Wireless and graphics still cause major heartburn on a lot of devices. For example, laptops with hybrid graphics (dual, switchable cards) still don't work properly after multiple versions of bumblebee/ironhide. Just last week, I spent all night trying various ways to install a wireless adapter. The adapter came with drivers for OS versions as recent as Windows8 and as old as Windows Me, but the linux version only had kernel 2.4. I got it working finally using ndiswrapper. After that I performed an upgrade to Ubuntu 12.04 and that killed it.
Ofcourse, all of the above was really just manufacturers not open sourcing or updating their drivers. But I think the linux ecosystem is direly in need of more device manufacturers taking it seriously for it to gain wider adoption. Canonical is doing a great job but we are not there yet.
Switchable graphics works flawlessly on my lenovo w500. I've never had a problem in the four years I've had the laptop. I don't know what ironhide/bumblebee is. Is it an ubuntu thing or some proprietary driver?
Its 2012, what are you doing buying hw that needs ndiswrapper?
I think switchable is something different; ironhide/bumblebee are for the newish "optimus" setups, which currently only work properly for windows AFAIK. It's quite neat: rather than switching between cards, the discrete card is used only for the windows/apps that need it, while the integrated card handles the rest of the desktop.
The ironhide/bumblebee solutions work by running another X display, and using virtualgl to draw the window from the discrete card on the main desktop -- but you have to explicitly invoke the applications that you want to run in this fashion.
bumblebee[1] etc are open source efforts to get the proprietary optimus systems working on linux. The wireless adapter I bought is an Asus Usb N10 from a popular computer store last week.
Ubuntu: 95% no problem with wifi, a couple of local hotspots have strange redirection pages that won't work properly with Ubuntu 12.04/Debian/Centos (Firefox/chrome) but which will work with Mac OS, Kindle and Win. I just avoid those.
Displays: no problem with projectors or 1080p monitor.
NVIDIa on Ubuntu 12.04 took about 10 minutes to work out twinview. You should put your method on Ubuntuforums or askubuntu. There are always threads running about AMD cards on those forums.
While external monitors with twinview work pretty well, it is a huge pain to configure. You have to open up the nvidia configuration application and set it up, not autodetection or panel applet.
More importantly I <3 pandoc!!!