Well, you're using the wrong distributions then. Use something stodgy but solid like stable Debian or a recent but not bleeding edge version of Mint and you should not have all too many things on your shit list. It won't be empty - printing will still trip you up every now and then, just like it does everywhere else to give an example - but it will mostly ' just work' unless you're trying to install it on truly exotic (as in "released this week") hardware. The overall facepalm experience will be comparable to that on Mac OS, better than that on Windows. Add to that the fact that it is free in every sense of the word as well as the glaring and welcome absence of draconic "features" like the one discussed in this thread and those Linux distributions will start to look very tempting.