I was a C64 and Amiga user until 1995. In 1995 I switched briefly the Windows 95, and then, already disgusted and bored by Windows, switched to Linux.

I found that nearly everything I had loved about the Amiga and C64 culture was stronger and more vibrant in the Linux and Open Source world. The only negatives were that the graphics and sound capabilities of Linux at the time (and still do, honestly) lagged behind Windows significantly, making it difficult to think of it as a creators system, unless what you were creating was software. I suspect part of the reason I moved more and more into software development and IT-related work was partly because the system I loved to work with was simply not capable of doing music and audio on a professional level (and still isn't, despite near-heroic efforts on the part of a few developers; if the kernel can't maintain an audio stream that doesn't skip and sputter, it's impossible to ever produce great audio).

Anyway, Linux and Open Source is definitely the heir apparent to the Amiga and C64, and I know many people from those communities ended up in the Open Source world.

I went the same route, though I did OS/2 for a couple of years in there (even had a team OS/2 t-shirt).

In 2000 though, I switched from Linux to Mac because I was a bit tired of X tweaking. I found that the hobbiest culture of the Mac and NeXT crowds reminded me of the C64 days. What sealed the deal was OS X where basically I had a BSD workstation with a good desktop.

Most of my old Mig and Commie friends are sadly on Windows 7. They don't care for UNIX for some reason and dislike Apple. Maybe it's like those folks that "outgrow" the music they liked when they were younger...

X tweaking: I spent years trying to get suspend/resume work without issues under X on a series of cheap laptops; I got close but never quite there. Now I run Linux only on servers and under Parallels on Mac. Not the same, such a shame.

Not sure I agree with your comment about hackers migrating to the original Apples/Mac. In my opinion the original PC environment felt more "hackerish" and the Apples/Macs were known for their good graphics and consistent user interfaces and not as hacker machines. Perhaps this was different in America as I come from a European background.

I am also from Europe and I have a pretty hackerish feeling about macs.

In the 90s, we developed a large science application in our lab for the Atari ST. When our last ST broke down, we used a Macintosh Performa instead that came with an Atari Emulator.

Everything worked fine and the old ST application, that ran a complex atomic physics experiment, was even faster on the Mac. It also did a job sharing with an eltec lab computer, like the Atari did before.

Although this was by far not a hacker job, we felt pretty cool with the good old Mac. It also saved a phd thesis that could not have been finished without that program.

In science, Macs always were a (strong) minority in the labs, even in Europe. Today they are in the process of becoming a majority and replace linux (there are only a few windows machines that could be replaced ;o).