This is the experience on Arch Linux if you use intel graphics, install gnome and gdm, and then start gdm. For the open source Radeon drivers you have to speci

This is the experience on Arch Linux if you use intel graphics, install gnome and gdm, and then start gdm. For the open source Radeon drivers you have to specifically enable early kms, but I imagine that's done for you with most distributions. Really, this stuff just works if your hardware is well supported (i.e. - not nvidia).