This is ridiculous. The reason that things "didn't just work" in this case is surely that the OS was fiddled with to the extent that the kernel was recompiled more than once every 3 weeks.
It is hardly valid to compare that to a bog standard release of an OS.
If you are reading this and for some reason have not tried Linux, this experience is not remotely representative.
The laptop I am typing this on (Thinkpad, Ubuntu) - sleep works, audio works, camera works, wifi just works, 3g JUST WORKS, printers just work - better than in Windows, DisplayPort just works, USB devices just work - and I have been running and upgrading the OS for several years.