General :: Acer Aspire 7741z-5731 With Kubuntu/Ubuntu/and Mint KDE?

I recently acquired an Acer Aspire 7741Z-5731. I've tried to install Kubuntu and Ubuntu 10.10 - both give me problems with video and sound. I have researched this without finding a definitive answer that works. On the video issue - both Kubuntu and Ubuntu boot and work fine on the the USB Drive. When installed however - both just boot to a black screen prompt. Neither address the soundcard that came with the Acer - both show "dummy output" under the gui interface for changing sound settings.

On Linux Mint KDE - installs fine - just not able to get sound - same as above - only "dummy output" is available in the gui. I've tried reading the Ubuntu and Kubuntu posts at their forums. The problem is that when I start messing around in terminal - I don't get the same results that the posts indicate. I do know that ALSA is not installed by default in any one of the three distros I'm working with. I tried installing it from the terminal per the instructions I found on several linux forums - no luck however.

Why am I having such a problem getting Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and Linux Mint to load "out of the box" so to speak on a somewhat standard laptop? OpenSuse worked flawlessly - I just don't like it as much as the Ubuntu derrivatives. I suspect that Debian may also work "out of the box" without issues. I am even considering Mandriva. As a newbie to linux, I find it extremely frustrating that I cant just install the software and have it work without having to do a bunch of stuff in a terminal window that I either don't fully understand, or that doesn't produce the expected results. Is this what a new user can anticipate when they opt to try and learn linux - a bunch of command line hooo - ya ? Anyone have any suggestions on how to get any of these to load on my Acer Aspire 7741Z-5731? It really should not be this difficult or frustrating to get a distro that is touted as "the most popular" to install and work right off the USB or CD/DVD install. It is seemingly easy to understand why Linux has not yet become a windows or mac killer. There should be a website for linux that can determine what drivers you need and automatically install them so for the user so that the command line can be ignored by the new user.