Well I haven’t used Windows in years, so I really can’t compare. I’ve been using different distros over the years (lately PopOS) and it’s really become much better in terms of hardware compatibility. There are some distros that are user friendly and work out of the box like that. I think linux has the reputation of being an OS for techies, so people find it intimidating. But if we look at Windows interfaces nowadays they are not as simple as e.g. Windows XP used to be.
I’ve read that they are writing parts of the kernel in Rust