"Rails does run best on a Mac" is an inaccurate statement. Rails runs best in a Unix-like environment, as opposed to Windows. Rails development on Linux is just

"Rails does run best on a Mac" is an inaccurate statement. Rails runs best in a Unix-like environment, as opposed to Windows. Rails development on Linux is just dandy, and IMO, a step better because you don't have to go out and pick a package manager for all your core libraries. You still face the issue with compiling your own Ruby though. There's some sort of deep seated issue between the Ruby community and distribution packagers that I've never figured out. The version of Ruby that you can install with your distro's package manager is rarely the one everyone uses for development. I think part of this has to do with the break-neck development pace of Ruby in general.