I am not going to defend the Linux Desktop as there are many legitimate reasons to criticize it ( though the laptop I use the most does run Manjaro ). I must say though that suggesting the average Linux user has to compile their sound card drivers is pretty out of touch with even remotely recent Linux offerings. At this point, Linux is far more likely to support your hardware out of the box than either MacOS or Windows—-especially for older hardware. I am far more likely to be hunting around the web for Windows drivers or even totally unable to install Windows on my hardware than I am to have to do any hardware configuration at all on Linux. And I have considered putting Linux on a old iMac because Apple no longer supports the latest OS on it and this has started to become a compatibility hassle. In many ways, Linux requires less futzing around than the competition.

One area where I am dramatically wrong about this is with regards to high performance video drivers though that is improving. Even there though, a distro like Manjaro will likely work perfectly out of the box. To get performance a gamer wants might require a fair bit more knowledge but that said gamers tend to spend quite a bit of time managing and tuning things even on Windows.