So for three years, I used Windows 10 x64 Professional, MacOS X, and Linux (Mint) on a late 2015 iMac 21.5" computer with a 1.6GHz dual core 4th or 5th gen Core i5, 8GB of RAM, and a 1TB Spindle HDD. I also ran the same OS Simulataniously at work on multiple Dell branded devices, and my own personal laptop with LInux Mint on it. Here's how all three compare IMHO.
| ATTRIBUTE
| WINDOWS 10
| MAC OS X
| LINUX
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| Hardware Requirements
| Windows has gotten far more generic about their hardware requirements in recent years, usually reccommending a 2GHz or better dual core (or more) CPU with at least 4GB of RAM, and double digit gigabytes of hard disk space. While these are easy to meet with pretty much any computer built since 2005, including a Mac, it's not going to be a great experience if you don't stay within a 10 year window with your hardware these days - ie 4th gen I5 or better, with double the RAM, and a fast SSD for read/write performance. That said, Microsoft has been notorious in recent years, at least in my house, for not grandfathering old drivers for Windows, this ends up with your computer being totally unusable for Windows. Hence the 10 year window. Back when Windows 8.x was new, I had a Toshiba Tecra M5 laptop with a touch screen that worked great, but after having Windows 10 on it for a year, suddenly none of my drivers worked anymore, and I needed new Drivers, and Toshiba was not making new ones.
| Apple MacOS - formerly known as OS X - requires an APPLE computer within or equal to a 5-year window. This means my Late 2015 iMac has been left behind by Apple, as has many other computers. How Apple manages this is that the O/S is free with your Macintosh, but the O/S is hard-coded to only allow it to be installed on hardware that it's "designed for" - so nothing past Mac OS MOnterey for my aging iMac. This is kind of a shame because Apple makes some really well built, stout, and reliable hardware capable of lasting a decade or more, and most people unaware of alternatives like Linux, would just think their Apple product is a large paperweight. Of course, Apple encourages you to recycle your machine with them for credit on a new machine, but I'm doubtful how useful that is.
| Linux has very vague hardware requirements like Microsoft Windows, and they are for a reason, because depending on the distribution, sub-distribution, bundled applications, and window manager (the GUI used) - Linux can vary wildly from minimum requirements of a 386 SX with 4MB of RAM - aka, something so old it's in the vintage section here and in my PREFERRED window of machine - all the way to the latest, fastest hardware. That said the one thing they don't mention is how difficult it is to make drivers for devices in Linux, because these driver modules rely on the manufacturer telling the Linux dev team - a non-profit team by large - managing to get the information on these hardware devices to write effective, safe, and reliable drivers for these devices. This causes all kinds of issues. But we'll talk about that later.
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| Pre-Install Process
| Computer Configuration, despite UEFI vs. the old Int13 BIOS of the days of old, is still much the same. YOu still need to understand the computer hardware well enough to effectively configure all those BIOS settings, and understand what you need and don't need to handle it. It's probably smack-dab in the middle for complexity, because Linux assumes you already know a thing or two about the computer you are installing it on, while MacOS is pretty easy TBH. That said, most UEFI defaults should be fine for most people, but it's when we get to the next versions of Windows - ie Windows 11 - that we start to have problems relating to TPM chips and Secureboot, and all that fun stuff, because you NEED it for the encryption to work. You will still need to know - at the very least - how to access your computer's boot options menu to boot off the DVD if you have that kind of media. It can be futher made more complex though, by needing to use a special utility from Microsoft to make a bootable USB drive with the install files on it, and then hope that the computer is configured well enough to boot off that.
| MacOS's preinstallation process is very simple, you just hit Command+Control+R or Command+R, and you get a menu asking for your WiFi or network connection - that's because ALL of the preinstallation is already taken care of by the Mac's firmware - which is not all that user changeable. Once in, you can just kick off the installation process from a downloaded Preinstallation Environment on the Macintosh. The most complicated part of preinstallation on a Macintosh, honestly, is knowing the key combinations to access the "recovery mode" (the ones I just gave), and holding them at exactly the right time to get it to come up in Recovery Mode. Also, one mode gives the computer the O/S that it came with new - which for my iMac is Mac OSX Catalina, and the other mode gives the computer the latest Mac O/S. So that's another strike against Mac OS. I think I've installed Catalina twice when I wanted High Sierra/Monterey by getting these keypresses mixed up.
| Linux has the hardest preinstallation requirements of the lot, which is not that hard, because you need to know a little bit about your distribution before you install it. I use Linux Mint, which isn't too bad being an Ubuntu Distribution. Some distributions don't play as nice with UEFI, and require "LEgacy Boot" - which then, going back to hardware, kicks you back into older PC's that can have UEFI boot mode disabled and replaced with "Legacy Boot", while others can work with UEFI and even offer the same options as Microsoft Windows and MacOSX regarding encrypted drives. One nice thing to look for when starting out with a Linux install is a "Live CD" type distribution, which basicallyh boots you into a fully working, albeit stripped down, version of the Linux Distribution you are to install before you install it, so you can try it out, and even kick off the graphical, guided, install process from the desktop.
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| Installation Process
| I don't think Microsoft has changed their installation process much since Windows Vista to be entirely honest. You put in the install media, boot from it, click the "install" button, choose to upgrade your prexisting O/S, or install a clean install, and then go to the Partitioning part of the job, and either blow away all the partitions, put together a partition for Windows, or whatever - which is a bit technical. Microsoft Windows typically sets up 3-4 partitions, usually the "Boot" partition, an "NTFS" Partition for Windows Proper, and a Recovery partition for that blue menu you get for various troubleshooting and diagnostics of a broken Windows OS Install. The first phase copies files to the hard drive, then reboots, the second phase walks you through a series of menus connecting to your WiFi, setting up your Microsoft.com account, subscribing to Office 365 (eek, Advertising), and of course, the usual "pep talk" crap Microsoft feeds you about Productivity and Creativity with their O/S before dropping you at the Windows Desktop after phase 3 and letting you finally get down to business.
| Mac OSX is fairly easy as long as the disk is prepared and formatted. Basically, you click install, and then the monster of the O/S becomes apparent in that MacOS, expecially a newer version on an older Mac, can take hours to complete. Thankfully, the install is unattended and devoid of advertising, but it's also a long wait. The last install of OSX I did took about 4.5 hours to complete, and by the time it was done, I did not even have the time to configure or tweak it to my heart's content yet. That's the real crux of macos is is how friggin SLOW it is to do anything, especially on an older iMac with a spinning hard disk.
| Linux's installation can vary from MS-DOS level technical, all the way to really easy. Most of the modern distributions out there are kind of a mix of Apple's fairly easy, internet connected, installs, but with Windows level of configuration and ability to do more complex tasks. You'll need to choose your time zone, and configure your machine's network name and whatnot, but other than that, it's kind of a bizzare cross of Windows and macos. You can partition drives with it too, but it's not as common knowledge as it's still rather unclear whether we still need a /swap partition on the computer or not anymore. I think I don't have it now because SSDs. All in all though, Linux has the fastest installation process of the lot, taking a mere 35 minutes tops to install everything and reboot to the Linux sign-in prompt. Pretty darn good, I've never seen installs nearly this fast since DOS and Windows For Workgroups 3.11. And Mind you this is on a 7 year old iMac and a 10 year old Dell Laptop that I did this on.
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| Post-Install Tweakery
| Microsoft Windows is the msot annoying of the three when it comes to this. For starters, ADVERTISING EVERY-FRIGGIN-WHERE! They want you to use Edge, they Want you to use Office 365, they want you to use your Microsoft.com account for everything, and they want you to use whatever other hot commodity software items when you first login. A post-Windows installation process for me, is usually this: DOwnload and INstall Mozilla Firefox, change default browser to Firefox, delete all the Edge Icons, Delete the IE Icons, remove all advertising and turn off all notifications, change the desktop wallpaper, add adblock and noscript add-ins to Firefox, install Thunderbird e-mail client if I want e-mail, install and activate my OLD copy of Microsoft Office 2013/2016 that's NOT cloud based, save all my shortcuts in Firefox, install drivers for my guitar effects processor, install drivers for my printer and connect to it over the network, and then install a barriage of updates spanning quite a length of time. What I saved in install time from macOS is taken over by Microsoft Windows in updates and constant tweakery to make the operating system run well, and not constantly be nagging me with bullshit promises about additional OneDrive capacity if I just subscribe to their SaaS malarkey.
| MacOS, post-install, can be also equally as annoying. Now I have to sign into my Apple account and do the usual stuff with Windows that I do - download Firefox, install the adblock/noscript plugins, change default browser from Safari to Firefox, their default wallpapers are pretty nice so I don't change that usually. Things get annoying only when I start to leverage the fact that MacOS is still pretty much a *nix O/S and can run almost anything you throw at it. This means installing VirtualBox to run my older Windows Applications, possibly Parallels or Bootcamp to install a modern Windows version I can use with modern Windows apps with no Apple substitute or Equivalent. Another annoyance is if you are stuck on an older version of macos, you have to use versions of the apps in the Appstore such as GarageBand MADE for that version of macos, and if it's been long enough, the version of that application that you have, is not available to you on the older O/S. I find as a creative type, the O/S is more placataing to musicians and artists than Windows tends to be, because Windows has this falsehood still spread (that used to be true) that a Mac is better for video and music production than a PC is. But the biggest pain, however, is running some applications that are homebrew from the internet, which means, you might even need to go to the Homebrew site and install that onto your Mac to use them - such as Wine or what not. This is when it starts to feel less like macos and starts feeling more like Linux.
| Post-install Linux is made easy by the fact that most distributions I use bundle Firefox as the default, so I can skip that step, install my add-ins for noscript and adblock. There's no advertising so I'm not bugged by much. LInux Mint has a menu that comes up on the first load that has you configure everything including downloading missing drivers for devices, setting up the whole "time machine" tihng for recovering failed updates (which you have to be careful with because it can fill your whole hard disk up with crap), setting up the Firewall, setting up your software repositories and update sources. Once all that is done, the system is pretty much turnkey and ready to go. The biggest annoyances however, come with hardware and software. For starters, finding Linux equivalent programs of modern Windows apps can be a pain. Libre Office has some formatting issues with some Microsoft documents, and some forks of various software are a bit iffy at times. However, most of the alternatives should be ad-free, reliable, and safe, particularly the things you get from the Software Portal that comes with Linux, which is far less hand-holding, but also far less "strong arming" about the situation.
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| Boot Time
| Microsoft Windows is the fastest of the bunch taking roughly about 34 seconds to 1 minute for most boot times, especially if you have an SSD. I must say, Microsoft has made some leaps and bounds of improvement in this area. Gone are the days of starting your Windows PC and going to toast a bagel, make a cup of coffee, and talk with the colleagues at the water cooler while you wait for Windows to start up. This, however, is not the case when you run updates, which act like an unruly child with a mind of it's own - but I'm saving all that for the Update User experience. However, I've even found this not to be that much of an improvement once I start taking a look at the same scenarios with older versions of Windows, including those that ran with DOS underneath (Windows 3.11 and older). The REAL improvement in this area is only assuming your machine does not have updates really. It starts to go slow, but even then, it's still the fastest.
| Mac OS is the slowest of the lot, with a boot time of over 2-3 minutes or longer in a lot of cases. It takes it a minute from the minute the Apple logo appears, to when the progress bar appears. This seems to have always been the case with Apple Products through looking back historically, because even my old PowerMacs from way back when with the Creeping Network had the same issue once you installed all the stuff you were going to use on them. However, it seems in MOST cases updated don't affect MacOS as much as Windows updates affect Windows boot times. While Windows might have you hanging at a blue screen with spinning anal beads for 30 minutes, Mac OS might just boot like normal after the fact. But if it's bad, it's rare, but REAL bad, and usually only a major OS upgrade, like say, from Catalina to Monterey.
| Linux is the second fastest to boot. It's not as fast as Windows, but it's certainly faster than macos is. It usually takes linux a minute or two to boot. But one thing Linux has that none of the other ones do, is the Window Manager title screen will usually allow you to press the "ESC" key and you can WATCH the services coming up at boot time, so if there are any issues or anything holding you back, it's actually VISIBLE. This is something Mac OS and Windows totally lacks, and it helps keep the system running better when in capable hands. Updates don't even effect it because of the way they are applied - which is typically WHILE the user is working, with the USER choosing when they are applied, and when to reboot. Thusly, all the work is already done at reboot time, and the changes are loaded at next boot time after a reboot, nice huh?
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| General Use
| Microsoft Windows for general use has a real advantage in compatibility with most things since it's the #1 platform for business worldwide, but this is not necessarily because it's a "betteR" platform, not by a longshot, but rather, because business has invested in Microsoft products for over 40 years, and continuing with a sub-par product focused on commercial sales over business is far more economical than spending the massive buttload of money to revamp an entire computer network and the clients on it to run either Linux or most especially, MacOS (which would require a premium). That said, it works just fine for most things, even using the defaults. The problem is the number of usless, buggy, or generally annoying and unwanted features introduced into Windows and it's various components like Edge, Explorer, Office 365, and so on. It feels like an infomercial with the "order now and get free" thing tossed in at every single turn. Removing all this tends to lead to a lot of incessant nagging to "try Edge" or "try Office 365" to gain more customers, but it's really just annoyance. Some other annoying traits are if you hold shift too long and turn on "Stickey Keys" by accident or having Windows Updates acting like an unruly teenager with a drug habit. Just like Mac OSX, you are often pushed to go to a "Windows Store" to download applciations if the developer decided they wanted to leverage Microsofts "Metro" - er "New Style UI" they introduced with Windows 8 (which needs to die with Clippy, IE, Active X Controls, and Silverlight applications!). Speaking of the "New Style UI" - this makes configuring and controlling a Microsoft computer that much more annoying since it was introduced in 2013. While I fully understand, especially since I was there, why Microsoft created it (to try and get the PC market more business by making PC's look more like tablets - ie because "Touch Screen!"), I also understand as a Technician, it makes handling Windows administration tasks f***ing annoying! The controls between the old msi/cpl UI and the "New Style" UI bits of controlling the PC are not consistant, and sometimes, certain controls can only be accessed through one menu or another. This makes support and handling the administration of these settings a royal PITA! Generally, compatibility however, is not a problem since most things have drivers and applications made for Windows, and the few that don't are either Apple Exclusives, or things made for linux by techie dweebs like myself. Most applications for Windows though, will be installed using some kind of "SETUP.EXE" or "SETUP.MSI" type program, and drivers, while still installable by the old right-click "install" method on the OEMSETUP.INF file, most companies have you use an MSI/EXE to install so they can cram on a bunch of useless utilities and bloatware with your new doohickey.
| Mac OS provides a farily nag and ad-free experience compared to Microsoft windows, but you still get harassed periodically to buy products, or told that you should not run things downloaded from the Internet and rather use what's in their "Apple Store". The problem with Apple trying to obscurify the process of installing applications down to their own store is first off, there's even LESS free applications for Apple in the store than there is in Microsoft's own store (I won't even mention Linux's "Package Utilities" which usually are 100% Free for non-commercial use). Most of the "Free" applications are like "options packages" you get with buying an Apple Product - ie GarageBand - but some of them even cost money, like Parallels which asks for a $99.99 a year license - most likely to pay for the *Free Windows 11 License" that comes with it (then why not just download and install Windows 11 using Bootcamp for $99.99!?!?). Compatibility is roughly more of an issue as well being a *nix O/S, but it's made worse by Apple and Developers assuming a capitalist mindset. And while I understand and believe people should be compensated for their works, at the same time, I'm not paying some stranger $34.99 for some kind of specialized Networking application. What's even funnier, is there's a lot of applications - like android and apple phones, that prey upon end-user ignorance. Apple has VNC, SMB, and NFS protocols built in, but you'll find no shortage of pay-to-play clients for these features to make it easier than typing SMB:// or NFS:// to reach the file shares on your network - which if you are anyone who SHOULD be using file shares on a home LAN, you should already know how to do this stuff. However, I can't help but have a small feeling Apple does some gatekeeping on what resources their versions of these protocols allows access to in a way, because my iMac is not really happy VNC'ing into my CentOS 8 server, but my Linux clients have no problem with it whatsoever. Most programs are installed using a disk image file (*.dmg) when downloaded from the internet, and the installer just has you drag it to the applications folder, which feels a little funny coming from a more official feeling "Windows" environment. But this WAS how applications were done back in the day on Apple products, so it's just a modern version of that method. Application slowness is an issue, and one thing that REALLY Pisses me off with macos is that Apple really wanted to leverage the digital music revolution and created some kind of dumb shortcut for Apple music that gets triggered on the frequent. Look, I don't want to always be eating up CPU time with Apple Music - and I"M A FRIGGIN MUSICIAN! But I might want to use it, but having it on a shortcut that easy to trigger means that I'll want to uninstall/disable it and replace with another program.
| Linux is about 97% nag and adware free vs. Apple which sometimes tries to light-sway you into parting with cash, or Windows which bombards you with more billboards than a highway in Florida near Disneyworld! Linux just sorta drops you at the desktop and you're free to go from there. Linux Mint - the distro I use - has a software portal sort of thing similar to Apple or Microsoft's, but unlike either of those, everything is free, and open source. The only problem with this is the delivery methods - we have three FlatPak, Snap, and AppImage. Deciding which to use can be tricky, and sometimes the package type makes some inconsistant results at times. However, most *ahem* "real linux users", learn how to install programs using the sudo apt install or sudo yum install Terminal commands, which makes for a much better experience sometimes as apt or yum can find your dependencies and announces WHEN it needs to install them, and allows you to decide. Howver, this could be a daunting method for most regular end-users as far as installing/removing software. Most settings are handled ina control panel that sits somewhere between Apple and PC, being organized more like Apple, but offering the level of control of a PC settings box. For actual productivity, we have Firefox for a web browser, which is my personal favorite, but can be a problem for some companies and people because a lot of things today INSIST on using either Google Chrome (yuck!) or Microsoft Edge (double Yuck), but so far, I've not found any real dealbreaker issues with Firefox, and I've been using that for over 15 years now. LIbre Office can work with an array of office file formats new and old, but I have found it does not play well with certain forms of Microsoft Word document formattings, expecially on things made on Office 97' or later. But with it's native formats it works great and gets the job done the way we want it done. Again, ditto the same sort of concerns with Thunderbird vs. Outlook, though this is less of an issue these days since 90% of people just use frickin' Webmail anyway nowadays (ie gmail). I do have some problems with application slwodown periodically on older hardware, but nothing bad enough to write home about. The most annoying parts of the user experience - not necessarily to me - but to others, is the use of Shell Scripts to install some programs and drivers - like my Brother ImageClass LP6230dw Laser Printer - which newbies might find difficult because it means opening a Terminal Window in the location (right click, open terminal here), running the right command (sudo ./install.sh), and then watching and actually rEADING any pop-ups that appear on screen.
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| Updates
| Microsoft Windows Updates, as I've said about 100,000 times in the last many years, are kind of like an unruly teenager. He just sits there, William Windows Update, in his Metro UI room all day, jerking off and listening to Gangsta Rap. When he finally DOES decide to do something, either it's because you've harassed him or called on Daddy DOS prompt to pull out his belt and -force him into submission. Sometimes he'll mow just part of the yard and take off to play with himself in his room some more, sometimes he'll mow the whole lawn, and the neighbors lawn too. Sometimes he'll chop his foot off with the lawn mower being an unattentive bastard. Basically put, Windows update is unpredictable at best. Might do something, might say it'll do something but it won't, might do something other than what his poor grasp on the english language tells you. Seriously, Windows updates are a total frickin' nightamre, and have been for a long time, and have gotten even worse in recent years. It used to be they were long, and slow, now they are unpredicatble. Oh joy.
| Apple updates are far less intrusive, usually Siri just wanders in and says "yoo hoo, you have an update to install when you have time, or I can just do it in the background" and that's what happens. However, It must be Siri installing the updates while she puts on more makeup and changes more outfits than a Drag Queen on Ru Paul's Drag Race trying to win the grand prize like her life depends on it! I feel like I should hear that voice of Issac Hayes as "Chef" from South Park singing that song "She goes into the update room, and you wait and you wait and you wait and you wait....and you wait and you wait and you wait....and you wait and you wait and you wait (continue for about 90 minutes) and she come's out the update room......). Basically, Apple is like a teenage daughter stereotype, she does not f*** up much, but when she does, she REALLY f***s up.
| Linux updates are kind of like getting a Level up in an Ultima Game - seriously, if Linux needed a stupid digital assistant, we should just call it "Avatar" and get the ex-Origin Systems staff to voice it, lol. You just see a dot on a shield and it's time to talk to "Lord Linux" and get your stats boost for the time. And outside that, you won't see much, unless you really want to. Reboot takes the same amount of time, and then the computer goes back to work. Maybe they should play some kind of Military drum regiment when updates come, and then hear an old Ford Jeep with the GoDaddy engine drive up. It's sreiously no nonsense, straight business! Unlike Siri's pill popping problem, or Willy the Windows Updates s*x addiction issue!
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| Gaming
| Windows is the primary platform most gamers site. And if it still is the easiest platform for gaming. This is because it was the first popular HOME platform, and thusly, has been tailored to make gaming the easiest thing to do on it. Seriously, I find WORK harder on Windows than leisure. Almost all games are developed for Windows, all games will run on it, and you don't need a compatibility layer for it. Pretty simple and short, one of the things on this page that works in Windows favor. Also, the broad array of compatible hardware tends to be designed to run on gaming on WINDOWS so gaming is really a big time Windows thing.....however, that may not stay that way forever.
| MacOS sits dead in the middle. At it's most basic, it's got it's ports of certain games, classically simulation and Edutainment type stuff, because Apple is mostly the computer of liberal education elitists (many of whom, ironically, don't have college educations)...you know, the kind of people who use an egg time for their kid's "Television Time". So sometimes finding something for Mac is not as easy as it is for PC. Now, if you really like Simulation, or Maxis software, Apple is your friend. For example, I have The Sims 3 and was just able to get a proper 64-bit version of said game through their website to install on my iMac. If it were Windows they'd say "Pay us $49.99 and you can get a new copy with all the "better" new stuff (same old shit) than you have". That's the kind of customer service that wins Apple some points. But what sucks is the hardware is not user-modifyable unless it's one of the fancier (ie. down-payment on a Mercedes sized) "Cheese Grater" pro-grade Mac workstations, and even then you are limited to a limited amount of hardware. Also, Steam Proton on Mac does not work that well with Windows applications at all, if it even works. Proton has been really annoying on Macintosh because it's basically a *nix O/S, but the macos Steam won't run a lot of popular stuff, like Five Nights at Freddy's, but it will however, run Thimbleweed Park thankfully.
| Linux can run all three types of game with emulation, virtual machines, or emulation layers like Wine, but it's ALL a major pain in the ass fit for technical peeps like myself. At the easiest, you have Steam with Proton to use, or an Oracle VirtualBox VM to work with. HOwever, WINE is a major PITA to setup and there's not a good tutorial I've found yet that helps the layperson leverage it well consistantly. Sure, you can get all the souped up hardware, but there's so many layers of crap it takes to run even a basic Windows game in Linux, that's why so many people dual boot. Now, a rare few games have actual LInux Ports - such as Retro City Rampage, Thimbleweed Park, or the Postal Games, but there's all these other weird Wine Frontends and other crap to deal with like Lutris, which may or may not work for your use case. So a lot of how I've resorted to stuff involving gaming in linux is a mix of VMs and Proton, Linux Native versions, and Lutris to get all my various old and new games running. However, older games might run better with Wine, or with something like DOSBox or specialized engines like Exult or Scummvm. So if you like RetroGaming, Linux is not much different than any of the other platforms in thel ist. The SIms series is a REAL PITA to deal with on Linux.
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| Work Compatibility
| Heh, it's Microsoft Windows, it'll be compatible with almost anything at your work. Because Microsoft, for the last 40 years, has been the de-facto industry standard for worker-side productivity! Why do you think eveyrone issued a computer at work runs Windows and has a copy of Office (365) on it? Even American Businesses OFFICE software industry standard is Microsoft Office using *.docx, *.pptx, *.xlsx, and so on as the choice file formats. Microsoft Authenticator app is native, so is some VPN functionality, and 90% of the time, your work I.T. Department, despite a lot of them likeing Linux or Mac more for their own reasons. CHances are, if you are using a computer for work, it's going to be running Microsoft Windows 10/11/12 and Microsoft Office (most likely 365).
| I know the Television likes us to THINK that Apple is a "work computer" but you don't really see them very much in a work environment outside of typography, publishing, or a/v type content creation. And a lot of that is a farce now anyway, especially the Intel macs, because they're really just PC's with far more mysteriously shrouded hardware to keep up the illusion of something exclusive (however since the move to their own ARM CPU that exclusivity has come back).
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