The great Linux Switch

While I am far from a genius, I consider myself to be an intelligent guy. (Yes, I know that I'm so humble.) Despite this, my attempts to use Linux have made me feel like a complete idiot.
Most of my posts have related in one way or another to my second job as a Constable. I've devoted very few words to the job where I spend the vast majority of my time, as a QA Engineer for a software company. There, I write and run complex tests on a variety of proprietary client-server systems my company produces. I manage our build processes, I write code to do automated tests, and I write a fair number of complex scripts. Most of all, I enjoy finding a bug and tracking it down to a specific peice of code. Its very much like detective work on a different level.
I find these things interesting, challenging, and intellectually stimulating. However, I fear that the average joe could care less about these things & would rather read about adventures (or the lack thereof).
That being said, I do know a fair amount about computers. I build them, I fix them for freinds, I have become the family tech support guy. I can close my eyes and walk my step-mother through a system restore, I can help my wife diagnose problems in my home wireless network, I can help my son build his web pages.
I do have a glaring hole in my computer knowledge, and that lies with Linux.
I am constantly bombarded with advertisements, articles, rants, and raves proclaiming how easy it is to make the switch to Linux from Windows. Most of my Linux experience has been administering servers through a command line interface, so I am an utter novice when it comes to the desktop environments, but I wanted to see how easy it is for myself.
I began this experiment by installing Fedora Core 4 on a spare hard drive for my laptop. After the better part of three days of upgrades, installing packages, and other sundry tasks, I still had a laptop that I could not even play a simple MP3 on. Further research tells me that Red Hat purposely leaves out support for many things I take for granted due to their devotion to open License Agreements. Thats noble, but doesn't do me a damn bit of good. When I ask questions from the "Robust Open Source Community", I'm told that I should quit being lazy and RTFM. I'm glad that they were so helpful. I pulled the tray containing the Fedora hard drive out, slid my Windows hard drive back in, and didn't think much about it for the next six months.
A half year later, I started reading about Ubuntu. It is supposed to be very user freindly, even to the point of being "Linux for Dummies". I ordered a CD and installed it on the formerly Fedora hard drive.
This is getting to be quite a long post, so I'll hit the highlights:
- no sound card support.
- crazy mouse pointers traced to a bug with my particular laptop and a PS/2 mouse.
- unable to update, even after following 3 different sets of instructions.
While the Ubuntu was much easier for many of the tasks I tried, there is no way that I can recommend it to people I know. It still just has too many shortcomings.
Maybe I'll pull the old hard drive back out in six months...