Django - Mac development, environment hell
Yes I have had problems with MacOS. I think rather than trying to figure it out I just switched to Ubuntu. I use a mac with Ubuntu installed in VMware Fusion. I have developed on both and prefer the Ubuntu because I'm just more comfortable with installing packages and the file structure.
I love using the VM because I'm never scared of having to start over. I can get a whole new OS installed and get the packages with what I use in just a few hours. Not to mention with 6month rollouts I can do complete installs of new versions instead of updates.
Depending on your production environment, it may be beneficial to use an OS that is similar, if you can install a package on ubuntu desktop, you already know how to do it on ubuntu server.
I was trying to setup Django dev environment on Mac and arrived into a hell. It all started when trying to install PIL, which failed after trying 15 or so different recipes I found on blogs. So I wanted to install the Python, this time 2.7, and reinstall setuptools, easy_install, pip from scratch. 
After just installing Python 2.7, and easy_install with setuptools for 2.7, this all in turn created such a mess that is unbelievable. Different version of Python are installed everywhere, easy_install is installed everywhere and points randomly to different python hashbangs (sometimes to #!/usr/bin, #!/usr/local/, #!/Library/...)  
Now I can't even do easy_install pip, which I always could. So I'm already in a hell and I haven't even attempted to install MySQL yet.
My question finally is did anyone bump into such problems, it would help enough to know that I'm not alone. 
Second, would it be easier to set up the entire environment on Ubuntu than it is on a Mac? 
Thirdly, is there any guide that can really clearly explain how to set up but also tear down the stack for Python development on a Mac?