I work in a university department and the situation is exactly the opposite. When a new grad student arrives, they're set up with a Scientific Linux machine (a

I work in a university department and the situation is exactly the opposite. When a new grad student arrives, they're set up with a Scientific Linux machine (a version of RHEL modified by CERN and Fermilab). My feeling is that a lot of science jobs will rely on the Linux/Unix platform. Backend or system control type things are on Linux and a lot of personal computers are OS X.