Yeah, JACK / ALSA / PulseAudio is probably the harder thing to straighten out, and if you are using the computer in normal usage as well switching back and forth is a perpetual head-ache filled with edge cases and incompatibilities.

A turn-key audio-only OS like what KXStudio 14.04 was truly perfect for pro audio, since it had Ardour + 100s of plug-ins and tools all pre-installed and configured.