The bottom line is that switching to Linux will be a step back in terms of convenience. It is still true that the closed operating systems are just easier to use as day-to-day one-size-fits-all machines. In my recent tries with Xubuntu i had some sound issues, the machine didnt want to sleep correctly and skype had audio lag issues and didnt show a popup when somebody was calling. Small stuff, but stuff i dont really want to deal with..
Ironically OSX86 on the same machine (older Intel hardware) works perfectly fine and i have none of these issues, it probably even works better than windows.
As i do all my development in VMs (vagrant) the host OS doesnt really matter and it just needs to get the day-to-day stuff done, but i still wouldnt choose Linux for that.
Id still like to switch back to Windows as the host, just to have more freedom. Sadly vagrant/virtualbox shared folder performance is poor which makes it a bit of a pain to work with.
So i have ultimately thought of a system where Windows 8 is the host and id just use a Xubuntu VM (with a GUI) where i do all the development in, but still rely on Windows for skype/office stuff/audio/adobe apps in the background.
However that locks me out of iOS development, soo dual booting windows/osx86 + vagrant boxes currently gives me the most flexibility and ability to work on anything and use all 3 OSes for what they are best at...probably need to replace the PC with some form of Apple hardware to be legal but overall its pretty perfect. (In a perfect world Apple would finally adapt the PC keyboard layout, i just hate the mental overhead required when switching systems)
I dont like Apple much, but i am pretty sure MS would love to do the same things so it more about choosing the lesser evil because Linux still isnt there yet. Atleast that my opinion right now.