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OS X vs Linux?

Mac or Linux?

  • Total voters
    38
  • Poll closed .
I think this is a complete red-herring, because OS X and Linux are good for different things. For example:
If you want to build a web server, then the last platform I would pick is OS X. I would use CentOS, Redhat, or Ubuntu, etc.

On the other hand, if I want to edit video, then I am going to use OS X.

Linux is not better or worse than OS X, nor can one in the abstract answer a question of why one would choose OS X or Linux. In my own case: I use Linux and OS X all the time. I don't just use one platform, because no single platform does everything I need.


Cheers
 
Oh where to start. I've tried Linux off and on since the mid-90's with early versions of Slackware. This was when one had to know all the specs of the hardware including HD specs, video card specs and monitor specs to configure the X system and other items correctly. Thankfully users don't need that level of detail any more. There is nothing wrong with a good Linux system IF it meets your software needs.

But I moved from Windows to OS X and not Linux because I wanted professional and reliable software, not community ware such as a lot of Linux packages are. Nothing wrong with them if they meet your needs but at the time I made my last decision they did not, OS X did. There are some good Linux packages I'm sure but they did not meet my needs or my desires.

While I like Apple's hardware, if I were running Linux I would also be building my own systems. No store bought systems for me for Windows or Linux.

I do my finances, taxes, programming and photography. The photography apps were the biggest issues in Linux and as much as people like to push GIMP into the fight, GIMP is not Photoshop and for me that is a killer.

The we get to taxes. At this time I use Turbo Tax but I will not use their online service. I require for the app and data to stay on my system. The same is true for password managers and my banking programs. MoneyDance will run on Linux but by the time I found it I had already made my mind up for OS X (Tiger 10.4) and I've not looked back.
 
TonyK said:
The photography apps were the biggest issues in Linux and as much as people like to push GIMP into the fight, GIMP is not Photoshop and for me that is a killer.
Click to expand...

I used for many years Bibble Pro for my raw file processing under Linux; later I moved that software also to Mac but more because I stopped desktop on Linux.
Some month ago Corel bought that company, calling it now "After Shot" but still Linux to my understanding supported.
Still not photoshop in many ways but a very nice raw file converter.
 
Yes, I remember Bibble Pro. Supported them for several years but grew tired of the long waits for updates. And at the time, Bibble Pro was only a RAW converter, again no PS replacement.

Bibble had some very nice features though.

Thanks,

ChristianJapan said:
I used for many years Bibble Pro for my raw file processing under Linux; later I moved that software also to Mac but more because I stopped desktop on Linux.
Some month ago Corel bought that company, calling it now "After Shot" but still Linux to my understanding supported.
Still not photoshop in many ways but a very nice raw file converter.
Click to expand...
 
0092284 said:
So for the sake of my quesion i ask 2 things:
1) Leave windows out of this, it's not a free-for-all fight.
2) Be unbiased. We're at a mac forum, try to not cheer up for mac just because you like it.

So my question is: Why do you choose Mac over LInux?
I'm actually doubting if i should change over to Linux, as it seems to be made more for the programmer. (What i like)
Click to expand...

1) iTunes (full support for apple TVs and the like)
2) MS Office

These are the two major items for me.
 
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priitv8 said:
What's wrong with running Apache on OS X?
Click to expand...

There's nothing wrong as such, for development and testing it is ok.

But for a production website OS X wouldn't be a great choice.

- Why would you want a web server running all the extra stuff that OS X runs in the background, using up resources for no reason.
- Control over services, on Linux/*BSD etc... you can easily control exactly what is running. No problem having a web server with no graphical environment and the minimum number of services needed, both for performance and security.
- Updates/Bug fixes/Security updates, how quickly does OS X receive important updates and how easy is it to choose exactly which updates are to be installed, and I don't mean just compiling it from source each time.

Then theres the hardware you need to run OS X, which limits what you can run it on and the lack of supported server hardware both physical and virtualised.
 
Dark Dragoon said:
But for a production website OS X wouldn't be a great choice.
Click to expand...
I get your point. I for one know very little about the effort required to get your linux trimmed down to the bare minimum you would want to run your production server on.
Also, as soon as you start looking towards things like WebLogic or WebSphere, you are better off on other platforms.
 
I've been out of the Mac fold since 2007. I recently bought a Mini from Amazon. Upon firing it up I was shocked at the similarities to Linux especially in some of the UI designs.

I do prefer OS X for one simple reasons which has been echoed already. OS X is sold as a commercial OS that has been tweaked and polished for maximum ease of use and minimal frustration.

You get the opposite with Linux. So you need to ramp up your Linux skills to make it suitable for you the user. The other problem with Linux is that you have so many distros and they usually come fast and furious with new releases on average every 6 months. You can go LTR will helps but they usually don't include the latest improvements in the new releases.

Some of the distros out there like Linux Mint (fav for me), openSUSE, Ubuntu, Kubuntu offer a more OS X experience by including pretty everything but the kitchen sink. Still you have to deal with maintenance issue. In some cases like Mint, some of the drivers i.e. Wireless for some laptops were not included so you had to download them from their repository.

OS X pretty much eliminates all of that because of it's commercial nature and it's built around Apples hardware.
 
Dark Dragoon said:
But for a production website OS X wouldn't be a great choice.
Click to expand...

For me it boils down to two reasons:

  • Our production is in the cloud and choice of hardware is limited.
  • Even if the cloud service provided Mac VM's it would most likely cost more.
 
For me it boils down to this: Linux is an awesome server OS, but does not fare as well for desktop use. OS X is the exact opposite - great for the desktop, not as good as a server.
 
priitv8 said:
I get your point. I for one know very little about the effort required to get your linux trimmed down to the bare minimum you would want to run your production server on.
Also, as soon as you start looking towards things like WebLogic or WebSphere, you are better off on other platforms.
Click to expand...

Any particular drawbacks of OSX while working with Weblogic for deploying webapps?
 
I was introduced to Debian GNU/Linux in 2001. I fell in love with it, dumped Windows the following week, and haven't used anything other than Linux since. The attraction, for me, was that Linux is much more secure and stable than Windows.

After falling in love with iOS on my first Apple product, the iPhone 4S, I began to research Apple and OS X. What I discovered was there's much to be said for a company that controls both the hardware and the core software system.

You see, in Linux the file system, default file browser, kernel, default web browser, desktop environment, hardware drivers, etc. are all created and maintained by different people from different companies and many of those people don't collaborate. And, many of those people don't get paid for their work so there's no incentive to produce higher quality software. A common attitude is, if you don't like the software, fix it yourself. I remember submitting a bug report and the app developer told me that the upstream devs were responsible. I contacted the upstream folks and they pointed me back to the developer of the app. Sort of a "the buck stops over there" situation. I hopped around to some 17 different Linux distros over the years but each distro brought its own set of issues.

OS X is different in that Apple controls the hardware and the core software. Apple is also a publicly-traded company so there is much incentive to "get it right".

Sometime during OS X 10.5 I had the chance to play with a Mac for a week. I forget the name of the machine, but I was amazed at the speed and beauty and the fact that I didn't have to constantly tinker to get the system to work the way I wanted. I'm getting up in years, I'm tired of tinkering.

Since then I've owned several iOS devices and plan to purchase my first Mac in April of this year. From what I've learned I will likely never have to do desktop/laptop/mobile business with anyone besides Apple ever again.

Linux is very nice for what it offers and I'm happy that I had the chance to experience it. But, in my opinion, OS X is a major step up. The good news is that using Linux for several years is going to minimize my learning curve. I have a feeling it's going to be difficult to contain my joy when I get my first Mac up and running.
 
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I'm a huge fan of both operating systems. I use OSX and Linux at work (95% Linux) and OSX almost exclusively at home.

Alas, that last bit is about to change. I am in need of a new computer and had been holding out for the new Mac Pro. Unfortunately what Apple delivered and what my needs are don't align very well. It is, no doubt, a very capable machine but its particular mix of cpu and gpu and price don't fit my budget/performance combo. As a result, I am now looking at building a high end i7 machine which will run Linux Mint. Luckily most of my software (3D Graphics) runs on Linux so I won't miss out there.

I'll still keep my iMac for a lot of my work because I really do like OSX (and I still need to run Photoshop until a viable alternative rears its lovely head - damn you Creative Cloud!). But this is the start of my migration away unless the next pro delivers something more (or my software is more optimized for that particular mix of hardware).
 
I am a long time linux user (various distr.'s). The big difference is the software support. you can get almost any app or software on mac and only a small portion of companies offer a linux version. Most of those are written in Java so when you use that you can run it on anything anyway.

So as a programmer I use linux at work because I don't need fancy software to program.

At home I take all my old slow windows machines and load them with linux to milk a few more years out of them.

I recently bought a mac just because I wanted one and I was going to give it to my daughter for college in a year or so. She grew up using them at school so it's easier to stick with what she knows. I am enjoying the MBP and it's cool that I can get things like my tax software to run on it. Previously I had to get things like that for windows but that meant having to fight my wife for use of the one and only windows machine at our house that she is always on using photoshop.
 
OS X for SW development

I've been developing software professionally for the past 16+ years and used 4 different desktop OS-es (Linux, Sun OS, Windows & OS X - with which I have the least experience with). Did all levels of SW from embedded, enterprise, smartphone all the way up to web. There is no better platform for SW development than OS X. Think of it as a super standardized UNIX distribution with superior GUI.
 
Through the years I've used various different operating systems including OS/2, Linux (Slackware, 1995 - 1999, Mandrake post 2000 and even some others). Windows Vista is what drove my decision to re-think my primary OS.

Linux never stood a chance on my desktop. There were too many things I needed that Linux did not have and there was no way I was going to attempt Crossover Office to run them. Either native or not, no middle ground for me.

OS X won because of stability and availability of the software packages I needed and I've not looked back since switching in 2008 from Windows XP to 10.4 (aka Tiger).

Linux is great if the packages available meet your needs or if you are running a server setup. My needs were not met and that is why I'm using OS X.
 
I used Linux for about a year before buying a Mac. Linux was just way too unrefined for me. Apps didn't interact well together so the experience was poor. For example if I tried to open a link from a Skype chat it wouldn't open in my web browser. I would have to copy and paste the Url into the browser manually. Problems similar to this were all over the OS. OS X is the only operating system I've used that keeps things simple, intuitive and looks great.
 
I was a Windows guy for years. In 1998 I started using Linux for my server needs. I typically set up Linux boxes "headless" and controlled them over the network using ssh. I almost never even looked at the Linux gui. A neighbor gave me his old Quadra and I tinkered with it quite a bit. I loved the simplicity of the OS but I was annoyed with the difficulty in getting parts and the COST of those parts. Meanwhile I began tinkering with Linux for my desktop while mainly using Windows.

In 2005, when the Mac mini came out I picked one up and loved it. I used it much the same way I had been using linux... headless. I would log in via VNC from one of several PCs. OSX started to gradually grow on me. I made the full switch in 2008 when I got my Macbook and within about a year the entire household was moved to OSX. Meanwhile, Linux is still my server OS of choice. For Christmas 2009, I got a netbook. I wiped Windows off of it and installed Ubuntu. I (mostly) loved it. One thing I hated was the way Linux updates were handled. So painful. Then in April 2010 I got an iPad. The netbook has not been powered on since. In fall 2010 I FINALLY got an iPhone. Our household is mostly all-Apple these days, with all iPhones, iPads and Macs and only one or two Linux boxes acting as network attached storage and DLNA media servers.

I think this is a valid thread but the poll is somewhat useless. The fact most of us are hear means we have already decided to use OSX or we'd be posting on one of the Linux forums. Still I think the most viable competitor to OSX is Linux and while Microsoft doesn't know it, Apple certainly does. It's no accident there is no iTunes for Linux.
 
OS X provides a centralised and a much more refined user experience compared to Linux distributions. The strength of Linux is its openness, which is also its weakness - its terribly heterogeneous. I use Linux every day - as a server platform; I have a number of virtual linux machines on my Mac that provide different services. But I don't want to use it as my main working platform - because the OS X is much more convenient.

P.S. I used Linux as my main operating system for over 6 years before I switched to Mac.
 
There's a lot of things I like about Linux, but in the end, as stated by others, it does not offer the consumer the same level of polish and user experience as OSX. Lack of apps is also a major issue. It will forever be a niche product.
 
maflynn said:
There's a lot of things I like about Linux, but in the end, as stated by others, it does not offer the consumer the same level of polish and user experience as OSX. Lack of apps is also a major issue. It will forever be a niche product.
Click to expand...

Not seen Android around much then?

OSX does a few things well, to do so it compromises other aspects. Whenever I'm in OSX I miss apt-get terribly.
 
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