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What Operating System Do You Run?


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48 members have voted

  1. 1. What Operating system do you run on your main PC ?

    • Windows
      29
    • Linux
      10
    • Mac OS
      6
    • OS2
      0
    • Other
      1


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Ubuntu Linux on my laptop. Works great except for some multimedia functionality (like flash for Linux is behind so some flash sites don't work, some codecs can be a pain to get working, etc...) and suspend/hibernate functionality can be a pain. Other than that, though, it works beautifually for the stuff I do.

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Microsoft's evil. I only use Windows XP at home on my main machine because of a couple of apps. One is a game I like (City of Heroes) a lot and another is MS Publisher for a daycare newsletter because that's what they have and they want to be able to make final edits in case I mess up a name or something. Those 2 things alone are why I'm with Windows.

 

My laptop is running Ubuntu Linux and has been for almost a year. If I could do everything I need/want to while working with everyone I must, I'd switch to Linux in a heartbeat.

 

I tried dual boot for awhile but it seemed I was in XP for something and it was just too much trouble to restart.

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I tried dual boot for awhile but it seemed I was in XP for something and it was just too much trouble to restart.

 

Couple options for you...

 

Pretty well rated:

http://www.parallels.com/

 

Coming from Microsoft in the future even which could be intriguing:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/10/17/yourmoney/msft.php

 

Then there's your obvious wine, vmware, and other "windows emulation" products you can run on Linux with some level of usability, but not as good performance.

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Thanks Mike! Nothing like knowing one's options!

 

Bill, it's like "what computer should I buy?" questions - it depends on your technical level (not a prob for you), your must haves, your wanna haves and your sense of adventure in learning something new. I will say that there are very few things that don't have Linux counterparts unless you need to collaborate with others using Windows so feel free to experiment!

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i use windows XP on laptop used to be Prof and Home its now both home edition.

 

for my multimedia design i use a mac with OSx 10.4 tiger. ranging from g4's to g5's

 

i much prefer the mac but its not viable for home a- beacuse of cost b-compatibility with other apps

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2 with Win XP Pro for everyday use

1 with Win 2k that holds my backups

1 with CentOS as web/ftp server

1 with Debian for home automation apps

 

I'm not partial to Windows or Linux either way, they both have their uses. It's easy enough these days to mix and match anyway.

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Breakdown of my home network:

 

Fileserver running Xandros Linux

Backup Server running W2k Server

Wife's Laptop is Widows XP pro

My main work PC is running Madriva Linux

My laptop is on Mandriva Linux

Son's PC running Mandriva Linux

Daughter's PC running Windows XP home

Mail Server running Win 2003 Server / Exchange (Slated to move to Mandriva)

Monitoring PC (Personal view into TCH) running Windows XP Professional

Mac Ibook using Tiger OS (Mac OS X)

 

I am in a full migration to Linux.

 

It is my goal by the end of October to not have one Windows based PC in my house.

 

I am tired of funding the Gates empire :)

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its a shame all those years ago apple lost their foot in the operating systems war, i really would love a mac but a lot of things wont work or i'd have to spend a lot of cash getting new software :D which buying a different OS copy of what i own seems a pointless endevaour

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Apple did loose their footing in the OS war. However, the switch has begun in earnest.

 

1.33 million Mac's were sold last fiscal quarter.

17 million Visitors walked thru the many Apple Outlet Stores

50% of buyers were NEW to the Mac OS

13% of the Laptop market is now owned by Apple.

 

:D

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17 million Visitors walked thru the many Apple Outlet Stores

 

16,999,999 of these left after purchasing an iPod :D

 

50% of buyers were NEW to the Mac OS

 

50% of 10 is 5.

 

In my experience statistics don't mean a thing as they are always carefully worded so they appear to mean something they usually do not.

Edited by carbonize
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Laptop Windows XP Home, 20% of the runtime is spent in this, and 80% on Slackware Linux.

Desktop Windows XP Professional, 70% of the runtime is spent in this, 30% on Slackware Linux.

 

I have great development tools in both.

 

Although plenty of GUI tools are available, i tend to use more CLI based tools in Linux, but with a similar or higher productivity rate of using the GUI tools in Windows. Because of the open source nature of Linux, if something goes terribly wrong, chances are you, or somebody else in the large user base, can track this error down more easily than filing a support claim, at a great expense, with Microsoft. For example, I had a ASP.NET bug that Microsoft wouldn't listen to until they got some money out of our company! Turned out it was a bug in the framework after all. Windows has it's many uses, I am not saying it's all bad, GUI side, things just look better in Windows, fonts are a major issue for me in Linux.

 

Apple caused their own failure in a couple of ways.

 

My main hatred of Apple is price fixing. Apple dictate the prices stores will sell at if they expect to be continued to receive supplies (on desktops/laptops/mini etc...). This practice should be illegal.

 

Another failing is that when they started, it was difficult for anybody who wasn't Apple licenced to write and distribute software, which meant less software, at a high cost, compared to more software at a lower cost for other platforms.

 

Apple succeed in their IPOD venture, not because of a great product, but because of fashion/trend conscious people who just have to have what their friends have. When certain IPODs where released in europe, their screens broke, they failed to work, and Apple refused to listen! You can buy what an ipod does from many other brands, at half the price.

 

State Schooling is the way forward, it works in the UK very very very well, if only other countries could see the light and the way to socialism, they would also produce quality people and products.

Edited by tohaet
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Good points on several issues, other issues I do not agree with.

 

The Ipod is a great success because of the way it was designed. Period. It is the most fundamentally sound Mp3 player I have ever used. It's great sucess had nothing to do with "trends".

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mp3 players were nothing new, the old creative ones were a bit huge and "brick like" so people didnt want them basically what apple did was made a "pretty looking" brick which may of not had all the functionality of its rivals. but it looked good, peopel bought it.

 

in my opinion say an ipod mini is rubbish for a lower price you can get a better higher capacity creative zen micro, with better battery life and sound.

 

so to a degree ipods sell cause they are the "in thing" many people i bet buy apple pc's cause they look nice, not cause they understand what a mac is.

 

i like how macs run, the OS is well designed and crash free, i dont care about "the box" a smy pc just sits in a corner computing as it should. no need for fancy lights or things

 

saying that i like silly lights i have a usb lava lamp and a changign colour mouse lol

Edited by makaveli
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saying that i like silly lights i have a usb lava lamp and a changign colour mouse lol

 

A mood mouse? lol

 

Apple messed up from the beginning when they decided no clones. It shut them down at a time they could have become huge... in the beginning.

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yep a "mood mouse" made by Targus.

 

and as for apple they had the right idea, that being only apple products can be sold and made by apple. that is also how pc's took off, there is not just on make of pc. its open.

although apple do get a bit of money everytime someone uses firewire :D

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yep a "mood mouse" made by Targus.

 

 

I purchased this same mouse for my notebook (guess I should have read the package) and it drove me nuts. I still use it but its annoying when in a darkened room.

 

So I'm on the right subject, my notbook is running XP.

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What made you switch in 1996 to Windows?

 

What made you go back to Mac OS in 2004?

 

I switched to Windows because my wife's business needed to use Windows and compatibilty between OS's was not at the current level. I supported both OS's for about 3 years, but finally became tired of doing that, so in 1996, I switched to Windows myself. My wife still uses a WinXP computer, but in 2004 I finally said enough and, for my personal/business computer, went back to the Mac. Now two years later I'm not at all sorry.

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my next computer purchase is likely to be mac. perhaps an laptop.

 

anyways today i tried to sample ubuntu linux, (live cd) unfortunally it seemed it did not like my system, which was a shame id loved to try it.

 

my freind is using some linux or the other (ill have to ask him) due to be sick of windows.

 

linux does look great for free, i do like the idea of "lindows" which is a mix of windows and linux, i dont know if they do this one anymore.

 

if you want a quick insight into linux you can download DSL (damn small linux) (i know silly name) its about 32mb and just a nice preview to see what the fuss is all about. :blink:

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I just joined the Linux world last week.

 

I started with Ubutntu, but I couldn't get the libraries I needed to run the Linux version of my company's application, so yesterday I downloaded Fedora Core 5 and installed it this morning.

 

Here's the sweet thing:

 

My desktop dual boots Fedora Core 5 and Windows XP. My laptop (which splits its screen onto a dual monitor) is running WinXP. I installed Synergy (open source; check out sourceforge.com for info) on both my desktop and my laptop, so I have three screens from two separate computers and only one mouse and keyboard.

 

When move my mouse off my Windows screen towards my Linux screen, the mouse rolls over onto the Linux box and the keyboard and mouse work on that machine. When I move it back to the left, it rolls back onto the Windows box.

 

It works for both my Linux and Windows boots. I absolutely love it.

 

Now I need to learn more about Linux (Fedora in particular).

 

(Note: I recognize that Fedora Core 6 was released today; however, we aren't supporting it yet with our app, so I won't upgrade to core 6 until we do.)

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My family and I have been using Mac's since 1997. We've never had a Mac die on us, although we put the original Mac we purchased in 97 to sleep. :)

 

 

I have to say - the Mac ads with the PC and Mac guy are hilarious though - aren't they? :D

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I've got Kubuntu Edgy dual-booting with WinXP. It's been a year with Kubuntu as the primary OS, and I have to say that Win only gets used on the rare occasion I want to watch a video or something in Flash.

 

I must point out that while Ubuntu/Kubuntu are pretty polished, they have a long way to go before being as "stupid-friendly" as Win.

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Something to think about: Is Windows "stupid friendly" or just what we have come to know through casual encounters with it?

 

Ex: double click? Click the Start button to shut down? and a bazillion others. If we never had Windows and only had, say, Ubuntu, would it be considered "stupid friendly"? ;)

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;)

 

Perhaps it is actually related to the fact that more people HAVE encountered Win, and that my 4 year old picked up on how to use the system. If a 4 year old can pick up how to use it, obviously normally considered "stupid" people could make it as well.

 

I'm just trying to say that Win is very intuitive and universal. I'll give you "double-click", that one blows my mind. However, when you use the Start menu to do anything, it's kind of hard to miss the shutdown or log-off buttons while you're there. That makes it intuitive since you will see it every time you go to use that menu.

 

Also, Win has not once given me a dependency error, misconfigured X, made me compile from source, or any of the other 45 errors that linux has from time to time.

 

I know I'm just rehashing points that we see over and over as to why linux hasn't taken off, but I just wanted to counter with how many issues one has versus the other. Not trying to be a jerk or anything.

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Ex: double click? Click the Start button to shut down? and a bazillion others.

Double click? I have changed my settings so I only have to click once.

 

Click Start button to shutdown? No, I changed that too. Press the power button and it shuts down as if I did. (it's in the power settings if you didn't know)

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I prefer the double click. On single click setups I tend to accidentally open things I don't want.

 

As for the Start menu, you can change that to say whatever you want, if you feel like digging.

 

If those are your biggest complaints about Windows you're doing well.

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Also, Win has not once given me a dependency error, misconfigured X, made me compile from source, or any of the other 45 errors that linux has from time to time.

How about "Windows has encountered an error and must close"? I get a lot of that at work. I've seen blown user profiles making a system useless, spyware that makes the whole system useless, just today I saw an un-updated Office crash out every time it opened an email with a photo in it because the OS made some changes. It's all relative I guess.

 

I never compiled my linux from source - ever. Every system has errors. I just wanted to make the point that what we consider intuitive is only so because we've used Windows or been exposed to it in TV programs, commercials, copy-cat game sytems, etc. If you take someone who has never seen a computer they'd be as much at a loss with Windows, Mac and Linux - none are truly intuitive... it's just what we've been exposed to in our day-to-day lives.

 

Obligatory on-topic comment: Since Bill is a guru he'd be fine with any of them. I'd say Linux is the most stable (and apparently Apple agrees since OSX is based on it) as long as it has the programs or clones of the programs he wants to use.

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