1. iTerm2 is great. I haven't used the Mac terminal since it became available. Thought I will say that I have never experienced any performance problems with

1. iTerm2 is great. I haven't used the Mac terminal since it became available. Thought I will say that I have never experienced any performance problems with either. iTerm 2 just has a richer feature set. 2. Say hello to the homebrew (http://mxcl.github.com/homebrew/ http://mxcl.github.com/homebrew/) package manager. While apt is more robust, I don't think you will be let down by homebrew. I recommend following the "advanced" instructions for installing it into your home directory rather than mangling the /usr/local permissions. 3. The keyboard iTerm 2 shortcuts are highly customizable. Mac Terminal does not appear to be as configurable. 4. vim in the Mac terminal works wonderfully. MacVim adds clipboard integration, native keyboard shortcuts, and other Finder integration niceties. I use both interchangeable. Per my response to question 2, the latest versions of vim and MacVim are available through homebrew. After a adjusting to Finder, I don't think you will find a productivity loss. The biggest issue I have found for folks coming over from Linux are the lack of real virtual desktops. Spaces is a joke by comparison.