I recently got a laptop because I needed mobility in and outside my home. So, I bought a Dell laptop with Ubuntu pre-installed after years of using Windows. I was very excited.
My enthusiasm deteriorated very quickly upon discovering that the wireless did not work out of the box which immediately negated the main reason for my purchase.
I am someone who writes code for a living (and for fun) and I found the experience disappointing and frustrating. Imagine how your average non-technical consumer would feel.
Similar situation here. Try using the latest modwifi drivers , the drivers in the 9.04 distro did not work for me. (sorry I forgot how I did that, but the info was easy to find).
No, it probably won't "work" out of the box, meaning that it requires configuration. With a fresh install, typically the first thing I do is plug in an ethernet cable, download all available updates (including wifi drivers and other software if needed) and then configure the wifi. I did this when I bought a netbook preinstalled with Linux, but I might not have needed to install anything, I probably just didn't find the "switch" at first.
"""if you read through the comments you'll find out that he's not alone in this sentiment."""
I suggest one would have to willfully ignore massive amounts of evidence over the past many, many years if you really thought he was alone with this sentiment and were genuinely surprised to see someone feels this way.
It's an interesting issue and it's sad to see that desktop Linux has so much trouble providing a stable user experience.