O brother, I feel your pain ! (seriously !)

1) Mac: Made for aesthetics.
Win: Made for power and productivity.
Lin: Made for a mixture of the two.

2) Mac: No driver problems; the hardware and software are both made by Apple.
Win: Drivers usually must be installed for many devices.
Lin: Many drivers included with distributions such as Ubuntu.

3) Mac: Expensive hardware and software by Apple.
Win: Somewhat expensive software by Microsoft.
Lin: Almost all software is free (and sometimes open-source).

4) Mac: Can run the full Windows OS out-of-the-box.
Win: No provided emulation.
Lin: No provided emulation.

5) Mac: No user-serviceable hardware without voiding warranty.
Win: Replacable hardware.
Lin: Replacable hardware.

6) Mac: Few but rising number of OS X applications.
Win: Most applications are programmed for Windows.
Lin: Many developers make similar apps to those on other OSs; constantly growing number of available apps.

7) Mac: One GUI.
Win: One GUI.
Lin: Many GUIs, including GNOME, KDE, XFCE, Fluxbox, etc.

8) Mac: Most stable OS; h/w and s/w made by same company.
Win: Least stable OS; most viruses and different companies.
Lin: Quite stable OS; some viruses and different companies.

9) Mac: For the basic user
Win: For the more business-oriented user.
Lin: For the advanced user. (Ubuntu doesn’t really live up to this out-of-the-box; Ubuntu is really more for a basic user, unlike other Linux distros.)

10) Mac: Spread-out community help.
Win: Spread-out community help.
Lin: Compiled and “forumized” community help.

There are really many more differences; I just listed some of the more obvious and most helpful in deciding for an OS. It all depends on the user’s wants and needs what surpasses what. I personally use Ubuntu, sometimes Windows, and would LOOOVVEE a Snow Leopard Mac. (Of course, I AM a computer geek…) I can/could use each for a type of thing another cannot do. Therefore, all would meet my interest and requirements. I am currently running Ubuntu while posting this, using a “transformation pack” known as Win2-7. My desktop currently looks like Windows 7, which I still haven’t gotten, sadly. Anyway, it really DOES change what you use if you have different needs.

I would use Linux for servers. Period.
When I needed extra-heavy-duty I/O (like a SAN database) I went to SUN Enterprise servers.

Windows for an environment like that? R U kidding?
Apple? Not there for this type of environment.

Ubuntu for all Intel based laptops. Works like a charm. If users are having trouble with Ubuntu and their laptops, it is their System Administrator’s fault!

The trick to having a perfect Ubuntu experience across the enterprise is: Hardware Uniformity.

Don’t mess around with weird hardware crap. Stick to a hardware configuration that works and have your SA’s work out any kinks.

Your users should never-ever have to complain about Ubuntu. NEVER!!!

I am using mostly MACS at home. I write iPhone apps and it is a necessity. However, my mother-in-law, who is an older lady, uses Ubuntu (on a HP laptop) and she loves it.

I see no big difference between a MAC and a Ubuntu machine. A MAC is nothing more than Ubuntu running for a specific target machine.

That’s why MACS work so well. They don’t have to worry about a thousand different configurations.

Windows an a laptop? R U crazy?

Windows is only for hard core apps that refuse to run on Linux or MAC. Those apps are getting fewer and fewer.

If you need to run Windows, then just buy a machine and do it. Stuff like VMware and Parallels just don’t cut it as far as performance goes.

Thank you for listening.

1) Like many here have mentioned, Mac OS and the apps just work. I have used Mac, Windows and Linux since 1995 and can tell you that hands down the Mac is the best of the three, both on the user level as well as the developer level.

2) I have just downloaded Ubuntu 10.04 so I can run on my MacBook Pro using Fusion, and initially it wouldn’t install. I just started downloading the 32-bit version to see if it will work. I will add to this point in a bit.

3) I last used Linux last year or the year before in the SuSE, Ubuntu and Fedora incarnations, as well as several others I was doing research on. It just doesn’t feel right. Makes me feel like I’m using Mac OS 9.

4) For those that say that Mac OS is not open and you’re bound to whatever Apple feeds you, ok, if you want to look at it that way, you are correct. At least it’s coming from only one source, though. Some people I’ve met are not happy with the way Linux works (I’ve recommended different distros, and they just can’t figure it out: Winter Texans, school teachers, doctors, etc.) Give them a Mac, and they can start working from day one.

5) For those of you who can’t remember, Microsoft and Office started on the Mac. Without the Mac, you wouldn’t have Windows, and thus you would not have Linux.

6) Back to point 4, if you like control so much and being able to do your own programming and you’re not happy with the software that comes with or is available for Mac OS, XCode is included in every Mac system you buy. Get yourself a Mac mini ($500), hook it up to that extra monitor you have there, and you have a development workstation. Much cheaper than your $1500 souped-up Linux box you use…because I just KNOW you don’t have a bare-bones machine to develop on, right?

7) If you REALLY want to mess with the kernel, sign up for the (free) Apple Developer Program and download Darwin. It has the OS barebones, no UI, and it’s just like you’re working on Linux…but better.

In the end, it all comes down to opinion. If you feel comfortable with one, then stick with it. If you prefer the other, then by all means stay with that one. Just don’t be afraid of trying new things, because after all that’s exactly the reason we have so many good and new things now compared to 30 years ago. If someone had not TRIED something new, nothing would have changed. Experience has shown me that having things that simply work and having peace of mind works best for myself and MANY people. I’m sure Windows and Ubuntu (or any other Linux flavor for that matter) will catch up to the Mac one day; I’m also certain, though, that Apple is not resting on its laurels, and by the time Linux and Windows catch up to the Mac of today, the Mac OS will be 20 years ahead…much as it has been for the past 20 years.

(a) Yes, Apple has abandoned us, the keyboard / mouse users.

(b) Ubuntu’s default desktop, GNOME, is not Aqua – sometimes this is good, and sometimes this is sad.

(c) Those of you “Old School Mac Users” who up until recently, if not still, insist that Internet Explorer is fine, I have my eye on you.

(d) I’m able to plug pretty much any USB camera I can get ahold of into my Ubuntu machine, which also doesnt have over 10GB of drivers which I cannot opt out of the installation of.

(e) All major modern Linux distributions use the same printing system as Mac OS X, it’s called CUPS, the Common Unix Printing System, and it talks IPP as well.

(f) All major modern, desktop-oriented at least afaik, Linux distributions use the same Windows-compatible filesharing as OSX, it’s called Samba.

(g) Bundles are a great way to install user software, they are in fact often more failsafe than packaging systems on Linux/UNIX. They can also cause a great deal of wasted potential for shared memory, or even lead you to be susceptible to security holes that Apple has fixed, because it is easier to distribute an old version of a Framework than to distribute a Bundle for each OSX version. Also, speaking of, what gives with not being able to use any new software on old OSX?

(h) MacPorts sucks. It is in fact simpler to wrestle with apt-get/dpkg or yum/rpm or pretty much anything else than to get a single library Apple did not include to build. It is more trouble to get software running as a developer on a laptop than production-quality on a Linux server, which means every fancy-pants web developer out there rocking a Mac is wasting crap tons of their employer / clients’ time, very likely, and very often.

(i) For UNIX applications, MacOSX is PITIFULLY slower than Linux. This is on purpose, OSX and Linux are pawns in an age-old battle of microkernel vs. monolithic design, each with their own strengths. OSX more efficiently distributes the demands of a single-threaded application across multiple cores and some failures that would be a panic in Linux can be restarted. There is no Right Answer here, Linus was fighting with his Prof during his PhD in the early 90s when he created Linux, and clearly with the success and popularity of OSX, there is still some merit to microkernel designs, esp with the unforeseen proliferation of multiple core systems.

At the end of the day, of course I would like my Linux box to be more like my Mac, and my Mac more like my Linux box. Neither is ever the right tool for the job, and Free Software user apps on OSX can lag YEARS behind what comes with Ubuntu. It’s all a joke.

The fact is that, Steve Jobs has abandoned us all, and noone in Linux distros who thinks they are eclipsing the Mac is coming near it because none of them will just break down and use one for a year. And the Mac is so much better than Windows that many would-be Linux enthusiasts put their zeal into the Mac community. The Mac is largely open-source, but a lot of your favorite parts are owned by Adobe, and probably always will be.

Few technical feats of the Mac or Linux haven’t been accomplished on the other, but the fact is, people who like using a Mac desktop are using Macs, instead of writing a Free Desktop that satisfies their personal needs. There’s no magic to it, 90% of the work was done at NeXT and the rest is published in the Apple HI guidelines. It’s probably been ten years since O’Reilly’s Cocoa book noted that you can use GNUStep to have nearly all the same frameworks.

Why isn’t anyone trying to make Android phones run iPhone apps? The people driving this both at Apple and the competition are all deluded is why. Apple thinks they invented anything about OSX that is good, and the rest of the world does too.

It’s like if BMW put a Slushie machine in their cars, and everyone just raves about “Oh they really showed us all” I just want to smack people, it’s like NO they didn’t invent the fucking slushy OK? They just put one in your car. You can put one in your old buick, but if your A/C doesn’t work it might not operate optimally.

On that note, when I saw the iPad the first vision what came to my mind was of a portable Mac… Yes, there’s already the MacBook and MacBook Pro, but what I see happening is Apple using all that experience with the iPad (just as they used the iPhone to get to the iPad), and use it to make an iMac or a full-sized MacBook (Pro) that is completely touch-based, instead of keyboard and trackpad/mouse. That’s just what I saw coming when I kept hearing about the iPad coming up. We’ll see if that comes true.

I can count the number of actual valid comments with one hand.

Oh, I use Debian Sid and Arch on my boxes, so both Ubuntu and OSX are crap in my book =P