Been away for a while

I haven't done much in Linux for a while. I decided that I needed to learn Dreamweaver and I also wanted to learn a 3D program. I am not saying that you cannot be productive in Linux but I ran into multiple circumstances that made it to hadr to run the software I needed.
The problems were just to hard to over come so I am using Windows most of the time. I still tried to use Linux when I was traveling and using wifi, Windows is just to scary to use in those circumstances.
Dreamweaver MX 2004 would not work in Codeweavers. I could not load Win4Lin because Netraverse must have decided that they were not going to put to much effort into supporting their old version in hopes that people will upgrade to the new version. I am kind of pissed, this was not cheap software and now it does not work in most new Linux flavors, at least with out a lot of work. I was hooked on Vmware for a while and I still like it but it is just to slow for everyday use.
I have been traveling a lot so I did not get very far with Dreamweaver or the 3D software. I tried Blender, the learning curve is steep and I played with it for a while and decided to move on. I am considering K3D, Realsoft and Maya.
I have gotten the Linux itch in the last several weeks and I have tried loading some new just released flavors of Linux on my redhead stepchild laptop, it is a HP ZE1250. It does not get along with a lot version of Linux. I saw on a web search that there is defective driver for the via hard drive controller. It is so weird because every other kernel release will work. I am able to get Linspire installed but I keep getting DCOP errors and the desktop stops responding. I had Suse 10 installed and working but I thought I would try something newer, I also wanted a Debian distro because of all the programs that I can install with Apt. The end result; no luck. My parameters were that it had to install without any hassle and it had to work with my DLink wireless card. Ubuntu, Kubuntu installed but locked when I tried to boot into it. I could not get my wifi card to work in Suse 10.1. PCLinux OS locked during install. I tried Morphix, but it appears that they haven't updated the kernel and KDE in a while so it did not work with my wifi card.
I still do not have a working version of Linux on the laptop that I have at home. I am not sure what I am going to do, probably stick to Windows. Windows really irritates me, I spent an entire hour last night and another hour tonight trying to load DLink drivers for my wifi cards because I had to swap them between my laptops. The drivers had been loaded on the laptops and Windows should hang onto those drivers and plug and play the drivers when the card is plugged in. Nothing will work the same in Windows twice. I rebooted, I uninstalled drivers, I reinstalled drives, I tried to manually install drivers and nothing worked. I finally reinstalled and it worked. Linux may not have the driver for every card but at least when you plug a card in that is supported it works.
I did load Kubuntu on the laptop I use when I travel, just so I have a safe way to access the internet on the road. I really like it, although there are some problems. When I boot I will do a disk check on my windows partition, very time consuming. The wifi manger is funky, twice it would not find the hotspot that I new it was there. The difference between Kubuntu and Windows, I don't have to pay $350 for my copy of Kubuntu.