To add to this: I just installed Fedora 21 on a Thinkpad T430. No additional configuration was required - I dropped in my wireless password using the GUI, and I'm good to go. Plugged in an external monitor, and it "just worked." No network, trackpad, sound, or special key (sound/etc) drivers required - it "just worked."
Desktop Linux has come far from where it used to be just 5 years ago.
It's an endless battle with different peripherals – you are never going to support every obscure device with community backing, when none of the developers have even heard of your gadget, much less owned it.
When you have simpler needs, like me – you want to run Linux software on a desktop computer that's comprised of well-known, widely used and well-supported hardware, desktop Linux with Fedora Core “just worked” over twelve years ago. (NVIDIA's proprietary drivers never came and never will come by default, but I considered that less a requirement when you had to install them yourself on Windows XP, too. The drivers were already back then top notch.) I wasn't that good with computers back then, and my biggest gripe, by far, were the fonts that didn't look like the pixelated fonts I'd grown used to with Windows'.
Desktop Linux has come far from where it used to be just 5 years ago.