This image was created by /u/[email protected] for this comment here: https://discuss.tchncs.de/comment/21735989. I had encouraged them to post it somewhere, but as far as I can tell, they never did.
Panel 1: “Installing Windows 20 years ago” screenshot of install wizard with just a couple buttons
Panel 2: “Installing Linux 20 years ago” screenshot of a busy command line
Panel 3: “Installing Windows today” screenshot of a busy command line
Panel 4: “Installing Linux today” screenshot of install wizard with just a couple buttons
AntiX is a great choice for lightweight and easy.
However, I find even the most fully-loaded out-of-the-box distros crammed with everything including the kitchen sink are still lighter to run than windows.
But if even modern AntiX is too much for some ancientware, there are weirder niches of tiny & fast, like tinycore, slitaz, puppy (or forks of puppy), deli and damnsmalllinux (old versions especially), and others for old computers
Even debian (or (better yet) devuan) could work well on wimpy hardware with a clever choice of a lightweight DE/WM, like LXDE or IceWM… (but if you opt for IceWM, you may as well stick with AntiX, where it has IceWM already well configured). Don’t have to stick with the old heavy bloaters like XFCE (not as light as promoted), GNOME, KDE, etc.