I never found anything better than the latest macOS machines. I ran ubuntu for years and then switched back to mac just because I don't have the time to tinker and fiddle with stuff in Linux that just randomly makes the computer run hot, or a monitor to not work, or fonts looking awful.
MacOS is just the sweet spot of great desktop + great unix-style devbox.
I agree with this in general, but the major downside of macOS is it obsoletes itself quickly unless you are willing to keep spending money and staying on Apple's hardware/OS/Xcode treadmill.
On my Debian or Ubuntu dev systems, even with 10+ year old hardware, I'm always one apt dist-upgrade away from having one of the best development environments in the world. On macOS, once my hardware gets "old enough" (as defined by Apple), I'm left in the dust. No more OS updates, no more Xcode versions, no more SDKs. I can shore up some development capabilities using Homebrew, but Homebrew itself perpetuates[1] the treadmill.
Every time I'm forced to use MacOS again, its worse than the last time. Everything feels like a bolted on afterthought in an OS that forces Apple's opinions on everything. My productivtiy is ruined trying to do things the Apple way, instead of the way that works best for me.
No thanks, I'll stick with Linux, where I can tinker to have the OS work the way that is best for me, instead of what Apple thinks is best for me.
I ran MacOS for decades and then switched to Linux, because I no longer have the patience to deal with an OS which cannot be tinkered and fiddled into the shape I prefer it in, its makers believing that they know better than I do what I ought to be doing with my own hardware. I cannot stand the paternalism. Linux has its quirks, but at least I can be sure that in the end, it can always be made to do what I want.
This is a valid concern. Perhaps, if you are still interested in giving Linux a chance, you should consider immutable distributions like Fedora Silverblue or even going one step further with NixOS.
NixOS has a declarative configuration that is simply key=value for most use cases. Whatever you configure stays configured, and you can also rollback when doing dramatic changes e.g, migrating from Xorg to Wayland takes 2 min and changing 1 LOC in your configuration.
On top of that I've been locked out of my machine and Apple ID and they just kept sending me emails that in some weeks they were going to reset my password, and they sent me those emails for 2 months before I got access to my apple id and machine again, proof[1].
They just kept not obliging the "2 weeks" (which is already mad when I've given you my secret password and I've verified my email and phone already).
And they did not respect the two weeks 3 times in a row!
That is beyond disgusting and Apple has never got a single $ from me since, I only own a MBP I use on the move because a client has sent me an M3 Max with 48 GBs so it made no sense to at least not use it.
MacOS is just the sweet spot of great desktop + great unix-style devbox.