I'm actually quite the opposite, I've been a long time Linux user (Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, and more recently Arch) and recently I decided to dive head first into OSX for work and play.
OSX is beautiful, it's smooth, and it can run a lot of my games too. But, just like Windows, it lacks functionality. Setting up a MAMP server with my required PHP extensions for work was an absolute nightmare even with Homebrew. Even when working with my Ruby projects I was struggling, when some gems required certain libraries to be installed, it was a nightmare to install them too.
Not to mention installing software and keeping it up to date was a pain too. Once you become used to relying on robust package managers it's very difficult to turn back.
Linux is designed to be powerful and functional foremost, and that's what makes it fantastic.
Keep homebrew for standalone tools (recode, sntop, whatever). Then use rpm for ruby, perlbrew for perl, pythonbrew for ... And setup the defaut macosX apache (which has php5.3 and pear and whatever already here) work for your user account. See : http://echodittolabs.org/blog/2011/09/os-x-107-lion-developm...
Same on any nix system I use : sandboxing is the way.
- Want to use hg-git for mercurial, dont, homebrew that !! Build it in your ~/bin/ or in your $HOME sandbox, give all PATHS in your $HOME precedence, and rejoice.
- need mysql, postgre,... Don't homebrew that !! Either build it, or use the Macos dedicated installer with propper service installation, on dedicated port.
- etc,...
All in all, Homebrew, Fink and Macports are great for one thing : showing you how to patch the default tgz, saving the user hours of work for his custom, sandboxed install of any software (which as itself has been a life saver, for myself, on many an occasion).
Macos still is, as far as i'm concerned the best laptop platform for someone who has to use licenced software (external job/office constraint) but also needs a nix (bsd) environment. Otherwise, what can't you do with the default Ubuntu 12 LTS (i guess you agree) ? Macos, sure, is's on its way to become worthless as The Lion slowly sandboxes the user out of the OS, but tat's another story.
EDIT : and let it be said that OF COURSE, I agree with you that aptitude, yum and the like have no decent equivalent on the Apple/Microsoft closed platforms.
OSX is beautiful, it's smooth, and it can run a lot of my games too. But, just like Windows, it lacks functionality. Setting up a MAMP server with my required PHP extensions for work was an absolute nightmare even with Homebrew. Even when working with my Ruby projects I was struggling, when some gems required certain libraries to be installed, it was a nightmare to install them too.
Not to mention installing software and keeping it up to date was a pain too. Once you become used to relying on robust package managers it's very difficult to turn back.
Linux is designed to be powerful and functional foremost, and that's what makes it fantastic.