> No, I don't want to dork around with spending days compiling kernel patches and installing soundcard drivers before I can use the computer.
You are badly misrepresenting the current state of mainstream Linux distributions. I've done probably 20 Linux installs, and by and large it always just works. If there is some necessary proprietary driver, it's almost always as simple as Menu --> Administration --> Driver Manager and then clicking once or twice.
Kernel patches? I wouldn't know how the hell to do that, but somehow I've been using Linux happily for a decade.
You are badly misrepresenting the current state of mainstream Linux distributions. I've done probably 20 Linux installs, and by and large it always just works. If there is some necessary proprietary driver, it's almost always as simple as Menu --> Administration --> Driver Manager and then clicking once or twice.
Kernel patches? I wouldn't know how the hell to do that, but somehow I've been using Linux happily for a decade.