Totally agree that was your experience. The benefit now is there is a “do you want to install systemd network manager” step which if you say yes will significantly ease your setup. My family and friends I buy used thinkpads and install arch with a windows vm and honestly nobody blinks an eye. 99% of what people do is a web browser so just throw chrome/chromium on there and make sure KDE is setup to bug a bit for updates and yer fine. I won’t go back to giving windows laptops out.