OS X costs money. Linux is free.

Darwin is also free. OpenDarwin is an open source operating system upon which all of Mac OS X is built.

Mac OS X can only be customized within the constraints placed upon it by Apple. Linux can be customized to an extraordinary degree, with the right knowledge.

Give an example of this? The only example you give (not being able to share individual folders) is patently false. The GUI has no interface for sharing individual folders, that's true. But the configuration files are there to edit, just as they are in Linux. There are plenty of third-party GUI programs to edit these settings in Mac OS X.

Mac OS X requires Apple hardware (most of the time). Linux is the same whether its running on a PowerBook, a PC, or yeah, even an Xbox.

This is partly true. Emulators aside, Apple only supports the proprietary parts of Mac OS X on Apple hardware. But Adobe only supports its Acrobat Reader for Linux on x86. WindowServer, Aqua, Cocoa, and all the other, non-open parts of Mac OS X, are all applications. The operating system runs fine without them.

[Mac OS X] remains a commercial, proprietary system. Just one that happens to rest upon several free, open source technologies.

Mac OS X remains an open source operating system with proprietary management and GUI applications layered on top of it. If you don't like one of the applications that isn't open source (the WindowServer or the Finder, for example) then feel free to use an alternative. X11 runs quite nicely on Mac OS X, and can be used exclusively with a base Darwin installation for an experience very similar to FreeBSD or Linux.

But no matter how familiar you are with Linux, if you run Mac OS X you are not in a position to delve into its heart and meddle with its innermost workings. Want to mess around with your Linux kernel? Go right ahead, and good luck to you. But Mac OS X remains closed to everyone outside Apple.

Clearly, you could have performed a little more research before writing this. Want to mess around with your Mac OS X kernel? Download the source. Was any fact-checking done before this article was published?

I showed a friend a Linux desktop ... and then my Mac OS X desktop. My friend had only ever used Windows computers before. Guess which one she found easier to use? That's right, Lycoris.

As others have pointed out, a person with experience using a particular tool is going to be more comfortable with that tool. Ask someone who has never used a computer what the difference is between the left mouse button and the right mouse button.

Or, attach a two- or three-button mouse to your Mac OS X system. And right-click a file in the Finder. A right-click is, by default, mapped to the contextual menu action, which is also accessible by clicking the left button while holding the control key down. But Apple's human interface guidelines make it clear that contextual menus should only contain actions and information which are also available through the normal means of menus and visual cues.

when I pointed out the Command key, she just laughed and said it was ridiculous to have another modifier key to learn

Does her keyboard not have a Windows key? I haven't seen any Windows-based computers ship in a long time without a Windows key.

The control key has always been for typing control characters. Microsoft overloaded that function with the keyboard shortcuts for menu items. So ask your friend this question: if she opens a terminal window, and types control-C, should it select the copy command from the edit menu? Or should it send the character "control-C"? Then ask her, if copy was _always_ command-C, if that might not be an easier question to answer?

as a lifelong Windows user, Mac OS X was completely alien, but consumer-level Linux felt almost the same.

Ask your friend how, on a Linux box, to turn off all filesharing.

Don't tell her which distribution of Linux, or which GUI environment is installed, or what kinds of file sharing are enabled. Just ask her how to make sure that ftp, Windows file sharing, web-based sharing, etc, are all turned off.

How useful is her Windows experience on a Linux box, really? Ask her to use it exclusively for a week before you even consider drawing judgements.

My install was only marred by a problem with OS X recognizing the display. Running Xautoconfig didn't seem to help, and for awhile the machine only worked in text mode.

You didn't have Mac OS X installed, so Mac OS X was not involved in recognizing your display. That was an X11 issue. The X11 server included with Mac OS X has no problems recognizing displays, but the X11 servers used most commonly with Linux are not always so well polished.

This is largely because Apple's X11 server can rely on Apple's existing display drivers, while the Linux X11 servers can make no assumptions about what hardware may be available.

It would serve your readers well to research your assertions, because they are depending upon you to report factual information. Please make an effort to update this article with these errors corrected, including those places where they affect your conclusions.

A simple Darwin installation can run most of the same software as Linux, including the same X11 servers, KDE or Gnome, etc. It just takes, as you say, a little knowledge. But most people choose to use the GUI, as compiling code and rewriting configuration files is, to many, a distraction from their real goals. Mac OS X does provide a great middle ground, with flexibility for a wide variety of uses, and an ease of use and deployment that has been unmatched in the history of mass market computing.