A few months back I wrote a post that had quite a few reactions, speculating on why open source developers run OS X.
Recently I have been using the newest Macbook Pro 15″, and I thought I would update my direct experience on how Ubuntu and OS X stack up.
Web Browsing
On both platforms Chrome, in my view, is the defacto standard for nerds and an ever increasing porportion of the general population. Having used Safari for the first month to try ‘the apple way’, I can say that Chrome feels faster, has better features, and was just really well thought out. Both platforms are a wash on this one.
Flash Plugin
This one is also a wash, both platforms have support for flash — I actually think Ubuntu has an edge here since Flash can be installed via the package manager, instead of an entirely separate installer in OS X.
Text Editing
Textmate is a very cool application, with tons of pre-defined bundles that allow for quick completion, and a great project view. However for Java development, it seems that IDE autocompletion / debugger integration is hard to beat (Eclipse / Netbeans work on both platforms), while for Python / Ruby etc Vim was a better fit for both platforms, as an advanced user. Definitely a great entry level editor that is an inbetween for Gedit / Vim.
Terminals
I think here gnome-terminal blows away terminal.app — gnome-terminal is noticeably faster and the design was clearly by people using the terminal day in and out. I think the Mac community feels the same way, and in general uses ITerm, or the recently released ITerm2 (not same authors as ITerm oddly enough). ITerm2 does work well, but again it feels like the terminal lacks speed in comparison.
Performance
One thing that struck me was the lack of responsiveness / speed. This Macbook is a quad core with an ATI dedicated graphics card, but for most operations the OS feels quite sluggish. Starting up iTunes or Safari takes much longer than you would expect for a $2000 USD piece of machinery. I will however note that I only use Gnome 2, so Gnome 3 may suffer from a similar issue, but I am not experienced enough to write about it.
Application Installation Method
I was able to install apps through the Mac App Store, in the same manner I do in Ubuntu using the Software Center. The Mac App store has many more commercial applications, however most of them like Photoshop are just not needed for a Linux veteran as Gimp does everything needed. I also purchased XCode 4, but was underwhelmed other than the Iphone emulator which ran awesome in comparison to the Android emulator I was previously used to.
Email
I am sure a lot of people use Mail.app and like it, but I have always been a fan of the GMail interface. I guess if we are comparing Apples to Apples, Evolution and Mail.app are both not very strong competitors (ie the rest of the world either runs on Outlook or Gmail).
Photo Management
iPhoto is a strong point, it is very easy, intuitive and nice looking to manage photos. Linux alternatives here are weak.
Music Management
iTunes is a horrible, slow monster of expensive music. One thing I miss is my Droid and the Amazon MP3 application, as that was by far a better deal, and my purchases went straight to the cloud. iCloud is coming shortly, but Amazon is still my vendor of choice, and they already have proven to get the cloud right.
Gaming
OS X and Ubuntu both have my favorite game, Heroes of Newerth. Mac OS X has Steam, which is definitely a benefit and World of Warcraft. Ubuntu can’t really compete in this arena, so it is something to consider.
Conclusion
So, if you were like me, and curious about Mac OS X, you can see I am not overall impressed. Maybe I am just biased towards Ubuntu, but I find overall it has favorable performance, and I can change out any pieces I don’t like. I would recommend OS X if you wanted a generally worse experience but the ability to install Photoshop and a few more games (still nothing compared to Windows in this respect).