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We have a load of lenovos at work that work at 100% with standard ubuntu install. I have 2 laptops at home (pretty new ones) that have Arch running with no extra fiddling after base install. In my experience things usually just work and the situation you've described is from around 5-7 years ago.

I've had awesome luck with Ubuntu. The last driver problem I had was a missing broadcom driver for my 2009 netbook using Ubuntu 10.04. Since then, I've installed Ubuntu on dozens of laptops and desktops since then with absolutely no problems.

*NOTE: I also had considerable difficulty getting the iSight and touchpad drivers to work on a 2008 MacBook, but Windows fared much worse (no wifi, touchpad, camera, audio, etc).

It's really not that bad. My experience is that 99% of features from a distro like Kubuntu or Mint work out of the box on most laptops made in the last 5 years.