My history: 1995: started using Linux as a hobby dev OS 2000: switched from Windows NT 4.0 to Linux at work (C) 2002: moved to .NET, used Windows at work and

My history: 1995: started using Linux as a hobby dev OS 2000: switched from Windows NT 4.0 to Linux at work (C) 2002: moved to .NET, used Windows at work and Linux at play 2006: mix of Linux and Windows at work 2011: abandoned .NET entirely; mix of Linux and OSX at work, Linux for play 2013: entirely Linux 2014: mix of FreeBSD and Linux for work and play So it's fair to say I've solid experience in both, plus a fair amount of dev environment automation under my belt. Linux vs OSX: Linux wins hands-down unless you're happy hitting a wall when it comes to customisation and automation. Mint is in my experience the equal of OSX out of the box, and just gets better as you start automating things. Productivity with a decent keyboard-driven WM and editor (StumpWM + Emacs in my case) is great. Recently I've become a bit concerned that some of the design directions taken by the Linux community aren't aligned with my priorities, so I've been trying out FreeBSD. It's awesome, and my current OS of choice, but hardware support is more limited and the desktop / laptop experience isn't as polished as Mint.