Having used RedHat since 4.2, I can understand where this idea that Linux is hard to install has come from.
But having recently upgraded to RedHat 8.0, I'm surprised that people are still saying it.
My machine has an IDE hard drive and CDROM, an nVidia video card, a Hauppage WinTV card, an old BusLogic SCSI card with an external Yamaha CDR and a cheap SoundBlaster PCI sound card.
The standard install detected all of my hardware. In order to use my video card's advanced capabilities, I had to install two RPMs (rpm -ivh nvidia*) and edit two lines in a config file.
I've recently installed WinXP on a client's desktop. It was a much more tedious process than a RedHat 8.0 install.
That's easy for you and easy for me, but most users wouldn't have a clue as to how to do such a thing. I anticipate that within 2 years RedHat and the other major Linux installations will be easier to configure than Microsoft and that Microsoft will be adopting Linux solutions to their own problems. We've already seen that tact taken with the .NET programming languages which, if used correctly, can eliminate DLL Hell caused by COM registry issues. IMHO, COM was designed by a demon.
It certainly is easy. I use Mandrake and in less than a half hour you have your internet set up, your printer going, your video running and what you do not get in windows - you have hundreds of programs ready to run with just a click. All that in less than a half hour and you do not have to worry about viruses.