Here’s the Deal

OS X Mavericks vs Devuan GNU+Linux

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When comparing OS X Mavericks vs Devuan GNU+Linux, the Slant community recommends Devuan GNU+Linux for most people. In the question“What is the best laptop OS?” Devuan GNU+Linux is ranked 6th while OS X Mavericks is ranked 59th. The most important reason people chose Devuan GNU+Linux is:

It is stable like Debian.

Specs

No specs yet!

Based OnDebian

Default Desktop EnvironmentXFCE

Init-SystemSysVinit, runit or OpenRC

Initial Release2016

Main UsageServers, Industry(Stable/Oldstable) | Desktop, Multimedia(Testing/Unstable)

OS FamilyGNU/Linux

Official Supported Architecturesaarch64, armel, armhf, i386, ppc64le, amd64

OriginWorldwide

Package Managerdpkg with apt, aptitude or apt-build

Release ScheduleLong-term support (stable edition) and rolling release (testing and unstable editions)

Release TypeBinary

Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking

Common Questions

What is the best laptop OS?

Pros

Pro
Battery optimization

There are many features that improve battery life, such as App Nap.

Pro
Great if you don't like El Capitan and up.

Relatively fast and retains many design decisions of the OS X of old.

Pro
Memory compression features

You can have a lot of things running yet have plenty of memory left.

Pro
Free if you have Snow leopard or Lion

Pro
Very tweakable

There are many things you can still change through the terminal.

Pro
Still supported so far

Pro
Stability

It is stable like Debian.

Pro
It's Debian

Devuan is Debian just without systemd, it just mirrors the the Debian archive and repacks packages that have hard dependencies on systemd.

Pro
Excellent for normal people

It is easy to use and is a good choice for beginners.

Pro
No Systemd

Pro
Most decent look amongst other XFCE distros

Default XFCE theme is unique of all the XFCE distos including MXLinux, Xubuntu etc.

Ad
Cons

Con
Outdated OS version

No longer supported by Apple (neither bugfixes or security fixes). The last release was in 2014.

Con
Slower compared to previous versions

Con
Very hard to find

Apple is very keen to only show the latest version.

Con
Can't delete base applications

Con
Looks nasty, and slow

Con
Difficult to install on non-free hardware

Unlike Debian, Devuan offers no unfree netinstall media, so if your system needs unfree drivers (e.g a laptop or a tablet), you'll have to download the Debian firmware on a separate USB.

Con
No systemd

Con
Fragmentation

Forked distributions like Devuan and Artix fragment the Linux community and hurt the original project. Debian users who do not want systemd should use Slackware or BSD instead.