[lyudmil]

>This is a double standard. To have its “great” hardware support, a given release of OS X has to support a few dozen hardware configurations.

Agreed. Linux and Windows, as operating systems, are solving a much different and more difficult problem than OS X is. You can get them to run on a wide variety of hardware relatively easily. By that metric, both Windows and Linux have "better hardware support" than OS X.

The problem is this metric is completely useless to me. When I turn on my machine, I do it in order to get work done. This means I need to be able to go online for project management and responding to emails, I need to be able to call my clients using their preferred VoIP service, I need to run text editors, IDEs, and various virtual machines, interpreters, compilers, and servers, I need to be able to hook into an iPhone or Android phone and load software onto it, I need to be able to quickly and painlessly install libraries, software, and developer tools, I need to be able to edit video and audio, and I need to have the confidence that if I had to learn a new skill or assumed a new responsibility, I'll spend most of my time learning rather than setting my system up.

I care about my system's hardware support as far as it allows me to do these things quickly and painlessly. I've had Linux and Windows machines before and I've done all I've needed to do on them, but I've never accomplished my work as effortlessly as on a Mac. I think that's what geeks mean when they say "better hardware support". They mean "fewer unforeseen setup-related problems". That's a metric I care deeply about.

[virtualwhys]

1) go online for project management and responding to emails

check

2) call my clients using their preferred VoIP service

Skype, GoogleTalk maybe? Go2Meeting crashed like a bi-atch on OSX for me.

3) run text editors, IDEs, and various virtual machines, interpreters, compilers, and servers

complete nonsense if you're insinuating that OSX has better support for the above than Linux (you guys just got a non-archaic JDK for example, curious which compilers you're using, the Ruby "compiler" ;-))

4) hook into an iPhone or Android phone and load software onto it

Can certainly do that with Android; OSX VM for iPhone

5) quickly and painlessly install libraries, software, and developer tools

yum, apt, and so on

6) edit video and audio

Macs are great for artists and musicians; case in point, my dad's had a Mac since the early 90s, he does video editing and audio editing (producer and drummer)

7) if I had to learn a new skill or assumed a new responsibility, I'll spend most of my time learning rather than setting my system up.

I mentioned passive non-learning in regard to the OSX experience in another comment. I'd argue that, on the contrary, Linux users, having an understanding of their system beyond the GUI, are actually better suited toward learning new skills, assuming that skill is systems-based of course; if it involves click-click-clicking things, that's another "skill"

[pjmlp]

Where can you use a legal OS X VM?

[steveklabnik]

I vaguely remember something about Mountain Lion's TOSes stating that an OS X VM is acceptable on Apple hardware.

[shurcooL]

No, they're solving the exact same problem: to provide a good computing experience.

Now, how they go about solving that same problem is radically different. Windows and Linux tries to support as much hardware as possible and be general. OS X tries to limit scope to own MacBook hardware only, and benefit from the advantages of that approach as much as it can (clearly, it has some disadvantages it suffers from too).

I'm not sure it's easy to say which approach is more difficult overall. Linux and Windows approach is clearly much more difficult on the software side. However, OS X has to have is own hardware made by the same company. If Apple falls behind in hardware, OS X is screwed. So there's a lot more importance and difficulty in making sure the hardware is great (if a Dell makes bad hardware, Linux and Windows can be okay as long as any other hardware company makes something good).

[m0skit0]

Actually Apple doesn't make the hardware anymore, it relies on external companies to do so.

[sbuk]

Much like most of the other hardware manufacturers out there.