I don’t understand how you could switch to Windows or OS X from Linux. Let’s start with OS X.

OS X

You actually can use it licensed only when you use hardware created by Apple. This means that you have to buy a high-end-computer even if your needs are satisfied by a computer that is far more on the low end. You have to pay usually a computer that costs at least 1000€. And don’t forget that warranty that costs at least 150€ to extend the warranty to 3 years. Since Apple-computers get more and more integrated, it gets harder to repair anything by yourself. And if stuff breaks, the repair costs are easily in the upper 3-digits area.

Since you bought that high-end-computer it can last you a long time. But if Apple decides that they do not want to support your hardware anymore, you won’t get any updates anymore and the only solution is to buy a new computer. If you also use an iPhone and you keep your computer with your old OS, it can happen that Apple updates iTunes in a way that it doesn’t run anymore on your old OS and you can’t sync your iPhone anymore. Just buy a new computer.

You know the comforts of a docking station? Welcome to a world with laptops that have depending on the model only one USB-port. You will find another solution and it will always involve plugging and unplugging stuff in your laptop. Need an external display? Well, welcome to the world of adapters since Apple laptops usually do not have standard outputs that are supported by the rest of the world outside of Apple. And those adapters aren’t cheap, even if you get one from a third parties.

Sure, you can get software like Photoshop. But Apple encourages the developers to always use the newest APIs which means that when your OS doesn’t update to the newest version, you won’t get updates. Or when you updated your OS, you need might need to get a major update for your software. Since software often costs money on OS X[footnote]>This is perfectly fine. Developers have to make a living. But there are these contraring preferences - devs need money for food, users do not necessarily want to pay money[/footnote], you have to pay an upgrade fee or buy completely new if it got released via the AppStore. And since open source software often uses cross-platform-toolkits and does not get ported natively to OS X, they suck in comparison to native apps and so you do not really want to use them.

If you are in the world of Apple, be ready that money shouldn’t be a constraint. Otherwise you might think about if you are worthy using products by Apple.

And if you install software from the AppStore and Apple does a fuck-up, all your software from the AppStore will break for a couple of days. But who cares?

Ever seen how Apple handles security updates? One time they published the solution for a critical problem for iOS first but everybody knew that it also existed for OSX. Thus your computer was at risk for a couple of days. They often also need some time until they publish updates. Apple prefers to deliver a bunch of updates in one big update instead of small incremental updates.

Windows

You decided to use Windows? It came with your computer and was preinstalled. Great.

Did you know that most malware is nowadays written for Windows? You now use the platform that gets attacked most often. Prepare yourself for defense, by installing Antivirus-software that rarely helps you. If you get malware on your computer, I recommend that you reinstall since you never know, if there aren’t any remains.

I hope you kept your install-DVDs or your recovery partition. If you don’t have any install-DVDs, try to get them from your vendor. And get all the drivers. If you have bad luck, your network driver is missing from a vanilla Windows and you cannot get your internet connection to work. Thus you need another computer to download that network driver for installing it. Depending on the vendor that is more or less cumbersome. That serial number by the way is nowadays fixed in your BIOS or EFI. And if you want to reinstall a vanilla Windows you have to change some text files and is as far as I know an undocumented process.

When you use nowadays Windows, you will get forced by Microsoft to use Windows 10, which is a privacy nightmare. After you set up all the privacy setting, updates can and will quietly reset them. So please check always.

Oh, updates. Microsoft regularly updates your system. Nowadays they even force them on you. That also means that your computer might say that you have to reboot now and that you can’t move that reboot to a later point of time. So save everything, interrupt whatever you are doing. That update right here, right now is more important than any work you do. Or you shut down your laptop instead of suspending/hibernating it for carrying it around. That can mean that you have to wait a couple of minutes or an hour or two until it shuts down while installing updates. Sometimes an installation of an update will also make your system unbearable slow for a couple of hours. And you cannot always tell the system when to update and you do not know how long it will take.

Sometimes those updates fuck up your system. Maybe some Microsoft-software breaks or some hardware doesn’t work anymore or your system gets into a bootloop. Who knows. Just wait until Microsoft releases the fix for the fix or reinstall your system.

If Windows stops to work you can always rely on the system events. Oh wait, you can’t. It seems that nearly nothing logs there and everything that logs stuff in Windows, spams the event logs often with unnecessary crap. So often logs are not usable for debugging your system. So you can google the problem and hope you find some solution. Sometimes it involves fiddling in the registry, a place you don’t want to fiddle because it can break your whole system. And those fixes are often about adding or removing values that are not documented and you have to hope that the people you get the fix from know what they do. Because you cannot read up on it. Or did you try already to reinstall some drivers? Troubleshooting Windows is unfortunately more often than not like walking with a blind fold and hoping no to fall down into a deep hole. Well, in the end you always can reinstall, can’t you?

Both

You do not like the desktop environment you are using with OS X or Win or do not like the looks or the way Apple or Microsoft are going. Fear not, you always have the…oh wait, you do not have any choice. You are dependent on the choices Apple and Microsoft are doing for you. Want to try anything different or new? Tough luck.

Aren’t package-managers nice? Just type yum install package-name[footnote]or apt-get install package-name or pacman -S package-name…[/footnote] and it will install the software and everything you need. Well, not so with Windows or Apple. Often you need to get the software from some website with an installer or in the case of Apple you might get a disk image or an installer. Then install it. Who needs trusted sources? And when you ever need to reinstall your system, you have to get that stuff again if you didn’t save the original install-files. In the world of Apple there is the AppStore but more and more developers withdraw from it since Apple just makes it worth for them to stay there but makes their life harder.

And don’t let us talk about uninstalling software from OS X. Completely removing software can be a real hastle.

P.s.: I used OS X for over 10 years and I am still supporting several people who use OS X. In addition I administer a Windows-environment with 100+ Windows-clients and have to use Windows daily. Personally I use Linux for 1.5 years now. Everything I wrote here are experiences I made or have seen happening. I also got informed several times from other Apple-users that it is stupid to keep computers for more than 5 years - that’s where that worthiness-thing comes from.

Use what makes you happy, every OS has its up- and downsides. I am just getting tired to explain on a regular basis that I am actually happy with using Linux and the choices I made by using the distribution I am using which needs more fiddling around (Arch).