With the demise of the Ubuntu distribution as a viable desktop alternative to Windows; I am thinking that this is a good chance for those of us who want a proper desktop environment to change over to the Linux Mint distro instead. That offers the Gnome 2.32.2 fork MATE and there are codecs already in the distribution if you get the DVD version. I was trying out HyperV once and I installed Ubuntu 12.04 in that; but it did not work very quickly. VirtualPC is another virtualization tool for Windows 7 that I have had a look at. I used Crunchbang Linux in that and the installation was successful. But Virtualbox is my preferred tool as it has the Guest Additions and is very user friendly. Ubuntu 12.10 will not run very quickly in Virtualbox though. The Unity desktop is quite poor performance wise. I prefer Fedora on the desktop instead of Ubuntu as it has a very long legacy; beginning with the birth of the Red Hat Linux distribution in the 90s. So of course I enjoy using Fedora Core Linux. I still use the Debian distro on my laptop; with the MATE desktop now. That suits me fine.
Canonical want everyone to use Ubuntu on mobile devices instead; but with the amount of bugs in the distro; who would use this over iOS or Android? Just install Mint or Fedora and enjoy something that is actually usable. Linux offers freedom of choice; so just use something else.
Linux Mint: http://linuxmint.com/.
Fedora Linux: http://fedoraproject.org/.
Mateu: http://mateu.pt.vu/. A distribution based upon Ubuntu with the MATE desktop.
Crunchbang Linux: http://crunchbang.org/. A Linux distribution that uses the Openbox window manager.
Those are your alternatives to the Ubuntu 13.10 distribution. Goodbye Ubuntu and hello freedom.
buggy? yeah, its disappointingly more buggy than previous versions, but demise? Care to support that claim? like, at all, in any way, even ONE point? Thats a HUGE leap to just skim right past as if its established fact. Personally, Im not one to jump from distro to distro everytime a minor release is slightly buggy, or Id spend all my time orienting myself and finding fresh work arounds for this or that quirk of the distro and never get anything done. As far as moble OS, its basically version one, so Id cut it a bit of slack. Also, the issue in beating out Android will be apps, version one bugs is insignificant IMO. Over iOS? frankly Id take a rock and smoke signals over iOS. Dont even mention windows. TBH the only options out there IMO are Android or go back to a flip style non-smartphone. Im hopeful for ubuntu phones, but until they solve the apps nothing else really means anything.