I have a friend with a mac, he loves it as a developer. I don’t see how he likes it but it does have things to like. XUbuntu(Linux) is something I like, mostly because of the freeware aspect, however it doesn’t have the games support it needs for now. And I don’t know why you say don’t suggest Windows 8 but people hating on it are somewhat silly. While some people just can’t use it, it has some powerful gains for desktop and tablet. I really don’t know what would be best for you, but there is developing tools on all systems for almost all languages. I would try mac and even use mac if someone gave it to me, but its not worth the extra money to me. I don’t use python but it seems like PyGame is pretty good and is available for all OS’s. Running mac does have a higher ram usage, though I don’t know how it compares to windows, but Linux distros tend to use a lot less ram.

Watch people use their OS, it can give you incite into how you could use it, what features matter, and how the workflow is. Also maybe borrow someones computer or have them demo it to you. OS is a lot about how you use it, not the software support.

I’m going to second a linux-based OS. I find it so much easier to develop on than any other platform. Now, as for running python on a mac, or even developing in general, I honestly don’t think it’s going to be worth it. Macs are horrendously terrible for developing mainly due to software availability but also Apple’s boneheaded OS design moves (not UI). You’ll have no issue with Python but anything more and you’ll probably end up loading some other OS on it.

As someone who develops stuff on a Mac using both Windows and the base operating system (and who has spent quite a few hours of my time in OS X recently using Intellij IDEA), I can’t echo the statements of JoeCool17 above.

Hey, I have a Macintosh laptop and Python is my primary development language. Unfortunately, getting Pygame on it is a real bear. (Python is alright to install, though)