I thing macos sucks for Linux development. There is not enough memory and disk space for virtualization, so you run random scripts from Internet on your main machine. Command line tools are decades old and obsolete...
macOS is great for UNIX, the best development for GNU/Linux is by definition GNU/Linux.
As grey beard never came to my mind that using a Solaris workstation would be great for HP-UX development, as one possible example among many combinations during the UNIX wars.
The culture of reaching out to macOS for doing GNU/Linux only proves the point of how broken GNU/Linux desktop still happens to be, which Microsoft was quite clever to capitalise on with WSL.
I was going to write very long answer. But I am drunk, my English is very bad, and do not care. So here are just a few key points:
* can I run Xfce or other WM on MacOS if its unix? On FreeBSD it is not o problem. I do not care about Mac native WM. Unix is about choice, I do not feel like that on Mac.
* It is not 1990tie. Everyone uses virtualization, even development for Solaris.
* Look at ollama install instructions. It expects you to pipe random URL into your shell and execute it. It asks for sudo password! How many MacOS users will do that on their only laptop, because they can not afford any extra RAM for virtualization or separate machine?! It is like doing random hookups at bar without condom!
* I do not care about operating system. For my it is a just a launcher for VirtualBox where I do my work. I need a lot of cheap RAM and SSD space for my workflow. Windows machine can do that, MacOS not (10000 USD machine does not count).
* GNU/Linux is so 2000. Many people run stack that has no GNU whatsoever. MacOS is very premium machine for this type of 1990ties mentality (single personal machine).
* Look into QubeOS I have machine for emails, browser, debuging... Machine where I can see production data has no access to Internet at all. Machine that can modify github repos is paranoidly locked down... I have a few physical machines on separate network to test random opensource stuff. It would cost probably million USD to replicate that on MacOS network eccosystem!
* I do not care about hardware. My laptop with 8TB SSD and 64GB RAM costs less than 1000 USD. Sometimes I just donate it to someone while traveling, not to carry extra two kilos (I replace RAM sticks and NVME disks). I got 10 of those on sale for 400 USD!
I usually bought a Mac every 1.5 years or so, because I liked being on the cutting edge. However, I am now still rocking a 2021 MacBook Pro 14" because it's still great. In half a year the model is about 3 years old. When I purchased it, it was close to 3000 Euro, and it has 32GB RAM and 1TB SSD.
If I'd sell it, I'd still get between 1000 and 1500 Euro. Let's say for the sake of the argument I get 1200 when it is three years old, then the yearly cost was 600 Euro. Which is... cheap for a tool that I use daily and my income depends on? I mean, if I had to drive by car to work, my yearly cost would be much more than 600 Euro.
I would readily agree that Apple overcharges for memory and SSD, but the amortized cost is not really large.
If you depend on this machine for living... You should have a spare machine. Way to recover data very fast if it breaks.... Way to fix it... It gets expensive pretty fast.
Also if you travel with Mac, you need to carry two laptops. There is no easy way to move NVME drive to new machine like with Pc laptops.
Ehm, why? What you are saying does not make sense at all. I do hourly incremental backups to fast blob storage. If my Mac breaks, I can pick up another one and be back up and running in no time. The other good thing is that it doesn't matter where I buy it or go for repairs, since Apple has great worldwide service.
Besides that I never had a Mac break down when I travel and I've owned MacBooks since 2007 and travelled a lot with them (including years of daily bike rides, including hilly terrain).
My MacBook is one of the products I literally never worry about.
Meanwhile, my Framework laptop from 2021 has twice the RAM and storage, was significantly cheaper, and runs an even more unix-like graphical environment.
It's not that Mac hardware is only available with limited memory and storage (you can get a MacBook Pro with 128 GB of RAM and 8 TB of storage, or you can get a Mac Pro and throw in a bunch of M.2 drives on PCIe cards), it's just that the pricing on them is ridiculous.
It's not a problem of macOS in the strictest sense but we're talking about highly vertically integrated platforms. You don't get macOS without a mac, so it _is_ a macOS problem in that sense.
As grey beard never came to my mind that using a Solaris workstation would be great for HP-UX development, as one possible example among many combinations during the UNIX wars.
The culture of reaching out to macOS for doing GNU/Linux only proves the point of how broken GNU/Linux desktop still happens to be, which Microsoft was quite clever to capitalise on with WSL.