Quoting "Toby Corkindale" <toby.corkindale@strategicdata.com.au>:
Most people I know who aren't serious techies just have laptops. I have gone through quite a lot of laptops too. NONE of them have managed to work out-of-the-box properly with Linux. Usual suspects are the wifi or suspend not working, but if it's not that, it's something else like sound or accelerated video.
Most of the people seem to be surprisingly content with the fact that their (Windows) system just crashed and needs a fresh install. Viruses are "normal", and if performance sucks, a re-install may help too. Well, with Linux I avoided that since 1993. And Windows 8 may even get an app store;-) Here in the company every Windows computer wants separate updates for MS (OS+Office), Firefox, Adobe Flash, Adobe Reader, Java.. compare that with the central Update Manager. With MS I just get other annoyances but it is not really "just working" as you suggest. I have to defend myself regularly against "Can you help me to rescue my Windows?" (standard answer: "I do not use daily it since early 90ies so I don't know how it works";-) Regards Peter