Linux has become absolutely amazing, have you tried the last Ubuntu?
You can plug in a USB drive or a printer into your computer, and your computer notices it without requiring you to build and install new kernel modules. In the case of a USB drive, it also auto-mounts it. And with printers, they went one step further, and made it that most applications can send documents to it.
They did so much work that now, for computers that include an accelerated video card, they default to using acceleration for the display.