It seems like every Ubuntu release has some serious hardware regressions of one type or another.. most can be worked around fairly easily, but others not so much. I went from Ubuntu back to Windows (win7) because of a critical regression with Intel graphics (specifically went non-amd/nvidia for the better support).

Since then Its been on servers and in VMs only. Yesterday the drive on my htpc took a dump, so I put Ubuntu 13.04 on, there were three issues.. 1. getting the audio working through hdmi (alsa regression bug, manual .deb download), 2. getting the fglrx legacy drivers going (amd eol'd series, ppa setup) , and 3. getting the media center remote working (remove/re-setup lirc).

None of these were big issues, but between the three, most novices would have given up. That's just a small case, in a mostly working setup (post-install).

I really want Linux to have a better foothold on the desktop, and don't like Windows 8's UI at all on a desktop (it's actually pretty nice for phone/tablet but prefer Android)... in any case it still isn't quite there, even on 5yo hardware.