What works for you won’t work for someone else. The Windows design works just fine for some and that’s okay. Not everyone is trying to be a super power user
I just checked on Pop!_OS to see what version I’m running there because I know everything works fine. harfbuzz isn’t even installed…
When I’m finished work later today I’ll have a look on Nobara for the version installed cs expected etc.
EDIT: I solved the issue.I came across a similar issue on the GitHub repo for harfbuzz and while reading the log file again I had an ah-ha moment. More details in the post.
I’ve switched from Windows 11 to Pop!_OS and don’t have any complaints. It looks different to Windows (no start menu like windows) but that wasn’t a turn off for me. If you want something that looks closer to a windows machine, Mint is a great option