Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple's Mac OS has outshined Linux in popularity in North America, a survey carried out by Evans Data revealed.

According to the North American Development Survey, Mac OS was used by 7.9 per cent of the total 400 surveyed professional software developers in June, as compared with 5.6 per cent for Linux.

Linux fans have been predicting the death of BSD for more than a decade, but it seems that BSD in the form of Apple's Mac OS X appears to have surpassed Linux in one usage metric.

Microsoft's Windows OS remained at the top of the development environment heap, with 80 per cent of developers using it.

Speaking on the findings, Evans Data's chief executive Janel Garvin "Windows firmly remains king, but developers are obviously attracted to Apple's devices, while at the same time Linux has lost some of its luster."

The stability of Microsoft's Windows has strengthened significantly over the past decade and the latest Windows OS, Windows 7, has also emerged as a secure desktop operating system.