A lot has changed in the last 15 years. Unless you're doing something crazy (like trying to play sound, haha jk that's a throwback joke to the old days), there's nothing you need to tinker with these days (though of course it's there if you change your mind). Fedora, Ubuntu, and some others are very stable and "just works".

I've done 3 new computer builds in the previous 6 months.

Both Linux installs were an 'it just works experience'.

The windows box has been a total pain in the ass and I've had to reinstall multiple times.

Linux is a better out of the box experience than Windows.

That wasn't my experience ~11 months ago

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32891879

A year or two ago, I remember HiDPI still being a hassle.

Yeah fair HiDPI is still a bit of a hassle. Not hard, but not out of the box either.

Excepting 4k, which is fine out of the box. the pain comes in if you need fractional scaling.