I've been using Linux since 1992 with SLS. I've had several laptops on which I ran Debian. For years I did battle with audio drivers, printers, wireless, and non-functional suspend/resume.
Upon encountering OS X I went out and bought a 12" PowerBook. I thought it would be a nice machine to run Debian/PPC on. Instead, I so enjoyed having a functional laptop, that I never left OS X. Being firmly in the open source world, I described it as a crisis of faith. I'm on my second MacBook Pro now.
Having instantaneous suspend/resume is the biggest deal for me. Having wireless just work and being able to plug into a random printer and print a boarding pass is really nice. Plugging into a random projector or monitor and being able to do a demo or presentation without debugging the latest configuration mechanism to X is nice.
I still use Debian for servers and some workstations. Basically, if I only have to configure it once, it is worth the hassle. But with a laptop, I am essentially reconfiguring multiple times per day moving between locations, networks, and peripherals. OS X makes this so much less painful.
People like to talk about Apple as a software company or a hardware company. They are a systems company. Because they control the OS and the hardware, there isn't the enormous problems getting suspend/resume to work like there is in the Windows and Linux world where you have to get multiple vendors to cooperate to get something done.
Upon encountering OS X I went out and bought a 12" PowerBook. I thought it would be a nice machine to run Debian/PPC on. Instead, I so enjoyed having a functional laptop, that I never left OS X. Being firmly in the open source world, I described it as a crisis of faith. I'm on my second MacBook Pro now.
Having instantaneous suspend/resume is the biggest deal for me. Having wireless just work and being able to plug into a random printer and print a boarding pass is really nice. Plugging into a random projector or monitor and being able to do a demo or presentation without debugging the latest configuration mechanism to X is nice.
I still use Debian for servers and some workstations. Basically, if I only have to configure it once, it is worth the hassle. But with a laptop, I am essentially reconfiguring multiple times per day moving between locations, networks, and peripherals. OS X makes this so much less painful.
People like to talk about Apple as a software company or a hardware company. They are a systems company. Because they control the OS and the hardware, there isn't the enormous problems getting suspend/resume to work like there is in the Windows and Linux world where you have to get multiple vendors to cooperate to get something done.