I get your point about the friend, I was quite the zealot myself, and I have known a few others too - they were so obnoxious that I was turned off of Linux for quite a few years.

When I say that everything I need works well, I do mean it, but the "I need" part does a lot of work. I don't need the fingerprint scanner, or the built-in sound card, or the bundleware that comes with the rgb gaming mouse.