I've tried Debian, arch and several flavors of Ubuntu (like #!). The quirks aren't in the OS, they're in the shitty drivers, which are common to all linux based oses. Just because you don't personally see an issue doesn't mean others don't. The inconsistency across hardware is a large reason apple forces people to use their OS only on approved hardware.
Re:Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak
by morganvachon on Sunday January 04, 2015 @12:39AM
(#8833509)
Ironically, Ubuntu was the only distro that didn't present audio stuttering for me out of the box. I usually run Slackware and it was present there, which led me to research it until I found a fix. I chalked it up to Ubuntu staying on the bleeding edge even with their LTS releases, along with having the largest user base by far (more users = more people with this bug = more incentive to fix it).
Either way, it was an easy fix for Slackware and the other half dozen distros I've tried on this machine, and I've found generally that Slackware is the best fit for someone who doesn't mind getting their hands dirty occasionally, in exchange for stability and lack of dependency issues.
I've been on archlinux, on testing, for christ sake, and it's been at least a year since I had an issue of any kind.
Debian was also fine by me, but the software was too old on stable; I did have installation issues with it, however, on other peoples laptops.