Most development software in general: debugging tools like Valgrind, niche compilers, servers, libraries not-so-well-tested on macOS, etc. In general, macOS is currently in a sad state of affairs; when it could have been the best development platform for most use cases. I actually had to switch to a Linux setup for my research because of this. Unbelievable if you’d asked me 5 years ago.

If we could get Adobe and a few other companies to port their software to Linux - even if it costs as much - then I think there would be a cascade effect that decreases the cost desktops & laptops, while increasing the quality. You wouldn't need much more than a great windows manager after a main proaudio & provideo app is ported. I highly doubt they would be that difficult to port. Maybe +2 engineers per program per year max. And that extra bread would be more than enough to cover their salaries! It feels like were further off from ideal workstations these days, but we're not really... It's just that Apple & Microsoft have been pushing various types of "power users" away from what they've been asking for all along. Finally let some group of us move to Linux comfortably. Linux has browsers, productivity & office, music & video players, communication, utilities, and even games to some degree - covered. But we need pro-audio & pro-video areas covered!

At this point, I think you should be rooting for the 'year of the android desktop' more than the 'year of the linux desktop' if you want low cost OSes.