I know that linux is the popular answer to this problem.

I use a Mac and it’s a pretty good machine. I know it isn’t for everyone, but it works well enough for me and has enough mainstream support. As well the hardware has gotten ’ good enough’

MacOS is not hostile to me when I want to run and install programs. There is some opensource support on the platform and the a good amount of closed source programs.

I do miss the wide ranging PnP hardware support for things like SAS/LTO