Sarge: Well. I understand you completely.
I have owned a computer of one type or another since the Atari....LOL, and,
I figure an operating system is supposed to be just that.
Of course many people look at it differently, and fail to see the forest for the trees.

I am also looking for a Linux that is plug and play.
of course as above, it may be fun to play with the machine....and sure some people
get so involved with the vehicle that they forget that it's a way to get from one place to the next....and that is the real purpose.
So....I don't know if Linux is for either of us....LOL
but I do keep attempting, so maybe one of these days we will find what we are looking for.....relax and enjoy what you can while you can.

I am curious, what gave you issues with linux, and when did you last try it? I recommend Fedora, but mint is the next best thing. Linux at it's base is not user friendly, but it's more for us geeks. You are welcome to try it, but learn about something well before you try to do it for real. GUIS like GNOME and KDE have made it much easier to use, and is now a square competitor for windows and mac as of 2001, if you ask me. I have been using linux for some time now, and I have seen many an OS release. GNOME is the best for me, KDE 4 has FAR too many bugs, and plasma still crashes for no apparent reason once in a while. I hope your heart condition improves, Ben.