> If you are a good Linux/Windows user, you'll find that Mac OS X is a loss of time
I don't doubt this is true for you, but I fail to see your logic. Mac OS X offers the power of Linux with vastly better user experience. OS X lets you do all the powerful *nix stuff but at the same time saves you from having to hunt for drivers and do tons of configuration. There's definitely something to be said for Linux, but time savings isn't one of those things.
Better user experience? Not for certain kinds of work. If you're in the terminal a lot, for example.
The OS X Aqua terminal really blows, and its X11 terminal isn't much better. I never have any problems with terminal settings under Linux, but every time I try to SSH under OS X some stupid thing happens like the Backspace key doesn't work. X11 is balls slow under OS X, too. Under Linux I can install any software I need in 15 seconds, whereas under OS X, if I need some library or something, I end up searching the 'net and finding some random guy who distributes such-and-such a package for OS X, and it always has a wonky install process (which invariably makes it impossible to uninstall).
I completely agree. I've been using ubuntu for a few years now, but use OS X at work. A lot of coworkers are pretty hardcore developers but still insist on using OS X.
Anyone who tells you that Macs "just work" and that linux takes too long to setup (or hardware isn't supported, etc) haven't used linux, and specifically ubuntu, in the last couple of years. It does what OS X should be doing -- easy to get started, but doesn't go out of its way to shield you from advanced features.
Quick side rant -- OS X does in fact "just work" if you're doing basic to intermediate things (checking email, digital photos, etc). As soon as you want to do something slightly advanced, it isn't the beautiful experience anymore at all -- a coworker of mine got so frustrated trying to setup PGP in mail.app that he switched to using Thunderbird. Planning on doing any serious C development? There's no ldd command for OS X. Want to really tweak your terminal (see parent)? Good luck. If you're serious about development and want something that'll scale with your skill level, use linux.
I should point out that I do use OS X for games, web browsing, and casual programming tasks. It's a good OS, but I can't live with it when I'm really trying to be productive.
Yeah, except if you want to actually install various open source software/libraries.
Then you spend hours trying to see which of the various competing mac package-management systems have some (out-of-date) version of the software. Or, you give up and try compiling from source, to find that nothing compiles cleanly with out all sorts of various problems.
I've gone through this process so many times for even mainstream software, and it's never worked without a lot of fiddling on mac (and sometimes even not then). With Ubuntu, all the software I need is either in the standard repository, or it can be easily compiled (with no twiddling of configuration).
Of course, YMMV, but I tend to use a lot of libraries and FOSS packages for my work, and it's definitely significantly easier to manage on Ubuntu.
Hardware can definitely be an issue on linux, but if you do some research beforehand to see what will work, you're in the clear.
Also, people seem to forget that Apple does have an advantage here. It has complete control over the hardware. Essentially, it is a hardware company.
A GNU/Linux system on the other hand needs to work with everything. Older hardware and newer hardware. This is a maintenance nightmare if you don't have the hardware specs. Which a lot of manufacturers don't/won't release.
As for the browsing/email/administrative use of a system, then i find any modern distribution would do that with hardly any configuration. I use Ubuntu, but Redhat/Suse are also fine. Any desktop-centric distribution that is.
I don't doubt this is true for you, but I fail to see your logic. Mac OS X offers the power of Linux with vastly better user experience. OS X lets you do all the powerful *nix stuff but at the same time saves you from having to hunt for drivers and do tons of configuration. There's definitely something to be said for Linux, but time savings isn't one of those things.