So I keep jumping between OSX/Ubuntu. I use OSX to run PhotoShop, proper Excel and (unfortunately) Outlook.
Also it's hard to beat Linux desktops for typist/coder use case. Unity/Gnome3 have made it worse, but not as terrible as OSX (yet) I just could never get nearly as productive on OSX: everything breaks apart after you open more than 5 apps, no proper virtual desktops, keyboard shortcuts are limited and not easily configurable, the list goes on and on.
This also applies to Python/Ruby libraries with native extensions. They always just work on Linux and on OSX I kept running into weird issues. Even though the solution is always a Google search away, it's still easier to just use the OS where everything works all the time.
There is another, less popular reason to use Linux desktop, and it's Thinkpads. OSX does not run on them, but - according to some fans like myself - a Thinkpad is the best laptop money can buy. But this reason is soon to become obsolete: Lenovo is discontinuing Thinkpads replacing them with cheap macbook clones.
Since I am not a programmer, my program use differs somewhat from others here:
- Emacs + LaTeX (texlive) + Okular/Evince → work
- Shell (zsh) + Krusader + Transmission (torrent) → files
- Shell (zsh) + ssh + openvpn → networking & administration
- Chromium / Firefox / Thunderbird / mailx → browsing & email
- Kaffeine / VLC → videos
- DeaDBeeF → audio
- Emacs → "programming" (needs bigger air-quotes, but: shell scripting etc.)
Well, carry on using what you are using!
I'm an end user and I find that Firefox, LibreOffice, GIMP, Audacity, R, Gnuplot, Texlive, the desktop text editor and a few other bits and pieces cover most of my simple needs. I've almost reached the point where I can copy my dotfiles over to a new installation and sync dropbox or a backup and just get to work, like the Rob Pike approach but on recycled hardware...
Almost any recent GNU/Linux distribution works fine on my 2009 vintage PC and 2010 vintage laptop.
Currently I'm living in KDE for a bit, having used Gnome 3 and Unity and XFCE.
For the things I mainly use it, it's very good for me. The tools available I mostly love. When stuck on another OS (Windows, OSX) I feel unhappy with the quality of alternatives (this is not to say that one OS is better than others - just that Linux is better at being Linux than OSX or Windows are :) and workarounds for my preferred workflow which are, unsurprisngly, tuned for the platform at hand.
Stuff I use:
* desktop: linux mint base, but openbox + tint2 "desktop environment"; terminator;
* file management: bash (yes, really)
* dev: bash; git; sublime desktop; ssh; chrome; firefox; virtualbox;
* office stuff: libreoffice, evince; I do have a Windows VM for netbanking (sadly), and the very rare occasion that libreoffice breaks when reading a doc I received
* gaming: bought most of the humble bundles featuing linux games, bought some on linux steam; i'm obviously not a hardcode gamer, tho
Should you? D'oh, it's a tool. Use what you like (and what you need).
If you don't embrace the whole Unix philosophy and start using it as intended rather than with a layer of glitter over the top, there is no point at all.
I switched because i didn't have to spend as much time piddling around to get stuff to work. Rather than spending hours in VB/VC++, arguing with COM, dealing with horrible amounts of stateful black box configuration and absolutely no composability past defined IDL/COM interfaces, i could glue some shit together that talked lines of text in literally minutes, perform better and still be running 12 years later with no modification.
Productivity waned for a year but once I'd got my shit together I'm doing the work of 5 people in half the time.
And also a lot of stuff on linux finally works. And open source toolchains are much more prevalent nowadays and they thrive on Linux. So if your job is not chained to a ms stack and you don't mind getting your hands dirty from time to time and can suffer trough some problems with gaming, there are few arguments against switching.
I use it for everything from development to web browsing and even gaming (I don't dual boot). Off the top of my head I can't think of any Windows software that I would use which does not have an equivalent or better FLOSS alternative.
My main tools are:
* Chromium: Google Docs and Gmail
* Sublime Text 2
* The terminal (URxvt, zsh): Vim, Mplayer
* Transmission
I've tried getting back into Windows but it felt like it was missing something.
In a package-managed system, you don't have to open a browser to starting hunting on the internet. You can search your own repository. Install it in literally seconds - particularly if you already know the name. There's only one program doing the 'phone home' - your package manager, and that only does it to sites that you can confirm with your own two eyes.
I run a windows desktop at home, but only for the games. Working with windows for work would be like tying one hand behind my back - windows makes it harder to 'get at' the system. But it really depends on what your specific tools are, there are analogues for most in the linux world if you ask around.
And licensing, oh my god, licensing. The nail in the Windows coffin for me was licensing (the joy of package management came later). "Hi Windows Support, I have this remote server that's going to expire its CALs in two days. I have applied the license code in a couple of different ways and it refuses to 'take' and demands a phone call to you guys. I can't get at this server physically. Okay, thank you for the code, I've applied it. Now, can you tell me where I can see that it has been successfully applied? Because the license box just disappeared when I clicked 'ok', there was no confirmation. This is a box in a country hospital, people's health actually depend on it - so please, I need it to remain remotely accessible - where can I actually see on the system it saying 'it is now licensed'?" ==> "Oh don't worry sir, that information is stored on our systems". It's not the Microsoft Police that I'm worried about here ==> "Oh don't worry, sir, that information is stored on our systems"
Licensing shennanigans drove me from being fearful of that crazy weird linux thing that doesn't make sense, and since then I've come to love it for all its advantages over windows. Linux has its warts, but every time I run into a problem like a dependency issue, which really isn't often these days, I remember the method of hunting Windows software on the internet, and it's much easier to deal with.
EDIT: also with package management, it's trivial to set up a new system with all the bits and bobs you want (awesome for testing stuff). You can do this with windows, but it's an ordeal getting it set up automatically - the usual process of installing in windows is manually going through each thing you want installed and every one of it's click-through windows.