Yep, it really just comes down to complete luck that there are drivers in the kernel for your hardware. As another example, my Lenovo Legion sucks at running Linux out of the box. The webcam is terrible, it never suspends correctly, outputting to a monitor is incredibly painful. Meanwhile my wife’s thinkpad runs popos perfectly. Even the touchscreen works.
ive been through this process recently and sadly, what you are looking for doesnt exist at the moment. thr closest thing is Kodi and as you already know, has a lot of flaws.