You said that Ubuntu is not "flexible" anymore, but now you are running OS X and Win8? Are you kidding me? It's like moving to North Korea because of NSA's spying.
The only slow part about Ubuntu is Unity, but if you try running OS X, Ubuntu and Windows on the same-priced hardware, Ubuntu will _still_ probably win. And you can easily replace it with "sudo apt-get install whatever-DE-you-want && sudo apt-get remove unity". After that, all of the bloat is gone.
For example, Ubuntu + XMonad runs _perfectly_ on a $200 Chromebook, which could not handle Unity.
Also, it may be a big surprise for you, but gasp Ubuntu is not the only Linux distro. You want fast boot time -- try Arch. Want a stable distro? install Debian. Need an easy-to-use distro similar to Ubuntu, but with a normal DE? consider Mint.
>Ubuntu's Unity had become synonymous to Microsoft pushing their Metro UI into my throat was a nail in the coffin.
I don't understand this. It seems like you dislike Win8 UI so much, mere associating of Unity with Metro caused you to stop using Ubuntu -- to switch to Win8?
They work ok for individual applications but for running a desktop, it's a lot of wasted effort. I much rather just type the first few letters of an app and go.
I do not get why the big desktop distros are just supposed to repeat M$ style menus. It seems a lot to me that people just want to stay stuck in the past using a less optimized system because it feel comfortable.
Unity is hardly metro.
In my opinion that is a nonsense
You are welcome to be running an old distro on an old box because it's comfortable to you but please stop whining when stuff moves forward without you. There are plenty of people waiting down the road for more interesting things to occur and you simply don't get there by doing nothing but fixing bugs.
Smartphones and tablets are the market-share growers now.
IMO, Ubuntu 10.04 was the best version. ever.
I know not what this 'Unity' hate is all about. apt-get still works last I checked.
You guys need to stop equating OS releases with the UI that ships with the desktop versions. 13.04 is loads better than 10.04, and it has nothing to do with whatever DE happens to ship with it. If you don't like Unity, download Xubuntu.
I have had a lot of odd issues with 12.04 (random freezes after unsuspend, crashing apps, etc). 13.04 seems to fix a lot of the outstanding stability issues.
did you read the article? the last part is talking exactly about this type of attitude, I'd rather Ubuntu plays it unsafe, risking it all, expanding, getting to the common folk laptops and phones, and my phone than circle around irrelevant stuff.
If you're a HC Ubuntu user you can change your display anytime and make it work for you, I see nothing wrong with them trying to move further than the point where I'm at, I'm semi-geek, I can deal with this myself, I don't want Ubuntu to be doing everything exclusively for me then going ~oh how dare they did something that haven't pleased ME!?~, I want it to succeed.
Of course I could switch back to the original normal GUI with a few command line entries and a few option entries. But it was already too late. The flexibility I had in 10.xx was gone in 12.xx. 12.xx become so clunky, heavy and painful to use, that I had to abandon it altogether. I can back up my statements too - Try comparing boot/shut down times of 10.xx and 12.xx, you'll know.
Meanwhile, on Windows, the start button just disappeared. And I DID get used to it, but the fact that Ubuntu's Unity had become synonymous to Microsoft pushing their Metro UI into my throat was a nail in the coffin.
Now I run dual boot - Mac OS X along with Windows 8.1. I'm using the Mac OS for about a year or two now and it's really good at what it does. Almost feels like Ubuntu's 10.xx w.r.t boot times. And I never will be looking back.
Ubuntu is a perfect example of "Don't fix something if it ain't broke."