Welcome freedom seeker! The amount of trouble has to do with the hardware you
have. However there are easy and well functioning while still free options
available.
* http://shop.gluglug.org.uk/
free operating system + free bios
* http://trisquel.info/sites/countclick.php?url=http://libre.thinkpenguin.com
free operating system
Some people choose to live with their flaky hardware also. Also it is
sometimes possible to make things like suspend work with some tinkering
https://trisquel.info/en/wiki/troubleshooting-suspendhibernate
