Linux vs MacOS

[phl92]

Thats a naive question but I ask simple as it is: what can I do on Linux what I cannot in macOS?
Considering both systems are based on Unix, both have a Shell terminal (zsh or bash) and since some software tools are maybe alreadry preinstalled on Linux or vv, I can always upgrade both systems.
I am a beginner on both OS so I am really curious!

 

[DarkPremiumCho]

Linux allows more customizations as far as I know. You can even mess the bootloader around. Recent versions of macOS however, limits access/modifications on low level things such as system related files by a mechanism called System Integrity Protection.

Linux is not based on Unix though. Instead, one of the reasons that leads to the creation of Linux is the copyright issues in the Unix world. It's a mesmerizing history that worth a look.

Shell and terminal are 2 different things. There are some shell/tty/terminal/console introduction articles on the Internet that also worth diving into.

Considering Linux and macOS are both POSIX-compliant, beginners does not have to think about Linux-exclusive things. I started with the macOS Terminal, and gained experience with the Linux CLI later without any issues.

 

[unrigestered]

door window

 

[Basic75]

The short answer is that there is a large overlap between the Unix part of macOS and Linux, so there is a large class of things that you can do where it doesn't make much difference which system you are using.

However for more advanced things you'll often find that Linux is more open, powerful and flexible, for example the firewall in macOS doesn't hold a candle to Linux' netfilter with all of its possibilities.

 

[phl92]

macOS is macOS

"Linux" can be almost anything, depending on the distros and or your customizations (that you don't need to make, and some distros offer more customizability out of the box than others):
- some distros work and feel more like macOS (sometimes even better)
- some distros work and feel more like Windows (sometimes even better)
- some distros are completely devoid of any GUI and solely rely on the command line interface

biggest Linux pros (other than complete customizability down to Kernel level if you go full on geek)
- can work even better for you as both macOS and Windows are relying more on old habits regarding their user interfaces, while you can easily find some distro among the dozens (or even hundreds?) that is trying something more fresh and uses and combines the best of what macOS and Windows have on offer, and even improve on that.
- app loading times are much faster (on "standard" distros that don't rely on containerizations)
- the developers / community seem to be more interested in improving the actual OS workflow, instead of slapping yet another half baked "utility" on it and call it a day.
- can be way more privacy preserving, as long as you don't pick some of the largest / well known distros (which some of those too had been accused of collecting on user data even when all user data collecting options are disabled)
- way better window management (though pretty much anything on this plnet is better than macOS in these regards)
- usually way less resource (RAM) hungry, as there's usually way less bloat running in the background

biggest macOS pros:
- awesome workflow (though i think Fedora (more or less vanilla Gnome desktop) works even better for me in most cases)
- much better software support, especially in the (costy) "professional" / "industry standard" front.
Linux can have great apps for most scenarios too, but your selection can often be more limited
- better "ecosystem" out of the box if you just want to pick up your phone and have all documents available that you have on your desktop without any initial setup
- way ahead out of the box in case of security. there are containerized Linux distros too, but Apple has malware detection and removal built in, while most Linux users lightheadedly rely on the fact that Linux simply doesn't enjjoy having big market share and thus being not as likely to fetch something if you are just careful enough

biggest Linux cons:
- it's diversity in distros is also it's biggest weakness, and it's simply not as user friendly as Windows or macOS for beginners when it comes to installing third party apps that are not available in their associated repositories / "App Stores" and the "incompatibilities" between those distros.
Flatpaks are now heralded as the cure to everything and they indeed make almost every app work on every distro, i still think of them being more of a crutch and should't need to exist in the first place, if Linux was actually a compatibility-conscious platform across all distros.
- fingerprint sensors are said to be not recognized on quite a few distros
- updates are said to sometimes break things, though i'm not using Linux long enough (just a couple of weeks for me at the moment) to have encountered any such problems - and my distro is updating on the daily (though unlike macOS it does this REALLY fast - as it's only a matter of seconds!)
- i'm no expert, but i think that Linux might actually be the most unsafe platform out of the "big three" at the moment (if more of the bad guys actually had an interest in pestering private persons) as it doesn't have the effective means of preventing and alerting on malware attacks that Windows have, nor the level of hardening that macOS is "enjoying" more recently (which of course could be seen as weakness in terms of user control over the system)

biggest macOS cons:
- no true "long term" support for their own hardware
- new major releases can break compatibility with software
- macOS is a collectathon of user data, even if Apple might actually not analyze and profile those

Great list. Could you elaborate more on the " way better window management" argument for Linux. What exactly you mean with it? How to you switch windows at Linux? Alt Tab as in Windows yeah? I agree, MacOS window management is a mess, I never get used to

 

[unrigestered]

with window management i mean windows snapping into places.
most people seem to like it when they do this via mouse, but i prefer to do it solely via the keyboard and leave the window positioning via mouse completely free / un-snapped:

"windows key" + right arrow = window is taking the right half of the screen
"windows" + left = left
"windows" + down = hide current window
"windows" + up = maximized window to fit the whole screen (or unhide if the current window is hidden at the moment)
etc

also, double clicking the window header on macOS doesn't always mean to maximize / return to former state as in most other operating systems. it's depending on the apps. some just use some weird and often not very practical zoom levels the app deems good. even some Apple apps are doing this

some distros (and Windows too, or 3rd party add ons for macOS) allow for even more granular positionings), but personally i find these counter productive/overdone and not as fast for my use cases

cmd + tab on macOS to switch between apps is actually quite good and quick in my opinion. it's standard behavior in which it's always showing the Finder icon, even if no Finder window is currently open and when you click it nothing happens, other than deselecting the previously used window sucks big time in my opinion though

i don't want to sheepishly promote Fedora (or vanilla GNOME), as i'm sure many of the other distros are great too (and depending on personal requirements and preferences, maybe even "superior"), but as it is my only experience with Linux so far, it's the only distro i can speak about:
- it's actually feeling very macOS-esque, be it in the quality of appearance, the workflow and also not being overwhelming with dozens of options - if that is your thing, KDE Linux might be more up your alley) it is actually giving you less options / customizability out of the box than macOS as far as the GUI part of the system goes - it's almost zen-like minimalistic 🧘😜
- most of it's usability is actually quite obviously improved upon macOS (which is still great of course)
- the file explorer is the quickest to use i've ever had the pleasure to work with and keyboard navigation is pretty similar to Finder too, including Preview
- window managament (aka snapping) is miles better than stock macOS (which doesn't take much 😜 but Windows is still better in this regard, and i think quite a few other Linux distros too)
- it's "Spotlight" is working quicker and seems to utilize less resources, resulting in less background activity
- alt + tab is quite similar too, but without that bespoken "Finder" behavior
- the equivalent to "Spaces" is even quicker and more intuitive to use
- the "Exposé" counterpart is working better too

i think the only thing i still prefer on macOS is that CMD+Q and CMD+W are in a much more "natural" position than the (left) CTRL key that is used for these commands on Linux. Probably due to compatibility reasons with other, non native apps.
thankfully, right CTRL is working perfectly fine too, it's just a matter of muscle memory that still makes me somewhat prefer to use the (left) CMD

oh, and i also really like the CMD + , to get into the settings of pretty much any app, which i don't think is having an equivalent, at least on that distro, and i'm also not aware of any on Windows too

having said that, macOS is of course still a joy to use. it's just that, at least to me, it's feeling like an older version of GNOME in most aspects.
of course if you are relying on certain "professional" and or "industry standard" apps (other than those regarding system administration or other "computer geekery" things), macOS will probably be the better choice for a very long time, if not forever

the good thing about many (if not all) Linux distros is, that you can easily create a bootable USB stick and try the complete OS out without any restrictions or having to install anything on your system.





.....

but regarding your actual initial question what Linux can actually do, that macOS can't (sorry for the long wall of off-topic text before), as has been answered by other persons before:
- it can give you unparalleled customizability, down to altering the Kernel to something completely different if you really want to go that route.
it's Open Source, everyone can read and alter the code to his/her likings.
otherwise, most systems can do pretty much the same as the others.

 

[Spaceboi Scaphandre]

Thats a naive question but I ask simple as it is: what can I do on Linux what I cannot in macOS?

Play games for one since you got compatibility layers like Steam Proton.

 

[avijeet26]

While Linux and macOS share many similarities due to their common Unix heritage, there are still some differences between the two operating systems. Here are a few things that you can do on Linux that you may not be able to do on macOS:

1. Install Linux packages: While macOS comes with a package manager called Homebrew, it may not have as many packages available as Linux. Many Linux distributions come with a package manager that provides access to a vast array of open-source software.
2. Customize the system: Linux systems are highly customizable, allowing you to change everything from the desktop environment to the kernel itself. While macOS does allow some customization, it is more limited in scope.
3. Use different desktop environments: Linux allows you to choose from a wide range of desktop environments, each with its own look and feel. On the other hand, macOS has a single desktop environment that is tightly integrated with the operating system.
4. Run Linux-specific software: Some software is only available for Linux, such as the GIMP image editor, the LibreOffice productivity suite, and the R statistical computing environment.
5. Use different file systems: Linux supports a wide range of file systems, including popular ones like ext4, btrfs, and xfs, as well as experimental ones like zfs. macOS, on the other hand, primarily uses the HFS+ or APFS file systems.
6. Access low-level system information: Linux provides detailed information about system resources and performance, which can be useful for troubleshooting or optimization. While macOS also provides some system information, it may not be as detailed as Linux.

It's worth noting that while Linux may have some advantages over macOS in certain areas, macOS has its own strengths, such as tight integration with Apple's ecosystem of hardware and software products, a polished user interface, and robust security features. Ultimately, the choice between Linux and macOS (or any other operating system) comes down to personal preference and the specific needs of the user.

 

[phl92]

Homebrew came preinstalled on your MacOS? Mine not!
I also use Gimp on Windows.

Eventually I found it interesting that nobody mentioned the data privacy on Linux which you dont have at Apple. But I guess most people here are Americans and there you dont even consider such things relevant?!

 

[dmccloud]

While Linux and macOS share many similarities due to their common Unix heritage, there are still some differences between the two operating systems. Here are a few things that you can do on Linux that you may not be able to do on macOS:

1. Install Linux packages: While macOS comes with a package manager called Homebrew, it may not have as many packages available as Linux. Many Linux distributions come with a package manager that provides access to a vast array of open-source software.
2. Customize the system: Linux systems are highly customizable, allowing you to change everything from the desktop environment to the kernel itself. While macOS does allow some customization, it is more limited in scope.
3. Use different desktop environments: Linux allows you to choose from a wide range of desktop environments, each with its own look and feel. On the other hand, macOS has a single desktop environment that is tightly integrated with the operating system.
4. Run Linux-specific software: Some software is only available for Linux, such as the GIMP image editor, the LibreOffice productivity suite, and the R statistical computing environment.
5. Use different file systems: Linux supports a wide range of file systems, including popular ones like ext4, btrfs, and xfs, as well as experimental ones like zfs. macOS, on the other hand, primarily uses the HFS+ or APFS file systems.
6. Access low-level system information: Linux provides detailed information about system resources and performance, which can be useful for troubleshooting or optimization. While macOS also provides some system information, it may not be as detailed as Linux.

It's worth noting that while Linux may have some advantages over macOS in certain areas, macOS has its own strengths, such as tight integration with Apple's ecosystem of hardware and software products, a polished user interface, and robust security features. Ultimately, the choice between Linux and macOS (or any other operating system) comes down to personal preference and the specific needs of the user.

1. Homebrew does not come with MacOS. In fact, Homebrew can be installed in both MacOS and Linux distributions, but it does not ship with any OS that I'm aware of.

2 & 3. Customization is a double-edged sword. Since the OS components are largely customizable, it can be trivial to break some critical component of the OS. Furthermore, since the only true common denominator between Linux Distros is the kernel (interfaces, package managers, etc. can vary wildly between distributions), changes that work in Linux Mint or Ubuntu may not work at all in Red Hat, Fedora, or Debian (as an example). When you get into the GNOME vs. KDE vs. Cinnamon vs. Xfce vs. MATE vs. (everyone else) arguments, that just adds additional layers of complexity to development for Linux as a whole.

4. All of the software you mentioned here is actually cross-platform. GIMP has been cross-platform for as long as I can remember. I have it installed under Windows 11 (gaming PC), my Mac, and a Linux Mint VM. Likewise, LibreOffice also has a Mac version..




Even the R suite is cross-platform. From the R Project website:

R is a free software environment for statistical computing and graphics. It compiles and runs on a wide variety of UNIX platforms, Windows and MacOS. To download R, please choose your preferred CRAN mirror.

In short, the list of software exclusive to the Linux environment is not nearly as large as some have claimed. In fact, the work needed to port between Linux and Mac is significantly less than between Linux and Windows due to the common underpinnings of both OSes.

5. For the vast majority of users, the underlying file systems are irrelevant, and really do not affect the end-user experience in any meaningful way. The biggest issue I've seen on the Mac side comes from people attempting to read external drives formatted as NTFS, although the same drive formatted in ExFAT will work under any OS currently being maintained.

6. There are a plethora of tools under MacOS for accessing system information. While many of them are via third-party applications such as Onyx, iStat Menus, or Homebrew formulas, there is still a sizeable range of such tools on the Mac side. You also have the built-in tools such as Activity Monitor, which provide a lot of information despite not giving users the ability to get more granular with certain things.

Here is a side-by side example comparing Powermetrics (Apple's built-in tool) to ASITOP (a graphical interface installed via Homebrew for displaying the same information). This tool can be used for checking system performance, monitoring resource utilization, etc. To me, the latter option is infinitely more usable because of how things are organized and displayed.

Eventually I found it interesting that nobody mentioned the data privacy on Linux which you dont have at Apple. But I guess most people here are Americans and there you dont even consider such things relevant?!

This is confusing to me. What do you mean by data privacy "you don't have at Apple"? If anything, Apple was compliant with both GDPR and CCPA (California's version) before most of the industry.

 

[Yael-S.]

There are several areas where open source systems are better than proprietary systems such as windows or macOS. Here are some examples:

1. Stability: One of the most important parts of an operating system is the file system. But windows and macOS don't have a file system that is reliable-competitive with OpenZFS or most other file systems developed for Unix-like systems. It has also been shown many times that popular open source software has fewer bugs on average than popular proprietary software, which means that popular open source software is more stable.

2. Security: Proprietary software cannot be audited by security specialists and is therefore inherently unsafe. Furthermore, the fact that porprietary software has more bugs also means that it has an additional security risk.

3. Functionality: open source software evolves much faster than proprietary software and therefore also offers more functionality and more advanced tech. Certain apps and software exist for BSD and/or Linux, but not for Windows and macOS.

4. Freedom of choice: proprietary software always prevents your choice to change things or often prevents you from doing many things that are easily possible in open source software. For example, think of the many windows managers and desktop environments that exist for Linux and BSD, but are missing in windows and macOS.

5. Ease of use: updating and installing software or apps is often much easier in open source systems than in windows/macOS.

6. Privacy: Apple and Microsoft have an extensive history of abusing their users' privacy, something you don't see with most BSD and Linux systems.

7. Performance: There are always differences in performance between different operating systems. Here are some examples:

PostgreSQL benchmark on FreeBSD, CentOS, Ubuntu Debian and openSUSE | redByte blog

redbyte.eu

FreeBSD/Ubuntu Dual Boot Homelab in The Bedroom by the bed testbed

adventurist.me

Linux Distributions vs. BSDs With netperf & iperf3 Network Performance - Phoronix

www.phoronix.com

Scalable Event Multiplexing: epoll vs. kqueue

FreeBSD: A Faster Platform For Linux Gaming Than Linux? - Phoronix

www.phoronix.com

Linux – NetBSD web server performance – Valuable Tech Notes

https://www.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/rkayfs

Benchmark comparison BSD and Linux

Performance of Linux vs. FreeBSD NFS clients

I am seeing a dramatic difference in performance between Linux and FreeBSD servers mounting the FreeNAS server I have setup. I have searched the forums and not found a discussion of this as a general problem, so wonder what in my setup might be causing this. The FreeNAS 8.3 server has a raidz2...

www.truenas.com

FreeBSD Linux Benchmark

FreeBSD and Linux Nginx benchmark

docs.pritunl.com

Non scientific database performance comparison between Freebsd and Linux

On the same hardware , SSD-Disks. On one side Freebsd with ZFS filesystem, and on the other side Arch-Linux with XFS filesystem. Number of transactions per second comparison: Tokyocabinet-DB was 50% faster on Linux Redis-DB was as fast on Linux as on Freebsd Mongo-DB was 20 % faster on Freebsd...

forums.freebsd.org

FreeBSD vs. Linux – Virtualization Showdown with bhyve and KVM

Not too long ago, we walked you through setting up bhyve on FreeBSD 13.1. Today, we’re going to take a look specifically at how bhyve stacks up against the Linux Kernel Virtual Machine—but before we can do that, we need to talk about the best performing configurations under bhyve itself.

klarasystems.com

If there is a large or significant performance difference in something that is important to you, you should choose the open source system that gives the highest performance there.

8. Support: Open source systems such as Linux and BSD often offer longer and better hardware support than proprietary systems such as windows and macOS.

Blender Developers Find Old Linux Drivers Are Better Maintained Than Windows - Phoronix

www.phoronix.com

Device support in Windows vs. Linux

One of the highly debated subjects with Windows and Linux is with device support. The two have different methods of how drivers are created and implemented into the operating system.

www.zdnet.com

Which distro is the best usually also depends on your hardware and many other factors. Intel and AMD CPUs are usually well supported, but there too you see that some CPUs are simply not supported by certain distributions. But usually CPU support is less of a problem than GPU support, so I'll split my advice for Nvidia and AMD/Intel users:

Linux systems for Nvidia GPU users:
mageia, Nobara Project, Void Linux, Mint, NixOS, Artix Linux, MX Linux
Linux systems for AMD/Intel GPU users:
All of the above systems + Alpine Linux, Devuan and Clear Linux
I consider the five systems in bold to be the best Linux distributions of 2023.

I believe that the BSD systems are still more qualitative than the Linux systems.
Some BSD systems I would recommend are FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, and DragonFly BSD.

 

[Spaceboi Scaphandre]

Thats a naive question but I ask simple as it is: what can I do on Linux what I cannot in macOS?
Considering both systems are based on Unix, both have a Shell terminal (zsh or bash) and since some software tools are maybe alreadry preinstalled on Linux or vv, I can always upgrade both systems.
I am a beginner on both OS so I am really curious!

Aside from actually being able to play games lmao, Linux is 100% open so you can do whatever you want with the OS. You can modify and configure it to how you see fit, add whatever software you want onto it (even software that wasn't made for it using compatibility layers) and of course the fact it's free and open source is a big bonus, not having to pay a license.

macOS is a tailor made OS that's meant to be simplified and more convenient, so it's really up to what you yourself wants.

 

[Mikael H]

Thats a naive question but I ask simple as it is: what can I do on Linux what I cannot in macOS?
Considering both systems are based on Unix, both have a Shell terminal (zsh or bash) and since some software tools are maybe alreadry preinstalled on Linux or vv, I can always upgrade both systems.
I am a beginner on both OS so I am really curious!

I think it’s more of a question of what you would or wouldn’t want to use each system for.

Even though it’s certainly possible, I would not consider setting up a Mac as a server for most “serious” use cases outside perhaps as a file or backup server for personal or small business use: it’s simply not a good use of money nor of my time.

On the other hand, for desktop computers, macOS gives me a very hassle-free Unix experience once I grit my teeth and part with enough money, both for hardware and, where applicable, software.

To me it’s not at all about what I can or can’t do on either platform, but what it’s more fit for.
- My servers run Linux since that’s where I have the most flexible server software stack, the most flexible hardware options and all of my infrastructure tooling is written to make optimal use of that system.
- My gaming computer runs a Linux since Macs are incompatible with pretty much all games in my catalog right now, and I won’t touch the other, more gaming friendly operating system.
- My work and private laptops are both Macs, as I’ve come to a point in my life where I can pay for the luxury to have computers that are efficient and nice. If that would ever change, I’m no stranger to used laptops running free Unixes.

 

[wyrdness]

I very much agree with Mikael's post above. Which you choose definitely depends on your needs. Linux can (and does) run on anything from tiny embedded devices to the largest supercomputers. It's great for servers, which is something that Mac's don't really do well. If you need Docker, then Linux is definitely preferable. At home, I have a M1 Air for general use and a small Linux server as a NAS, which handles Time Machine backups, file serving and runs various Docker containers. At work I use a M2 Pro (which also has a Linux VM) for software development. They're both useful tools, but I prefer the 'luxury' of a Mac for general use and the power of Linux when it's required.

 

[mi7chy]

Learn Linux first since it's in greater demand as a job skill.

 

[SG83]

Linux allows more customizations as far as I know. You can even mess the bootloader around. Recent versions of macOS however, limits access/modifications on low level things such as system related files by a mechanism called System Integrity Protection.

Linux is not based on Unix though. Instead, one of the reasons that leads to the creation of Linux is the copyright issues in the Unix world. It's a mesmerizing history that worth a look.

Shell and terminal are 2 different things. There are some shell/tty/terminal/console introduction articles on the Internet that also worth diving into.

Considering Linux and macOS are both POSIX-compliant, beginners does not have to think about Linux-exclusive things. I started with the macOS Terminal, and gained experience with the Linux CLI later without any issues.

Linux isnt posix compliant thou

 

[Mikael H]

Linux isnt posix compliant thou

Technically true but pretty irrelevant in practice nowadays: If you check Wikipedia’s list of Posix certified systems, the only one on the list that a normal human is going to see in their lifetime is macOS. Most other systems - including many Linux distributions - are “mostly Posix-compliant”.

 

[jdb8167]

Technically true but pretty irrelevant in practice nowadays: If you check Wikipedia’s list of Posix certified systems, the only one on the list that a normal human is going to see in their lifetime is macOS. Most other systems - including many Linux distributions - are “mostly Posix-compliant”.

And since nearly 100% of all Unix/posix software is written on and for Linux first, true POSIX certification doesn’t matter.

 

[Isamilis]

deleted

 

[The point and shoot pro]

macOS is macOS

"Linux" can be almost anything, depending on the distros and or your customizations (that you don't need to make, and some distros offer more customizability out of the box than others):
- some distros work and feel more like macOS (sometimes even better)
- some distros work and feel more like Windows (sometimes even better)
- some distros are completely devoid of any GUI and solely rely on the command line interface

biggest Linux pros (other than complete customizability down to Kernel level if you go full on geek)
- can work even better for you as both macOS and Windows are relying more on old habits regarding their user interfaces, while you can easily find some distro among the dozens (or even hundreds?) that is trying something more fresh and uses and combines the best of what macOS and Windows have on offer, and even improve on that.
- app loading times are much faster (on "standard" distros that don't rely on containerizations)
- the developers / community seem to be more interested in improving the actual OS workflow, instead of slapping yet another half baked "utility" on it and call it a day.
- can be way more privacy preserving, as long as you don't pick some of the largest / well known distros (which some of those too had been accused of collecting on user data even when all user data collecting options are disabled)
- way better window management (though pretty much anything on this plnet is better than macOS in these regards)
- usually way less resource (RAM) hungry, as there's usually way less bloat running in the background

biggest macOS pros:
- awesome workflow (though i think Fedora (more or less vanilla Gnome desktop) works even better for me in most cases)
- much better software support, especially in the (costy) "professional" / "industry standard" front.
Linux can have great apps for most scenarios too, but your selection can often be more limited
- better "ecosystem" out of the box if you just want to pick up your phone and have all documents available that you have on your desktop without any initial setup
- way ahead out of the box in case of security. there are containerized Linux distros too, but Apple has malware detection and removal built in, while most Linux users lightheadedly rely on the fact that Linux simply doesn't enjjoy having big market share and thus being not as likely to fetch something if you are just careful enough

biggest Linux cons:
- it's diversity in distros is also it's biggest weakness, and it's simply not as user friendly as Windows or macOS for beginners when it comes to installing third party apps that are not available in their associated repositories / "App Stores" and the "incompatibilities" between those distros.
Flatpaks are now heralded as the cure to everything and they indeed make almost every app work on every distro, i still think of them being more of a crutch and should't need to exist in the first place, if Linux was actually a compatibility-conscious platform across all distros.
- fingerprint sensors are said to be not recognized on quite a few distros
- updates are said to sometimes break things, though i'm not using Linux long enough (just a couple of weeks for me at the moment) to have encountered any such problems - and my distro is updating on the daily (though unlike macOS it does this REALLY fast - as it's only a matter of seconds!)
- i'm no expert, but i think that Linux might actually be the most unsafe platform out of the "big three" at the moment (if more of the bad guys actually had an interest in pestering private persons) as it doesn't have the effective means of preventing and alerting on malware attacks that Windows have, nor the level of hardening that macOS is "enjoying" more recently (which of course could be seen as weakness in terms of user control over the system)

biggest macOS cons:
- no true "long term" support for their own hardware
- new major releases can break compatibility with software
- macOS is a collectathon of user data, even if Apple might actually not analyze and profile those

If you believe they don't, I have some nice beach front property at the north pole to sell you.

 

[it wasnt me]

Linux isnt posix compliant thou

It could. GNU is not POSIX-compliant though.

 

[it wasnt me]

Learn Linux first since it's in greater demand as a job skill.

I sincerely hope that most people don't choose their personal software mainly because of "demanded job skills".

 

[it wasnt me]

My servers run Linux since that’s where I have the most flexible server software stack, the most flexible hardware options and all of my infrastructure tooling is written to make optimal use of that system.

In my opinion, the "most flexible hardware options" are largely irrelevant on today's servers (even Plan 9 - the successor to Unix, quite an underrated system! - would work just fine on them, and Plan 9 has very limited hardware options) and the fact that Linux distributions - unlike other free systems - are made from different components from teams which don't talk much to each other have degrading effects on the integrity of your infrastructure tooling.

 

[it wasnt me]

biggest Linux cons:

You missed one:

Unlike macOS, Plan 9 and other past-70s operating systems, Linux still relies on emulating 70s hardware and software. macOS and Unix had graphical user interfaces in the 1980s, yet, Linux still uses "a TTY" (= a simulation of an actual teletype!) as its preferred input and output device.

It was a strange design decision in 1991 (!) to copy the early 70s instead of the late 80s.

 

[Mikael H]

In my opinion, the "most flexible hardware options" are largely irrelevant on today's servers

The comparison was between Linux and macOS, and in that case the difference is extremely relevant for most use cases, regardless of whether you count the ability to utilize as much capacity as possible, get the most bang for the buck, or just the ability to run on as cheap hardware as possible. Are there other systems that are as flexible? Maybe. But they don’t include macOS as distributed by Apple.

You missed one:

Unlike macOS, Plan 9 and other past-70s operating systems, Linux still relies on emulating 70s hardware and software. macOS and Unix had graphical user interfaces in the 1980s, yet, Linux still uses "a TTY" (= a simulation of an actual teletype!) as its preferred input and output device.

It was a strange design decision in 1991 (!) to copy the early 70s instead of the late 80s.

This argument is a bit disingenuous.
First of all it’s factually incorrect: since many years almost all common desktop distributions default to installing and booting into a GUI unless you explicitly choose not to. The TTY only part is a sane default for servers, though.

Second, in 1991 there were about three systems that any regular human was likely to see which were GUI-first. (For you young people reading this thread: Windows was not one of them and in 1991 many PC users did not yet see any point in using Windows.) The XFree86 project gave GUI support to Linux in 1994 - that’s the same year the Linux kernel hit version 1.0.

Third, despite its early roots, a good CLI like those included in most Linux distributions - and in macOS! - is extremely efficient if you know your way around it. It allows you to program your computer to do things for you rather than clicking around manually performing sequential tasks at the feeble speed of your human mind and your pointing device.