I confess that I can never find anything on Linux (and adding something to a menu seems impressively tortuous) – I can usually dig through my memory midden to remember where something is on Windows, but yes, just changing screen size seems a nightmare, settings are splattered all over the place. On a Mac I just bang cmd-space and start typing which seems to the way it ought to work (and if you want to add something to the dock, just drag it there).
With Linux there is no One True Way™, after booting my laptop and logging in, you are presented with a completely black screen. As an experiment, I once got a friend who was paid a high 5 figures as a linux sys admin and challenged them to open a terminal on my system. I gave him 15 minutes. He couldn't work it out.
I've been using the same window mangler since early this millennium, and so the short cuts are all just muscle memory. I know it's bloody obscure, they didn't call it evilwm for no reason. But because I know how to use it, it's incredibly efficient for screen real estate, and I can get a lot more on my screen than many, meaning I can get away with a smaller screen than most.
In your example, add something to a menu? On my laptop, what menu?
J