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> ...Then don’t get a Mac! I’ve been computing since DOS with floppies and an 8088 CPU. I was a DOS mechanic an am a certified UNIX admin. I was pissed at Windows so got a Mac. NOTHING is intuitive, EVERYTHING is different, NOTHING is easy. I stuck with it for 7 months and went and bought a new Windows box. If you learned on a Mac, I’m sure it’s different, but it’s not great for this old PC operator.

With all respect, I have a similar history to yours (here if you're curious) and what I've learned about the differences between a Mac and either Windows or Linux is that with a Mac, the more you know about the inner workings of computers, the harder it is to get your mind wrapped around how the Mac does things.

I have to constantly tell myself: "Stop thinking about what's going on in the computer. Just clear your mind and think about what you want to do. The Mac expects you to just do that, not think of how you'd do it with a handful of chips and a compiler."

That's why, in my opinion, Macs are generally better for non-geek types. But as you say, for us geek types, we have to stop thinking like we understand how it works, and just think of what we want to do.

Of course, YMMV, but that's been my experience, personally and with other technical and non-tech types.

Incidentally, FrogMom, since you (like me) are basically a UNIX-style person, the fact that a Mac is real BSD UNIX underneath (albeit with a glitzy GUI on top), makes it a very familiar and quite useful machine, even if all you do is open up xterms and other X11 apps on the desktop. Other than an email client and a browser, I'd say 90+% of my work on my Mac is done at the commandline, using UNIX commands. It's a very robust UNIX environment; sorta reminds me of working on my Ultrix workstation back in the early 90's.

I have rsync and find and chmod and gcc and make and whatever editor I feel like, automount NFS and SMB network drives, authenticate with NIS or LDAP, run Apache 2.4 as a webserver...

UNIX is the best there is, IMO. Not that the UNIX is justification for buying a Mac -- there are cheaper ways to get a commandline. Just sayin' :-)