[citation][nom]jezus53[/nom]Lol, that documentation you speak of is not at all helpful. The problem with linux is that if I install it on my laptop I lose nearly all of the functionality it has except for basic functions. Everything else like hot keys, the wifi card, touchpad drivers, ect. I need to dig around and find since each laptop is different. I would only use linux on a desktop because you don't have all of that to deal with. To be fair, I did put ubuntu on my laptop and it was able to get most of the basic functionality installed, but the wifi card, which I had to setup on my own. It's just too much of a hassle to be honest. It because a cost vs. benefit thing and since I can get win7 copies for free why would I even bother? And no, not through pirating.[/citation]
I've installed Linux on quite a few laptops, and have never had a driver-related touchpad issue. The only issue I've ever had is that GUI for touchpad settings didn't allow for both two-finger and side scrolling at the same time, which was easily corrected via terminal.
Wireless drivers are a pain, but it's a fairly uncommon issue, and one that is easily fixed if you have an ethernet connection. The last one I used was a Dell Inspiron 1150, and even the Dell sight had shody drivers that weren't easily identifiable. I put in one command, and the wireless was working. Driver issues are exponentially worse on Windows, especially without a direct internet connection. I did have an oddball issue with screen backlight on two laptops, both were fixed by a single boot parameter. I'd call more of a BIOS issue over a Linux issue though. For the most part, they will install without issue, though some of the lesser known issues can be found with solutions after digging through forums. Linux Mint works perfectly on my old gaming laptop (Intel Wireless), and Acer Netbook (Broadcom/Astheros). No additional drivers needed, no additional software needed for normal operation. As for hotkeys, you didn't even try. It's right in the keyboard settings. Ubuntu/Mint already works with the most common hotkeys, without any additional configuration, such as volume control, media, wifi on/off, sleep, etc. You can also configure various custom shortcuts, such as launching applications, run commands (I did one to rotate the screen to use netbook as e-book reader), and more.
With Linux Mint/Ubuntu, it takes me an hour, 2 tops if I have an oddball issue that I have dig around for, to set up. Windows can potentially take upwards of 6 hours between all the driver hunting, updates, software installs (Anti virus, media codecs, archiving/extracting tools, web browser that isn't IE, etc), downloading of said software/drivers/updates (have 6Mb connection), service managment, and all the fraking reboots. About the only real set up I have to do with Mint is add the TRIM option to my fstab file if I'm using a SSD and install proprietary GPU drivers, though it will work perfectly fine without them. It updates and installs media codecs during the install process.