Except that, at least on all the machines (laptop and desktop) that I've run Windows installs on in the last 5+ years, Windows *never* has the ethernet driver needed. Either I luckily squirreled the driver away on a separate partition, or I have to use a different computer to download it via sneakernet. That's only an option because I have multiple computers around.
On the other hand, every linux distro I've tinkered with in the last decade or so has always been able to talk to my ethernet devices (WiFi is a different story -.-)
And install speed is largely just a function of your HDD speed, for both linux and windows.