but even as a relatively technical person, it was a massive pain sometimes.

I'm glad to hear this... I've been writing code and using Linux on servers since Red Hat (pre-fedora) had "Redneck" as a language option... But so often I get told, "Oh, you must be a technical newbie, because real techies can handle recompiling the kernel in order to get everything to work..." ( rolling eyes ) There is a world of difference between a headless server, and wanting to use an OS for your primary direct interaction. :)