There’s a decent amount of mister kit sites that sell a complete set up. As far as having to know Linux I’m not sure it’s any more than you would for transferring roms to a sd card. Another thing mister has going for it is you can buy these preassembled “kits” today. Every time I get my eyes set on an Analogue system they sell out immediately and go onto eBay for much higher prices. Misteraddons today I can buy a complete set up (with a sd card pre-flashed) for ~$550.
I would be 100% all about analogue if I could buy a system. That being said maybe it’s just because I am interested in NES/SNES so those are the higher demand systems. I have a Mister but actually play more on my modded NES.
Like you said different products for different folks but I don’t think the barrier to entry for mister is very high anymore.
I was walking home at maybe 11 pm on a spring night in Cambridge MA probably 2013-ish - along Broadway down in Kendall square where it meets Ames street. I saw a man in his late fifties maybe early sixties in a business suit run across the street when the light was green. He fell in the middle of the road near the side I was on (this has two lanes each way or did at that time) and stood up right as two cars sped by him on either side. Neither car slowed at all like they saw him and he got to the sidewalk where I was standing. I had stopped and I was maybe five feet from him and asked “hey are you ok?!?” He looked at me and then just took off running down a walking path that continues to cross between blocks.
It was the oddest thing, like other people were walking on the sidewalk and should have seen this guy almost get killed but it was like I was the only one who saw this.