apt-get to install practically any open source software in the world is one.
Partially as a consequence of that, but other stuff as well, the development experience for those using the console and not an IDE is far better on Linux than OS X or (by far) Windows.
Finally, the "political" stuff you mention is not politics for sake of politics. It stems from very practical real-world things. For example, if I write an app and calling a system library does something unexpected, I can read the source code to see exactly what is going on. That's not possible, generally speaking, on OS X or Windows. Open source isn't just for sake of lofty ideals, it's also just simpler, easier, and better.
As a consequence of these things, there is a culture around Linux that is not present on OS X and Windows. OS X and Windows people 'blindly' rely on the OS for many things, while on Linux, people hack the OS routinely. You have much more opportunity to ask people about how the OS works (and of course to see the code).
For all those reasons, I would say Linux is by far the best OS for hackers. Of course OS X and Windows are good as well, just in different ways, hacking isn't everything.
But I can do that with fink or macports too. OS X is almost FreeBSD with a custom UI and kernel. There is almost nothing (except Linux-kernel level stuff like LXC/Docker/cgroups) that I can't do on OS X that can be done on console Linux. If I really need Linux, I have Vagrant and Virtualbox. Same with X11 apps, though they feel pretty clunky on OS X.
But then, I have all the capabilities that are _better_ than the OSS counterparts: Photoshop, Office, Messaging, Netflix, great GUI and media integration.
I'd also suggest that GUI IDEs like those from JetBrains or editors like Sublime Text are pretty sweet relative to a console-centric toolchain (but I can do that too on the Mac).
Everything you say about open source, of course, is true, but keep in mind OS X (Darwin) from the knees down is also open source; most of what you say applies. It's not "open source vs. proprietary", however, as that's a Stallman-esque view of the world that isn't really congruent with the BSD approach.
I'm not the OP but in summary, I love both Open Source and the OS X experience, to me it's not an either/or proposition, which seems more political than practical.
In my experience, they have nowhere near the range and quality of packaging as Linux distros have. There's just a much larger community for that stuff in Linux than there is for OS X, which focuses less on FOSS.
Yes, you can do all the Linux stuff if you run Linux in a VM. Not the same though as running it directly :) Performance in particular.
> Everything you say about open source, of course, is true, but keep in mind OS X (Darwin) from the knees down is also open source;
Yes, definitely Apple deserves credit for using a FOSS kernel as well as much in userspace - WebKit, LLVM, etc. Still, massive and crucial parts of OS X are proprietary; you aren't allowed to look into those.
> I'm not the OP but in summary, I love both Open Source and the OS X experience, to me it's not an either/or proposition
Of course, I agree completely. As I said above, OS X and Windows are great too, just for different things. Linux wins on hackability, they win on other stuff.
I can do that on the Mac too, with MacPorts, Fink, and brew, which I personally use.
And for development or more harcore unixy stuff, I do it in a VM with Vagrant -- I don't want to pollute my machine with installations for the multiple projects I work on (for one, they can need clashing versions of stuff, plus it's not a best practice to have unrelated libs and servers installed for a project that doesn't need it).
>Finally, the "political" stuff you mention is not politics for sake of politics. It stems from very practical real-world things. For example, if I write an app and calling a system library does something unexpected, I can read the source code to see exactly what is going on.
I can do the same on my VM inside the Mac for unix software/OS that I deploy on. But I also found it that I never, ever, had to do something like this for my type of development in 15+ years with regards to a system library.
>OS X and Windows people 'blindly' rely on the OS for many things, while on Linux, people hack the OS routinely.
True, but as a higher end (not drivers or embedded) developer (mostly web and some server stuff), I very much enjoy this culture of not mucking around with the OS.
I WISH there were a better alternative.
Such services can be alright for low-use personal email. Where they break down and where Outlook excels is high volumes of mail.
I've had jobs where between automated emails from server monitors, lists I was on and the high volume of discussion we had dropped 900-1200 emails in my Inbox every day. Outlook is the only application that makes that manageable...and I can save all of my mail and quickly search and access all of it.
In what sense? Does it run slow? Does it not give you enough options?
I've used Linux on and off, from RedHat 5 (circa '97) to the latest Ubuntu. Heck, I've even worked with CDE and such on Sun and HP boxes before Linux. Have also used Windows.
Besides political reasons, I haven't seen anything compelling enough to move over. I have all my commercial software (from Adobe to MS and beyond), I have most UNIX cli stuff, and if I want hardcode unixy stuff I can do it an a VM with Vagrant (as I would on a Linux system anyway, why pollute my desktop with project specific dev installations?).
I've tried Gimp -- it's no match for Photoshop, and I prefer Pixelmator and Acorn for lightweight stuff. I also try Open Office every couple of years -- it remains mostly as it was 15 years ago, and has added cruft and slowlyness to it (why it needs a JRE I don't even...). Pages, Numbers and Keynote are fine for my needs -- the only time I need something more it's when I need more MS Office compatibility, and there OO doesn't cut it either.
I also dabble in multimedia, and nothing on OSS comes close to Logic and FCPX. And I've been keeping an eye on the DAW space in Linux since before there was Jack and ALSA. Heck, even Mail.app has no much of a competition. If you like clunky, you can go for Thunderbird.
>The reason the author cited for switching from Apple was two failed laptops. For what it's worth, my previous laptop -- a Dell -- broke every six months or so.
I never understand this reasoning. Don't people understand that there are faulty shipments in all production runs? I've had AMD CPUs overheat, IBM disk drives fails, Toshiba laptops crap out, etc. I've also had Apple stuff die on me. Those things happen.