This is the only way to do it. The kernel devs or distros can't possibly support every hardware combination and BIOS bug for each hardware manufacturer. For W

This is the only way to do it. The kernel devs or distros can't possibly support every hardware combination and BIOS bug for each hardware manufacturer. For Windows the hardware manufactures have a reason to make the drivers bug free, its where they make most of their money, and Microsoft has the capacity to help them get it fixed if needed. This doesn't exist for Linux unfortunately, unless you buy a laptop where Linux is fully supported (and you use the supported distro and kernel version most likely). I have to say the main culprit for issues is usually power saving. I assume that's because ACPI is often badly implemented and power saving requires a lot of separate components to function together, to specification. Likely one doesn't, and the laptop comes out of sleep with the touchpad not working, or something worse.