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.