I also once spent a year or so trying to rebuild in OS X what I had working in Debian/Ubuntu until I just gave up and went back. The lure of the "Unix inside" was good but didn't fly far in reality. And no, an operating system doesn't get to dictate my desktop when I have under my belt 20 years of experience on it. But the h/w quality is good, I must say--though compatibility with Linux isn't, obviously.