After a good deal of time using only Macs (and Linux on servers, of course), my home desktop is now running Debian. The difference is striking.

Linux hardware support and graphical environments have come a long, long way since the time you had to compile your own kernel and video drivers and manually enter display timings. Everything works out-of-the-box on my 1st-generation Mac Mini. And Debian package management is second to none - this includes high-quality packages, not just apt and friends.

But the Mac has spoiled me. I'm used to a ready-made, uniform experience in applications. Like, for instance, having all application-level keyboard shortcuts bound to the command key. Or the dead keys working everywhere, no exception. Or a set of keyboard combos that work the same in most places including the terminal. Even MacVim, while being a top-notch graphical vim, carefully follows the platform's conventions.

The problem with Linux is that of too many chefs in the kitchen. You get lots of great ideas, but sometimes they don't work together, and there's no overarching sense of design. It's true that, as a user, you're immensely empowered to tweak your tools, but the downside is that you have to tweak them in order to reach a basic level of comfort, and that's just not fun.

I'm going to stick with this desktop for a while, at least for the sake of diversity, but the MacBook nearby is looking sexier by the minute.