Thanks Keef. Yes, you could have fixed the video card problem in Linux: it's not that difficult. (Probably a bit more so than in Windows though.) Most up-to-date distros
fix such issues quite readily though.
As for Ubuntu. Kubuntu, or whatever they call it, is Ubuntu with the KDE GUI environment as opposed to Ubuntu which uses the Gnome GUI. It's merely a matter of choice with nothing different under the hood, mostly.