My issue isn't so much that you have to do things to make it work, but that it
looks like you don't.
It's right there in the settings, options for selecting target platform, yes the logical assumption is that by selecting that it should just work, there's no greyed out options, no warnings, no links to documentation, etc, nothing to tell you it won't work without extra setup.
Just look at fpcupdeluxe, wonderful piece of software, but what it does should be done by the installer on the website, either completely automatically or by checking boxes, which solves the issue of even knowing you're supposed to do something to make it work.
Database drivers, same thing, there are a variety of connection options, some which require external drivers and some that don't, but the GUI doesn't tell you that, or where to get drivers.
Compare to Java, skipping the cross platform bit because of the whole bytecode thing, using Maven you can just specify what driver you want and it's downloaded for you.
With FPC/Laz, I have to go hunt them down online, and no I can't just go download them off of the official website because they don't all carry older versions, which are common in Enterprise shops.
I went to write a small REST API that talks to a MySQL database for doing fairly simple work, very common work in Enterprise development, after spending most of a day just looking for drivers I had to give up and went with my usual stack, which comes with MySQL drivers from the start, so I could just start solving the problem.
As for actually cross developing.. After installing on a mac, the first thing anyone will notice is that the debugger doesn't work, gotta go turn that off, again not something someone new to the tools would expect.
GUI has no info, links or otherwise for info about useful things like $(ProjOutDir), $(TargetOS), and whatnot.
At least the Compilation and Linking has explanations and details for the options.
If you use threads in your application, you have to add -dUseCThreads to your Custom options, not that the GUI does it for you or even tells you, no you have to start randomly searching the forums to learn that's what you have to do.
My point is that the barrier to entry is very high for writing real applications in real dev shops.
When looking for a new toolset or language, FPC/Laz comes out at the bottom when comparing against Java, Python, PHP, CFML, etc. due to all the issues I explained above.
The website installer should link to the fpcupdeluxe, which should have simple/advanced mode.
There's a ton of things you don't know that you don't know when trying to start using Lazarus.
Lovely little things like it's hard to even find an example of a select * example on the wiki, most examples are for inserts and updates, not how to actually read the data (Other than how to hook it up to a table) but just about nothing for how to loop and access rows.
but in reality requires you to do other setups to actually make it work, like cross compiling, like talking to database, etc., but that's a rant for another day
That's required by all real compilers for a platform that's not native!!! And all database flavors....That makes your remarks extremely silly. It shows you are not a pro. And amateurs usually don't need it.
Just make sure your capabilities are OK. That means study. As simple as that...