> My personal laptop is ArchLinux and it definitely took longer to set up
I think the honest way to calculate maintenance time is to amortise setup time over the years your laptop is in active duty.
That becomes like at least five hours per year for me. My Linux installations usually live for 2-3 years, and ArchLinux typically takes 1-2 evenings to set up:
Partly because I enjoy it and want to explore if I should switch file system, login manager, terminal emulator, window manager, etc.
Partly because I want to maintain my sysadmin katas.
Partly because this step isn’t automatic, so even if I want “same as before”, some hardware is different, and installing software is still manual (I’m choosing NixOS next time).
> those who want to tinker will generally gravitate towards a platform that lets them tinker
My Linux is always in some state of disassembly. My MacBook always has working audio and video.