Just to follow this up, maybe I was taken the wrong way, I'm not trying to be arrogant, I'm just surprised that things worked o.k. in my situation... sorry no offense intended.

No need for sorry. We understand.

Most of us really do have problems few, and far between. It's because we want others to have the same experience, that we spend so much time here, helping others.
One of the biggest problems encountered with any Linux OS is new hardware support; not because of any deficiency in Linux, but lack of proper drivers from the hardware manufacturers. Windows always gets up to date drivers as the hardware comes to market. Linux gets drivers when the manufacturers get around to it. A lot of Linux drivers are open source because of this, reverse engineered by the various Linux developers. This does take time, and would be much easier if the manufacturers would just give the developers the proper specs for their hardware. That not being the case, in most instances, we usually recommend people buy hardware already known to have proper manufacturer support, and most of us do that ourselves. Hardware problems are most apparent where the user has already purchased the hardware, complete with a Windows installation, then decides to try Linux, and finds that the hardware is not yet supported in Linux; it's just too new.
Overall, Linux supports more hardware, out of the box, than any other OS, and supports it for a much longer period of time. That's why you will see so many threads with people trying to get the newest Linux versions running on the oldest hardware they can dig up, and most of the time actually doing so. It's a fun game for some of us.
