Here's the problem with saying "this is better for computer scientists": It's the same argument every time someone says "the Macbook Pro is not a professional device". Not every computer scientist has the same needs. There are a lot of CS folks who will never need to recompile a kernel or even get into the OS internals. For those people, having to do that is a major downside to any computer. So the obvious choice is a computer where that's never necessary.

Linux is a great OS. I spend all day SSH'd into it. From a Mac. Because my workstation needs to work, and it's not going to work if I'm copying and pasting kernel code from Stack Overflow to get my trackpad to scroll the correct direction. I'm not a C programmer, so keep me as far from the kernel as you can.

The best environment for a computer scientist is the one that lets them get their work done in the most comfortable fashion. And for most of us, that's Linux on the server and something else on our workstations.