[ploxiln]

Unbootable within days? As in, you install a linux distro and it can boot, you switch between using it and using windows for a few days, and then after a few days linux can't boot? That's very strange; I've never seen that in over a decade of using various linux distros and dual-booting. My guess is that some "security" related mechanism in the firmware or windows is checking on and reverting the uefi boot setup somehow.

Since virtually no one buys a laptop designed for linux, but rather hopes that linux has adapted (with all the driver "quirks" necessary) for that hardware, it's really just that linux gives you the tools and the freedom to figure things out and set them up how you want. It can't do it for you. Sometimes it's just an impractical amount of work. But depending on what you do, it's often worth it.

[eloff]

On OpenSuse it was a software install that went bad. The much vaunted snapshot feature didn't work out of the box! It actually could not boot snapshots in that nice little grub menu. I had to reinstall after spending hours trying to rollback to a snapshot.

On Ubuntu it updated the kernel, which made it unbootable. I could still boot the old kernel, but after taking out a ticket and being asked to upgrade my BIOS, that became unbootable as well.

On Debian it was just too much work to get to a point where it supported the real resolution of my displays and my multi-monitor setup. I eventually just threw in the towel and went and installed Ubuntu in a VM, which at least got me up and running quickly.

I'm leaving out a variety of colorful failure stories, but the bottom line is very little worked out of the box, it was insanely time consuming and difficult to get things into a decent state, and then it didn't stay in that state for long.