Nearly any distro will work for your needs except for gaming, you need to be aware that windows games will not work in other operating systems. There are some software layer libraries like wine, crossover games, etc.. which will allow some games to be played, but as it is noon-native there will be bugs and some programs just won't work.

As a starter you shoud checkout linux mint or ubuntu as they are user friendly and have large software repos, you can also test them from a CD to test the interface. When running any OS from a disk the experience will be slow because all data must be cached into ram, so they speed will differ on disk compared to being on the HDD.

As for relaibility, stability and security those are the best reason to try linux, the large community or developers and active contributors help to ensure that most bugs are discovered and resolved quickly.

I am hoping that your problem is with signal interference as it would show itself differently in linux than in windows because some manufacturer supplied drivers are instructed to ignore some types of errors. However, if the problem started with a kernel update then it may be a sign of a regression in the drivers for your wifi card to which I highly recommend plugging the device into the wired network and reporting the problem to ubuntu so see that they say since they also have kernel engineers and can work on a solution.

I found some references to someone testing gang scheduling in 2011, but not recommending it for mainline inclusion, so I do not know if it has been added yet.

I also found a page at https://computing.llnl.gov/linux/slurm/gang_scheduling.html which explain how to implement it using the SLURM utility.

I am surprised that mint dooes not ship the b43 drivers by default it that distro does not appear to be friendly for offline use. But I did find a tutorial for you to try at http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/692

Unfortunately this site does not have many kernel developers. I highly recommend joining the mailing list at http://kernelnewbies.org/ . They have many knowledgeable members who can help point you in the right direction.

wow that is a rant that is hard to follow. I am trying my best so please correct me if I missed a question.

It sounds like you want installed applications to leave a desktop icon to run them, that is a windows behavior that generally annoys most people so it is not a default action by any window manger. The windows icon are just shortcuts an similarly you can make shortcuts to apps or custom .desktop files to launch the apps with custom options. If you can tell me which window manager or Linux variant you are using then we can attempt to guide you.

As for clicking on a file and choosing install, the reason it is not working it because you need to be the root or admin user to install software and most linux variants block logging in as the root user. You might want to check the right clikc options to see if an open with option exists and based upon your chosen variant there may be an option like open with yun or open with synaptic package manager.