I disagree. I recently installed Linux Mint 16 (with Cinnamon as the DE) on my laptop and the experience was basically hiccup free:

- Install was smooth (since I was installing on a separate drive, no fiddling with manual partitioning etc.)

- Everything that a typical user wants worked post install without any extra steps - Music/Videos/Wifi connectivity/Internet/Hibernate/Suspend etc. all worked

I didn't have to launch the terminal for any of the above.