My experience was 100% different. I bought a new laptop, plugged in my Linux USB drive, wiped Windows, installed Linux, and did exactly none of the things you went through.
And that’s largely down to two things:
The fact that I bought a laptop specifically known to have excellent Linux support.
The fact that I’m a software developer.
So everything I want to do on a computer tends to work better in Linux than in Windows, rather than the other way around. My compile times are faster, my IDEs are more stable, and my OS just… gets out of the way, which is exactly what it should do.
Mind if I ask what programs and services you were trying and failing to run on Linux? You’ve got me curious, because our experiences are so different.