I think this depends on the specific flavour of Linux. For instance, Linux + i3wm yields a desktop environment where everything -- including seemingly braindead

I think this depends on the specific flavour of Linux. For instance, Linux + i3wm yields a desktop environment where everything -- including seemingly braindead functions like volume control -- needs to be configured by hand on a command line. Other combinations might be more extensively configured by default but even then it's not hard to find something broken.