Starting doesn't need to be more difficult than:

  .PHONY: all

  all:
       cc -o progname -std=c99 -pedantic -Wall -Wextra -Wpedantic -O0 *.c

Or something along those lines. Move some stuff to variables (CC, CFLAGS, etc.) for release. Can use object files for larger programs (but often isn't needed, certainly not when starting out).

I do agree that the general experience of Rust is a lot better. But I also think a lot of C projects have overcomplicated build systems that aren't really needed.