Anybody that knows me knows I’m a technophile. I love technology, particularly computer related stuff. It would be no surprise for them to know that I have four desktop machines and a laptop. Nor would it surprise them to discover that I run more than one operating system. The laptop I’m writing this on runs Linux. I have a MacMini (G4 version), Vista, Windows Home Server and a linux file server. In addition to that, I have a windows XP virtual machine running on a key drive so that I can work from the Vista or linux machines and a Mandriva VM. Have I made my point yet?

I tell you all this because I want you to recognize that I truly am OS agnostic. I work with all of them to one degree or another and really have no preferences. What I work with depends on the machine I’m on and what I’m doing. Currently, I’m doing virtually all my programming on the XP virtual machine because it affords me portability and ensures Ihave all the files I’m working on wherever I am and that I have a consistent environment. That said, I programming in Python, PHP and Ruby on all three machines, since these are truly OS independent languages and usually are developed for webservers.

What fascinates me is how vehemently some people argue for their particular preferred OS. And how intolerant they are for the preferences of others. These “fanbois” as some have terms them, aggravate me because it’s nearly impossible to get useful information about the hardware. Recently I read this article that compares the MacBook Pro to other laptops. There are probably two dozen comments about it, most of them attacking the magazine for daring to discuss the Macbook because it is MaximumPC, not MaximumMac, as one commenter noted. Problem is, the mac is a personal computer. Some say it was the first true PC. What that says about the commenter is that he doesn’t really know his history of the personal computer. But that’s not my point.

Another article, in which an school IT administrator discusses how the lack of an Apple netbook and the financial situation is causing him to rethink his preference for Apple equipment drew a huge number of comments, many of them berating him for his definition of “bang for the buck”.

Here’s how I see it: The equipment, despite what many may say, is essentially the same. There are no special Apple parts, outside the fancy case. Whether you’re running Windows, Linux, OS X or any other operating system (and there are others) ultimately comes down to personal preference. Period. The question is: Can you do the things you need to do? The answer for all three is “yes”. Despite what the Apple fanbois would have you believe, OS X does crash or hang from time to time – ask them about the spinning beachball. I’ve run Linux for almost nine years and I encounter crashes with it, too. And, of course, we all know Windows crashes. The advantage, at least historically, for linux and OS X is that there is a way to kill the processes that hang, freeing the machine to continue running.

For the Linux fanbois, go back and read your linux history. Linux was Linux Torvald’s attempt to port UNIX to the x86 platform. Guess what underlies OS X? UNIX. If you’re a Mac fanboi, read that sentence in reverse. And, if you look carefully at the old DOS functions, you may find the ghosts of UNIX there, too. The commands might be slightly different, but the processes are essentially the same.

So, for my money and experience, they are all pretty much interchangable. One is NOT better than the other, except in the minds of their worshippers. There is no heresy for a computer magazine to give a nod to something other than a windows based machine. In fact, a good journalist does just that – state the facts as they see them, not based on some preconceived bias.