At heart, I'm a hacker, and I want an environment that I can hack on when I need to.<p>Also: focus follows mouse is not an optional or an extra.<p>I've been using a Linux desktop since 1996, and as far as I'm concerned, it's about 100 times easier than it used to be, so whining about things not being 'just right' fall on deaf ears, especially when for me 'just right' means focus follows mouse and other things like that that I have dialed in just how I want them.
I run Linux ... virtualized in OSX. Because OSX and MacBooks has wireless that just works. It has networking that just works. And it has suspend/wakeup that just works. But its bundled UNIX toolchain sucks, and Macports, et. al. don't just work.<p>I run the VM headless, sized similarly to a typical Rackspace Cloud server. This setup lets me use the GNU toolchain while being highly mobile.
Yes, and here is why:<p>When sitting in very long, boring meetings, or very long train/airplane rides, I can still hack away on vim (or occasionally eclipse) for hours despite the complete lack of power outlets. The fact it's bash/posix means that I can run most of my tools locally as is necessary when I cant ssh to my real development servers.<p>So basically its not that I prefer OSX as a dev environment, it that OSX provides the same dev environment with a much, much longer battery life.<p>(oh also good Exchange integration via ical and mail.app don't hurt).
It really depends.<p>The convenience of something like apt for quickly assembling or installing your machine with all software automatically updated is hard to beat. Mac OS also tends to ship with older versions of software and rarely gets newer versions without a full OS update - meaning they will get older and older with time.<p>OTOH, there are many scenarios where a Mac is the only option. Any development for iPhone or Mac is painful on other platforms.
My old setup was a Mac, with keyboard and big screens, with an xemacs window open to a linux box. Then, I lost a hard drive on the mac (while time machine was in self borking mode). Migration ensues. (some of which was planned)<p>So then, I've got 2 ubuntu boxes, and a mac that needs rebuilding. Dev stuff has been moved from hw linux to a redundant array of cheap virtual machines. One of the HW linux consoles is repurposed to run vms, run the vm generator, and also do some ui stuff, since Xemacs and chrome are pretty much the same anywhere. All well and good.<p>So, linux box #2 doesn't like to have a keyboard plugged into it for any length of time. It starts to ignore it. (Why, I don't know). But it runs VMs like a champ, so there it is.<p>Linux box #1 does fine for months, until this morning, when Xorg fubars itself, and then proceeds to do it every 15-20 minutes.<p>So, now, I guess, I'm back to the mac. Since it's hd has been rebuilt in the intervening time. Though I'm still getting used to the terminals in Lion.<p>But that's not what I came here for, The real point of the story is:<p>emacs --daemon<p>and emacsclient -c.<p>So now, in the dev vm start up emacs in daemon mode. Then, you can connect to that process from any tty or xserver. With all your state. I like state.
I used Linux (Slackware, Debian then Ubuntu) since 2000, and as my main OS since 2002. Last year I had to switch to Mac OS in order to develop for iOS, I have several issues with Mac OS, mainly I don't like their window management at all (when I close a window I want the app to be closed, I don't like the menu bad not integrated with the windows, I don't like how works the resizing,...).<p>But when I see what is gnome on Ubuntu 11.04, I don't really know if I would like to switch back know. I don't know how to put it, but my desktop pc is _not_ a touchscreen, I don't understand why they changed everything as if it everything was an iPad... Moreover it seems to me that the state of Firefox (yeah I'm still rooting for FF) on Linux is largely lagging behind win/mac at least for its UI. And worst of all, I'm feeling that a lot of skilled developers have switched to Mac OS recently and putting their skills to develop .app instead of .deb now.<p>I'm actually a bit sad because I love Linux more than anything.
I'm using Windows and Ubuntu. Why? Because where I live (Croatia) a Mac Mini 2.5GHz costs the equivalent of $1300, which is almost twice the $799 price tag on Apple Store. Nuff said.
I'm a bit of a Linux nut, but I'm seriously considering getting a MacBook Air for my next machine as there doesn't seem to be any comparable non-Apple hardware out there. Does anybody know of any?
Yes and No. I like my Air for developing and you would have to pry it from my cold dead fingers, buuuuut: I tried to install python PIL just yesterday and thought easy as pie, not! easy_install complains that gcc is getting the ARCH_FLAGS as ppc not x84_64, plus a couple of other nitpicks. So I used ports, but that means I had to install a new Python interpreter ... and well I have better things to do that replace apt.<p>Apt > (ports,mac,brew) anyday, but rarely is it an issue.
Of course, it's a 'works out of the box' system that requires very little configuration, as well as having a very nice posixy environment.<p>Of course, it's not as good as Linux for some things, and in those cases, it's not hard to get Linux access.<p>OSX is great.
I use Linux and BSD servers (hardware and virtualized), and Macs for laptops and some desktops.<p>I use Linux desktops for serious sysadmin tasks, due to focus follows mouse, but I really like having CS5.5, iWork, etc. even on a desktop. I'm also a lot happier with OSX for mobile devices due to power management, device drivers, etc. And, I love the iPad and iPhone, and the Mac is a much better host for those.<p>Really, mac ports covers 95% of what I need on a machine. Being able to scroll in a non-focused window really covers most of my need for pointer-focus too.
My old setup was a Mac, with keyboard and big screens, with an xemacs window open to a linux box. Then, I lost a hard drive on the mac (while time machine was in self borking mode). Migration ensues. (some of which was planned)<p>So then, I've got 2 ubuntu boxes, and a mac that needs rebuilding. Dev stuff has been moved from hw linux to a redundant array of cheap virtual machines. One of the HW linux consoles is repurposed to run vms, run the vm generator, and also do some ui stuff, since Xemacs and chrome are pretty much the same anywhere. All well and good.<p>So, linux box #2 doesn't like to have a keyboard plugged into it for any length of time. It starts to ignore it. (Why, I don't know). But it runs VMs like a champ, so there it is.<p>Linux box #1 does fine for months, until this morning, when Xorg fubars itself, and then proceeds to do it every 15-20 minutes.<p>So, now, I guess, I'm back to the mac. Since it's hd has been rebuilt in the intervening time. Though I'm still getting used to the terminals in Lion.<p>But that's not what I came here for, The real point of the story is:<p>emacs --daemon<p>and emacsclient -c.<p>So now, in the dev vm start up emacs in daemon mode. Then, you can connect to that process from any tty or xserver. With all your state. I like state.
I pick OSX over Linux because why can't my dev box also be my everyday box? I have access to all the GNU/open source dev tools I need on OSX, so why give up Photoshop, Office, iTunes, etc just to say I'm using Linux? I have a dedicated Windows machine and at the end of the day, I'm still using Windows in Parallels over a dedicated Windows box.