1 and 3) Most of those problems look like they step from your laptop not having very good software drivers for Linux. What brand is it? Some laptop manufacturers like Lenovo put effort into making sure their products can be used under Linux, but other brands don't. Also, even if a laptop is new enough the drivers for it might not have made it into the distribution you're using yet. In the end, you expect Windows to Just Work on your laptop because Windows is installed by the laptop manufacturer. If you buy a laptop with Linux preinstalled you won't have any of these issues.

2) As for Photoshop, you can run it under Linux but it does take a bit of effort. http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&...