Easy or not depends vary wildly. But the usual task is
- partition the drive
- format the drive
- mount the drive
- install the base system
That is the bare minimum, but we need to do more configuration to be able to boot. Hence the next task is configuring the following
- fstab
- timezone, hostname, and networking
- boot loader (I just use the EFI directly nowadays)
That is it. Everything else is usually work specific. Like, if you wanted arch to be a server, you usually didn’t install a GUI. For workstation and gaming, you need more steps but it will vary depending on hardware. The archwiki covers a good deal of hardware from laptop to desktop and their quirks.
GPL v2 don’t, which lead to tivoization. But Linus himself didn’t agree with that standing.