Ha, I started with Slackware around the same time (downloaded over 2 days to about 10 floppies).
When I got bored of fixing stuff I moved to Ubuntu. It pretty much just works now except when I break it (which is often). Point being I could just install and run with zero issues.
yes it's not as bad as it used to be, but installing ubuntu on any random laptop (i.e. not one bought specifically because it's known to be well supported by linux) is still a crapshoot of at least something minor not working 100% (like a touch screen or some other "weird" feature).
It is rarely something truly fundamental but it happened just often enough for me not to want to bother and just pay 2x for a MacBook Pro every 5 years (a trivial expense for a well-compensated software developer).
When I got bored of fixing stuff I moved to Ubuntu. It pretty much just works now except when I break it (which is often). Point being I could just install and run with zero issues.