a software that hacks into another software on linux needs more effort to work compared to windows? I think that's a completely reasonable outcome in this case. Care to give a different one? Look, I'm completely aware of linux shortcomings and deal with them constantly, but I also think it's a far cry from how hard it used to be 15 years ago, or even 5 years ago! Maybe you are making things harder for yourself trying to run games on a "too stable" system like Debian or and old Ubuntu LTS? Usually people recommend more bleeding edge stuff for this like a Fedora or Arch based distro. There has been a bit of an upheaval in linux world lately, things are changing constantly and being on the bleeding edge isn't as bloody as it used to be. In exchange, you get better support for apps, which is the key thing lacking in linux since... forever.
Anyway, I also have my linux bullshit story of the day. I've been playing Nintendo Switch games on the Yuzu emulator for over two years now but things took an unexpected turn when Nintendo sued the Yuzu devs and took over the project, being hostile to anyone trying to fork it or even host it anywhere. If you are a windows user you can just keep using your installation and whatever "setup.exe" to keep reinstalling it because it's a stable api/abi system (until maybe windows 12 comes and breaks stuff). On a "unstable" linux distro, your yuzu installation is now constantly bit rotting away due to libraries apis and abis changing over time as the system updates. So now occasionally when I try opening yuzu and I'm greeted with... absolutely nothing (why linux DEs have such a hard time showing generic error messages when an app crash or exits ungracefully? That would be great feedback to the user, anyway, I digress).
Obviously normal/noob linux user would already be helplessly stuck, but I carry on. Running yuzu on the terminal reveals the error message, A library is missing. Running ldd on it reveals even more libraries missing. The rotting is on. I now have to run some commands to find which library pertains to which package (it's not always obvious) and find a way to get an old package containing it. Hopefully, Arch based distros have this nifty tool "dowgnrade" that lets you downgrade or download old packages. Now I have to extract all relevant libraries and put them together on some directory. I then have to run yuzu with special env vars such as LIB_PATH= LIBS= to make it load such libraries. To my demise it's not over yet, some libraries are loaded as dependencies of other libraries, which were not previously present, so ldd couldn't possibly find them. I have to repeat all steps again until all dependencies are met.
Finally, I can play some fucking Zelda. But by now I'm too tired, and it's too late. Maybe I should just have remained a Windows user 18 years ago after all. But before those intrusive toughs can complete, I think about all the bullshit people have to put up when using Windows, honestly, Linux bullshit is worth it.
Why not use the AppImage or Flatpak version of Yuzu if you want stable libraries.
I don't even remember yuzu having non AppImage releases, if you used AUR you could have just rebuilt the package instead of complaining about manually trying to find the right libraries.
A "normal user" wouldn't be using Arch Linux , building their own packages. They would just use the AppImage or the Flatpak.
I'm aware of the AppImage and Flatpak, but those vanished before I could maybe switch to them. The AUR scripts I have are broken and many of the repos they depend on vanished too. And then any attempt by anyone to revive it is met by Nintendo's iron fists, or people don't upload unofficial fixed versions because of fear.
So it sits on my machine as "legacy software" and the point of my post was to show that linux isn't very friendly with legacy software, it wants the software you have to be on a "treadmill", always updated, sourced from a repo somewhere, where someone can take care of these problems for you, where as on Windows thats less rough and usually old software just keeps on working.
Otherwise, I fight with python on the command line, but you do that on Windows and Macos as well.