I'm speaking from 1997-1999. TUI was still the way to install Slack/RH. X11 manual conf editing was still the way to configure X.
HW support was still garbage.
HW support was still garbage.
People had good experiences,l running Linux. What's true is that you could not just shop for hardware, especially new model hardware without first checking that it would work.
All the HW support was done by reverse-engineering volunteer coders.
Garbage is not really a word that fits.
And yes, while video cards certainly did work, often they were restricted to non-accelerated modes. Hence, "hardware support was garbage".
If we're gate keeping because the drivers were developed by volunteers, please keep me out of the gate.
You speak as if I have zero experience of Linux back in the dark ages. Please don't do that. I was there. I configured these things. It was not "easy" relative to other contemporary operating systems. And I enjoyed it!