I don't find it to be that way at all. I've used Debian as my daily driver for almost 10 years and I spend maybe... 30 minutes per year dealing with setup and configuration and stuff?
Much less than I needed to back when I mainly used Windows.
Sure, there's a learning curve. But Windows has a learning curve too, you just already climbed that hill.
Judging from the rest of the thread, they were referring to setup and configuration. For the most part, I consider this to be one of the strengths of Linux.
On the other hand, the operating system is the means rather than the end to most people. If a person is transitioning from Windows to Linux, they will probably have a substantial number of new programs to learn in the process. That is going to factor into most people's impressions of the operating system as a whole.
Much less than I needed to back when I mainly used Windows.
Sure, there's a learning curve. But Windows has a learning curve too, you just already climbed that hill.