I just can't agree and I'm a big Linux fan.
A bit of a backstory, I started running Ubuntu when Vista was out because I hated Vista it just so fucking much. I ended up running Ubuntu for around a year or so until 7 came out, and had favorable reviews.
You say you don't have to worry about Windows updates under Linux, but in my experience you get updates just as much or more frequently than Windows will force them down your throat. Yes, sometimes you have to reboot as well.
As much as I loved Ubuntu, they totally fucked it up with Unity. There are many other distros but I've seriously never ran Linux without issues. It might be display driver issues for my video card, or it might be backlighting on my ASUS lappy keyboard. The older your system is the better it will run out of the box on Linux (unless it's probably more than 10 years old then good luck.)
At the end of the day I kept having to keep a dual boot so that I could fire up Photoshop or play games or whatever. The last time I tried to go to Linux I fired up Mint and had hella display issues because of drivers due to a newish video card.
So I wouldn't totally give it a ringing endorsement unless you want to put the time in because it's going to take quite a bit more time to figure shit out than it does Windows.
I keep thinking though, that hell, it has to be within 5 years of being really main stream but they do need to step their hardware game up a bit.
There seems to be a Windows port for pretty much anything Linux related so I wouldn't sweat it too much.
My laptop is a 2012 model and I have no hardware issues whatsoever. I have put in the considerable time it takes to really understand linux at it's core. I run FreeBSD, Gentoo, Slackware, and working on Linux From Scratch all in virtual box. Anytime I have a problem that I can't fix, which is rare because I rarely have problems... I can always go to IRC and get the answer in 10 seconds.
Although I think Gentoo is a bit pointless with all the compiling, and Slackware is really gay with the lack of real package/dependency management.
As far as playing games, I have had a video game addiction and one of the main reasons I switched to Linux was an experiment to test my theory of "quitting a habit by making it hard to do" and yep I haven't played a single video game since. The only 'game' I play now is Chess really, but I'm terrible.
I agree though, without a little Linux savvy it can be frustrating as hell. A friend of mine saw me using Linux and wanted to try it on his laptop. We tried 4 different distros and on every single one, one of his main hardware pieces either wasn't detected or didn't have the right module, 3/4 times it was the wireless card which was lulzy. It was actually a 'simple fix' of blacklisting all 5/6 of the modules it was trying to load so only the right one loaded but if you don't know how to do that it is a nightmare.
I'm overall very very very pleased with my system, and in Arch Linux there are not updates being thrown down your throat which is pretty nice. I think having a package manager alone is enough to compel most people to not go back to Windows.
https://www.archlinux.org/
Computing is a blast again and no longer just drudgery of surfing Youtube and GayWebmasterPorn. Using Linux goes hand in hand with the server stuff that I have to do and it helped immensely. I would recommend Linux to someone looking to make computing / learning fun again. Gives you a lot of new things to learn and tinker with.
I'm by no means a guru though, hell, I spent a freaking hour staring at this simple css thing trying to learn css/html lol.
http://www.wickedfire.com/shooting-shit/167599-css-teamtreehouse-question.html
. I bought the full version too haha... Currently running safely on Win 7. I'll have to try sooner or later.
