I've had many of the same issues over the years, but it has progressively gotten better. Now have Ubuntu Maverick on my Dell Studio XPS and it runs like a dream. Video, camera, networking, sound, hotkeys, suspend/resume ran since first boot, and I didn't have to do anything. Printing surprised me too. When I went in to work one day I was printing after two or three clicks in the control panel. It was never that easy in Windows XP, tho maybe 7 is better. And keeping up to date is 10x easier than windows of course.
I did have a problem with Video crashing occasionally on first install but a subsequent kernel update fixed all that.
My tip for Ubuntu users (at least) is, don't upgrade to the newest release, stay back one. And if you do upgrade, wait a full month for the most egregious bugs to get fixed. I'll start looking at Natty when finished with my current project.
I've had many of the same issues over the years, but it has progressively gotten better. Now have Ubuntu Maverick on my Dell Studio XPS and it runs like a dream. Video, camera, networking, sound, hotkeys, suspend/resume ran since first boot, and I didn't have to do anything. Printing surprised me too. When I went in to work one day I was printing after two or three clicks in the control panel. It was never that easy in Windows XP, tho maybe 7 is better. And keeping up to date is 10x easier than windows of course.
I did have a problem with Video crashing occasionally on first install but a subsequent kernel update fixed all that.
My tip for Ubuntu users (at least) is, don't upgrade to the newest release, stay back one. And if you do upgrade, wait a full month for the most egregious bugs to get fixed. I'll start looking at Natty when finished with my current project.