I use an a pretty standard install of i3 for my window manager, the OS is almost nothing. At least on my OpenBSD machines, the OS is so simple and well-documented, I can run `ps -aux` and know what literally every process does. This hasn't been the case for me on Mac/Win in like, 15 years or something.
I use Windows at work. It's no faster than when I'm working on my BSD laptop, but I also am not doing extensive development on my laptop. I have done a bit (like building my personal website) and I didn't do anything special to get it going. I have so many different machines, I've got a streamlined setup pretty much down pat, so I can get up and running on anything super quickly. The other thing is: dotfiles. I've got my OpenBSD dotfiles and my Linux dotfiles. Copy from one machine to the new one, done deal.
Oh, I should add, it's definitely not an uphill battle, or at least it sure hasn't been for me. I just checked and I installed this OpenBSD install on Oct 14th 2021, so I just passed the 1-year mark. It's practically unchanged since I got it set up... there's no battle at all, it's the most boring, unintrusive OS I've ever used in my life. The updates are nearly effortless and they don't break my software. I've never been more satisfied with an OS to be honest. (That said I'm not doing music production on this machine, but I'm doing almost all other "everyday" computing tasks and a bit of coding/tinkering, etc.)
I use Windows at work. It's no faster than when I'm working on my BSD laptop, but I also am not doing extensive development on my laptop. I have done a bit (like building my personal website) and I didn't do anything special to get it going. I have so many different machines, I've got a streamlined setup pretty much down pat, so I can get up and running on anything super quickly. The other thing is: dotfiles. I've got my OpenBSD dotfiles and my Linux dotfiles. Copy from one machine to the new one, done deal.
Oh, I should add, it's definitely not an uphill battle, or at least it sure hasn't been for me. I just checked and I installed this OpenBSD install on Oct 14th 2021, so I just passed the 1-year mark. It's practically unchanged since I got it set up... there's no battle at all, it's the most boring, unintrusive OS I've ever used in my life. The updates are nearly effortless and they don't break my software. I've never been more satisfied with an OS to be honest. (That said I'm not doing music production on this machine, but I'm doing almost all other "everyday" computing tasks and a bit of coding/tinkering, etc.)