Someone I know mentioned in passing that OSX is the best Linux out there and I have been thinking about it ever since.
A lot of developers I know get MacBooks to work on (and not Linux desktops or laptops) for multiple reasons. The business has a point of support they can pester if anything goes wrong with the machine or its software. And, the laptop can be used by people who are not very knowledgeable about how their operating system is doing the things it is supposed to do – like designers. I didn’t know this but most really good designers use Apple machines.
Linux operating systems (for the most part) demand you know what you are doing. It is not for meant for the people who don’t want to know how their operating system is doing what it is supposed to. Ubuntu, however, has done a great job of trying to make it user-friendly. They, now, have an App Store like application which you can use to install games, applications, etc and buy them. I haven’t played much with it but it looks promising.
I had tried installing a Linux (don’t remember if it was Fedora, Ubuntu or something else) on a laptop and that was a nightmare. I could not get the wireless adapter to work. I had to scour the internet for days before I found a solution to my problem. While it was a tad annoying to have to go through all that trouble to just get a wireless adapter to work, it was interesting to see how things worked. However, that will not fly in an environment where I just want to get things done.
It is (in general) easier and more pleasant to work on a Mac than it is to work on (let’s say) Ubuntu. I am not saying it is always the operating system’s fault. The applications written for Linux are sometimes sub-par for a regular user. My experience with Dota 2 on Linux is a great example of this. It was un-playable on Linux and I had no problems with it on OSX. Valve has since updated the code and made the Linux experience more pleasant but it is still not as good as Windows or OSX.
I love Linux. If you have an old machine you can bring it back to life by installing a minimalistic flavor of Linux and get it working again. Servers built on Linux are so stable that it’s not even funny. One of my employers had both Windows and Linux servers. The system administration team would always complain that Windows servers crashed almost every week while Linux servers didn’t need to be touched at all. I love the fact that there is so many free applications available on Linux that are better than commercial applications available for the same. Penetration testing tools are a great example of this.
So, it depends on the context. For regular use OSX is definitely better but for servers and hardcore bad-assary of installing an OS on a small board in a motor-cycle because it has such a low footprint and then using that as a mobile cam just because you can. Nothing beats a regular Linux OS (Slackware anyone?).
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