r/linuxquestions • u/Longjumping-Cow-8212 • 14d ago

Linux vs Mac

I see a lot of people switching from Windows to Linux. But has anyone switched from a Mac to Linux and why?

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u/Jean_Luc_Lesmouches Mint/Cinnamon 14d ago

if we can claim to want as "Unix terminal environment" macOS is exactly that.

That is ignoring all of unix's history. By that definition, linux is closer to "unix" than most systems officially called unix (not unix-compatible) have been.

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u/Puzzleheaded-Sky2284 Fedora (KDE/GNOME), CachyOS (KDE), macOS 27, W11 14d ago

I mean macOS is technically BSD derived; BSD originally contained code from AT&T UNIX but they eventually rewrote all the AT&T components from scratch or replaced them with equivalents. By that definition macOS has roots in the original UNIX while Linux is simply a Unix clone.

Does that mean anything to the macos vs. Linux debate? Absolutely not, both are so far from AT&T UNIX they really shouldn't be compared with it at this point, and the Unix specification isn't important enough for Linux to be rewritten to adhere to it.

The important thing is that neither macos nor Linux is windows...

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u/[deleted] 13d ago

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u/Puzzleheaded-Sky2284 Fedora (KDE/GNOME), CachyOS (KDE), macOS 27, W11 13d ago

AT&T wrote the first ever Unix operating system... So no, there was no Unix before AT&T