Dual monitors have got much easier over the last 3 or 4 years, at least on ATI. No clue about nVidia. .. and Intel graphics have always been rock solid on Linux.
Before I got my 30" screen, I had 3x 19" spread over 3 different ATI cards. It worked like a charm once I allowed Ubuntu to auto-install the ATI proprietary drivers.
> I had some problem with an intel chipset that kept crashing a laptop in 2005. I tried debian and suse varieties with no luck.
Ugh .. That sucks.. Not sure that would have had a (reasonable) workaround :)
> but I can't do things like VPN into my job because the software needs windows or mac.
Another, that sucks. I've had no problems with OpenVPN, Cisco IPSec, Cisco AnyConnect, Juniper NetworkConnect and probably a few others on Linux.. But I'm sure there's still hundreds of pieces of VPN software that don't have linux versions (or re-implementations)
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Sadly - 99.9% (plucked from thin air) of Linux issues are due to proprietary software/drivers/etc. Of these, a good majority are easily replaceable with cross platform solutions. Pity :(
Things like setting up dual monitors used to be such a major pain (for me) or hardware support like for a bluetooth dongle.
I had some problem with an intel chipset that kept crashing a laptop in 2005. I tried debian and suse varieties with no luck.
I have a newer laptop with #! that works well now but I can't do things like VPN into my job because the software needs windows or mac. Basically this laptop collects dust unless I want to do use linux specific software which is rare.