My experience flipping through the bug reports for ubuntu is that hardware isn't 90% solved it is more like 70% solved(the scary part is that each release tends to move that 70% coverage around a bit.) Both windows' and Apple's hardware support is poor as well but they fixed it by non-technical means(control of the hardware distribution channel.) Which is a perfectly viable channel for Linux, and seems to be working well for them(System 76 and Dell's Ubuntu boxes.) However as an OS that is primarily distributed after the fact, it would be nice to see user friendly hardware configuration.