This is far, far from the truth, based on my current experiences trying Linux from an OS X/Windows world. Other things you lose: sane GUIs and desktop environment, quality font rendering (both Mac and Windows do it better), reasonable design sensibilities out of the box, stability, just general freedom from constant frustration.
I'm working on a post about my experiences that will provide more details about my experiences (and for what it's worth, I have not given up on Linux yet), but if you're used to OS X or even Windows, switching to Linux is not an easy trade off. I'm trying to remove the angry from the post so that it can be more constructive, which is proving to be difficult :).
There are two things I like to do with a powerful computer:
1) Play high end performance sensitive games like Battlefield 3. Apple gets crushed in gaming performance.
2) Write code. The slower my computer is, the less productive I am.
I spend 99% of my time in the command line, IDE, and in the web browser.
Look, you are talking to someone who is a big fan of OS/X (but HATED non-Unix Apple OS). OS/X was the Unix I always wanted. But Apple simply is not competitive at the bleeding edge of computing power, they are making devices for consumers, overpriced devices. I care about buying the most amount of computing power I can for a given $. I like getting under the hood of my hardware. With the generic PC, I can build my own systems to spec, I can tune it the way I want.
I'm not saying that this is for everyone, but if you are someone who owned a Mac Pro, a Retina MacBook is not a replacement when other desktops with far more power for the $ are available, and the Retina screen is mostly irrelevant when people with Mac Pros typically had giant monitors attached.
I'm not saying the Retina MacBook is not a good laptop, in fact, it is a great, if not the best laptop. But I don't believe in desktop replacements. Portability trades off power due to weight, size, battery, and heat constraints. People with highend desktops usually don't want to make those tradeoffs, in fact, they typically make the opposite ones: 1000W power supplies, liquid cooling, ultra heavy heatsinks, etc.
I do the same things as you with my computers, except with the addition that I am very picky about aesthetics and usability. The reason I wanted to use Linux was because I wanted to use my powerful gaming system as a development machine, and didn't want to go the hackintosh route, but my experience seems to indicated that it's going to take a lot of work to bring the Linux install to an acceptable standard.
That depends on your distro. You can also install the infinality patches (which are being merged into stock freetype2), and the result is better font rendering than OS X or Windows.
Are there particular distros you could recommend that have better font rendering compared to Ubuntu?
It was, but the author has made several tweaks. There are numerous tweaks you can make, but 3 of the settings are OS X, Windows, and Infinality.
The Infinality settings are fairly different and in my opinion (and a lot of other linux users opinion's) it looks significantly better than either Windows or OS X.
As far as distros there are several that tweak the font rendering Ubuntu being the most obvious, but if you're a typography guy I'd just go with Infinality it's defiantly worth it.
a) Apple has been neglecting updating the Mac Pro line (I've been waiting) b) Because of a) you can now buy a much much better Linux or Windows box
I merely object to the idea that laptops can replace workstations, they can only do that for some people, and although the Retina MacBook is probably the best laptop ever made, it does not suit someone who wants a liquid cooled factory overclocked 4.2Ghz i7 with a GeForce 690 GTX and a RAID.
4.1 Ghz 4 cores. 16Gb 1600Mhz memory Dual 1.5 GB Nvidia 660's 1TB SATA. If you want to spend $75 more you can get a 1TB RAID0 SSD/HD hybrid.
Of course, if you're willing to spend about $4000, you can build a Linux PC that will smoke any Mac product by a 2:1 margin in performance. This is coming from a Mac Pro user, Apple's neglect of this line has disappointed me. When I bought my 2005 Mac pro, it was the best quad-core system you could buy from a cost/performance. Now high-end rigs are ridiculously overpriced.
The only thing you lose with a high end Linux PC is the Retina display and portability, but I do most of my coding at my desk, and I'll take a 30" non-Retina display any day of the week until someone can ship a 30" Retina display. I prize actual number of readable windows I can cram onto the screen over minor improvements in e-Book reading.
Honestly, I'd buy two machines. The cheapest MacBook Air for moving about (or just use an iPad), but a Linux Desktop for real work.