I have from time-to-time at this place said that I have found Linux ultimately to be simpler and more logical than Windows. And I'm very good at Windows.

I ran into an example of this recently.

The other day, I considered installing XAMPP on my Windows computer. I already have an instance of my website running locally on my Debian box under XAMPP, but my Windows 7 computer, which was a gift, has a huge screen and I'm trying to trouble-shoot a problem with my blog. I figured the increased screen real estate would make shooting the trouble easier.

I have installed XAMPP on Linux many times.

Download the software, extract it following the instructions from the website, run the lampp security script, bing bang boom.

When I looked at the instructions for installing XAMPP for Windows, I decided, "What an ordeal. I don't have the time for this."

Someone who thinks Windows is easy is someone who has used only Windows.

Though I advise my Windows-running friends to use XAMPP, I never thought of making use of it under Linux.
I'm for installing the A-M-P in LAMP separately, and having complete control over it, not just in terms of installation, but also in concept understanding .
When you build it by hand, you understand it better, no?

I have built it by hand.

That's why I appreciate the ease of XAMPP when I need to do some testing in a pinch.

Indeed, when you want to test something very fast.
However I always find myself going back to creating a some-httpd.conf entry, as tests sometimes become big, and you need production-style platform.
My take is: better sharpen your axe for 5 out of 7 time-units, and allow your test to grow in the future, than to confine yourself from the start.

I'm definitely NOT advocating one method over the other: it's about taste, we can't argue about that. I just feel manual is the way to go, when doing development.

And for the record, I just LOVE your thread title, because I agree 100%: Linux is WAY easier than Windows...

A phrase as general as "Linux is easier than Windows" or vice versa is too general to produce a useful argument. You can't make such a comparison without more details about the user's situation, what the user is trying to do.

I apologize if I wasn't clear. I thought I had specified XAMPP as the issue at hand in my subject line.

I admit, I've never installed XAMPP on any platform, but I'm not understanding where the complexity is at.

From the link you attached, assuming you already downloaded the software:
As opposed to:
Is your gripe with the fact that the Windows installation instructions have at least 3 different ways to install the product while the Linux installation has 1? I don't think that's a fault with Windows, the good folks at the XAMPP project are just trying to give you as many options as possible (on Windows, they could've gone crazy with their instructions for Linux, too, if they wanted to) and it looks like they've done a good job with documentation.

Or... are you seriously complaining about the fact that to start it you have to click a few more buttons in Windows (since you might have to start the database, web service, etc, separately by navigating to a GUI interface) as opposed to typing in one command to get them all started at once??

Am I missing something?

Getting it on the HDD is not the issue. Using it is.

Go here: http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-windows.html

Read the Section entitled A Matter of Security. I will not run XAMPP without security set, even if it does not face the net.

It is clickity clickity clickity click quite cumbersome when contrasted with running a simple little script.

And no, I don't blame Apache Friends. They have to write for the audience they have and create tools that will be familiar to that audience. In Windows, it is a clickity click audience.

No, I did not say it was difficult. I said that setting it up on Linux is easier. And it is. On Linux, it is two commands and no control panels.