2) Installing the OEM drivers is usually not a major hurdle, but yes, you are correct about that. However, it's still a long way to the constant glitch-fixing under Linux world.

3) Under Windows the brightness changes one step at time. Under Linux it can incorrectly change two or three steps per keypress.

I always get these excuses.

"It's the distro you're using."
"You can only blame yourself for choosing wrong hardware."
"Those drivers are known to be crap under Linux."

Just make it work!

I don't want to have to find the optimal combination where the stars are aligned. If Linux actually was good, the situation would simply be: "Use any hardware and software you want. Works great."

1) My point is not whether HD 6000 is supported or not. The point is that there will occasionally be unsupported hardware and the mode of failure should not be corrupted graphics.

2) I accept your counterargument. It's true that the amount of tweaking depends on the distro.

3) Some laptops have only about 10 levels of brightness and that amount is halved (or some times even divided into three), which results to 5 levels of brightness. It's too coarse. There are some workarounds to decrease the steps which work with varying degree, but the general problem is that the backlight adjustment event is handled by multiple listeners. This mess should absolutely be sorted out.

I'd like to interject for a moment. Sadly, the desktop is still extremely glitchy. Let me show some examples.

1) Notebookcheck a new Intel NUC. Intel HD Graphics 6000 was missing Linux support at the moment of writing. That's not the end of the world, but how does Linux Mint report about it? Nope, you don't get an informative "device not supported" message, nor does X.org fall back to a VESA mode. Instead you get corrupted graphics! Nice failure mode there. Just look at the screenshot in the article. Does that look professional to you?

2) When you install Linux, various manual hacks are needed to correct all sorts of little glitches here and there. Read the installation report of this guy. Does that seem familiar?

3) Laptop brightness adjustment still goes in multiple steps! I can't believe this bug is still around. The same issue is in Ubuntu in Mint and affects most laptops. Bug #527157. Just try pressing the brightness keys of your laptop under Linux and you see what I mean. An everyday feature like this should Just Work without me having to even think about it.

Conclusion: I need an desktop operating system that is more deterministic in behavior. I want robust and predictable user experience. This is not rock solid at all.

That's not any different to Windows box. You generally don't need Administrator privileges to do things.

Then why do universities bother teaching courses in specific topics like mathematics, computer science, and whatnot? Surely there is still some intent to actually increase the student's domain knowledge in these areas?

One can self-teach himself or take a MOOC here and there, but does that create a person with a well-rounded rich engineering base?

What is interesting is how alcohol is often seen as part of "college life" but that's exactly the period of your life when you shouldn't be drinking much at all to be able to think clearly.