What operating system do you use and why?

[Ginnie]

This is pure curiosity on my part:

What computer operating system do you use at home and/or at work and why.
I use Ubuntu Linux personally, but has Windows XP installed also for the kids to play their games. My kids computer all use Windows XP or Windows Vista.
My son has Ubuntu Linux installed on his PS3.

I don't like the way Gates operates. It's one thing to sell software and compete with other operating systems but his business practices disturb me. He buys out smaller software companies so he can shut them down and get rid of competition. He once tried to donate a whole bunch (100's I believe) of computers to schools in England but was turned him down because they would have to install Windows on them. If you put together a computer yourself for lets say, $500 (Canadian Dollar = 94 cents American Dollar), you'd have to pay $300 to put Windows on it. That said, Windows itself is a decent operating system for the most part.
Most software developed for Linux is by people who have a passion for creating free or open source programs. There is thousands of programs to choose from. The only downside is not finding drivers for certain video cards, printers etc. and not being able to run games for the PC because of the Direct X issue. But Linux is getting better all the time, and so far viruses and trojans isn't an issue (but would be if Linux had a much bigger share of the market). The price of Linux is practically nothing and it is a very dependable system.

[LunarOrbit]

I use Windows XP because it came with my computer. I tried Fedora Linux for a while but since it couldn't handle all of the hardware (video and wireless network cards, printer, etc.) I always ended up going back to Windows. Didn't see much point in having two OS's when XP does everything I need. Maybe Linux has improved a lot since then.

Linux also suffers from being less user friendly. It challenged me (which was nice, I like a challenge)... but I'm a geek, if it challenged me then there is no way the average computer user is ready to replace Windows with it.

[PhantomWolf]

I used to use Win 98SE till I got my new Computer last year, now it's WinXP, mainly cause I can't be fragged messing about with getting everything to run on Linux, and because I do VB programming. At work we use Win 2000 current, but are upgrading to Vista next year. I have played a little with Linux Redhat, and I have another version of Linux at home that I have been meaning to set up as a server, but since we can't get Broadband there yet I haven't bothered.

[Ginnie]

Linux also suffers from being less user friendly. It challenged me (which was nice, I like a challenge)... but I'm a geek, if it challenged me then there is no way the average computer user is ready to replace Windows with it.
Linux has come a long way. When was the last time you used it?
I got everything working under Ubuntu - graphics drivers, printer, webcam, smartcard slots, digital camera, high speed connection etc. All without having to edit a single config file.
The only thing that I can't get to work is a Lexmark All-In-One printer.
Most 'average users' that I speak to (not people that play games though) say they only use the Internet, EMail, maybe Office. I tell them that Linux does all that but then they baulk because MSN isn't the same under Linux or some weird files they get emailed to them won't open, or the Desktop looks different from Windows. I tell them that they can make the Desktop look like Windows, Macs or anything they want. But yeah, even a little learning curve is too much for the average user. Too bad though...

[LunarOrbit]

ginniegatrit said:

Linux has come a long way. When was the last time you used it?

It was either last year or the year before... I think I was using Fedora Core 5.

I got everything working under Ubuntu - graphics drivers, printer, webcam, smartcard slots, digital camera, high speed connection etc. All without having to edit a single config file.

The biggest challenge for me was getting my Linksys wireless network card to work. There was a driver bridge that I could install but if I can't connect to the network I can't download the software... I had to use Windows for that. And then there was a really long command that I had to manually type into the command prompt to install it... no simple "Install" icon to just double click. That's the kind of thing I mean by not being user friendly... there's no need for command prompts now. Requiring long manually typed commands is what makes it difficult for most people, and until that changes (and maybe it has since I last used Linux) it will never become mainstream.

The other problem I had was with my ATI video card... there was a driver for the 3D graphic capabilities but nothing for the TV input/output features. I didn't want to give up those features after paying all that money for them, so I went back to Windows. I don't blame Linux for that, I blame ATI, but it's still not making switching to Linux an option for me.

But yeah, even a little learning curve is too much for the average user. Too bad though...

The problem is that the people who make Linux are making it for themselves and for people like them. They like the fact that it is challenging because it makes them feel smart. But if they want to knock Windows from the top spot they have to make it easy enough for people who are barely able to turn the computer on.

I might give a current version of Linux a try sometime soon, just to see how much things have evolved.

[BertL]

I use Windows XP, because I have no better alternatives at all. I could get Vista, but Vista is all eye candy and an attack on the video card.

[echnaton]

I use XP at home and at work. My wife has a Vista machine and as far as I am concerned it is the devil's spawn. Mostly because that Vista changes a bunch of stuff and has increased the amount of time it takes to keep the computer working, thus my wife happy. I also hate the security interruptions all the time. Nevertheless, I will have to make peace with the devil and move to Vista one of these days.

I've thought about trying Linux, but my patience for learning new operating systems has been waining over the years. I mostly just want to use the computer for productivity, not to learn about the operating system for its own sake. A copy of XP costs about a hundred bucks and a computer should last three years so the expense is not too much. With the new GUIs for Linux, there seems to be nothing really special about Windows these days, but the human capital investment in the skill to operate Windows is significant and not cheaply replaced.

[Jason]

Vista at home, XP at work.
Why? That's what came with the computer, and it works fine for what I use it for.

[Ginnie]

And then there was a really long command that I had to manually type into the command prompt to install it... no simple "Install" icon to just double click. That's the kind of thing I mean by not being user friendly... there's no need for command prompts now. Requiring long manually typed commands is what makes it difficult for most people, and until that changes (and maybe it has since I last used Linux) it will never become mainstream.

Things have come a long way. I rarely use a command prompt. But thank goodness for my days with DOS when I had to.
Freespire Linux is probably the closest to Windows of any linux system, but you give up a little flexibility for it (just like Windows itself). It licenses the Windows codecs through its non-free Winspire Linux version, so you rarely have problems playing any Windows media etc.
The Synaptic package manager for Linux makes installing most things a snap, sometimes even easier than Windows. Icons are put on the menu automatically after installation and in Ubuntu you get update notifications for all your programs so that you always have the newest versions.
I really thought there would be more Linux people here for some reason...

[LunarOrbit]

I think I remember Jay saying he uses Linux.

I've downloaded the most recent version of Fedora but I'll have to mess with the partitions of my hard drive (or preferably install a second drive) before I can install it. Maybe next week.

[JayUtah]

I use all of them.

Well, not literally. But I started using computers when there was a plethora of operating systems and not so much religion surrounding them.

My philosophy has always been, "The right tool for the right job." That's often a subjective choice, because the "right" tool is often the one you're most familiar with.

For most programming tasks I prefer the various flavors of Unix, with Linux and its other open-source cousins the choice of variant. The system and programming model for Unix applies well to a variety of tasks and is time-tested.

For office, general productivity, and some forms of entertainment I run whichever Windows version Microsoft is supporting this month. That's largely for compatibility with the other people who need to share my work. No, I don't agree it's wise to standardize on proprietary methods and formats, but that is currently the fact of life.

For most artistic pursuits such as image, video, and sound editing I use Mac OS X. Again, that's often for compatibility with other practitioners.

In any one day I will read this forum on a Windows machine, work all day on a Linux system while reading email on another Windows system, then go to the theater or studio and work for several hours on a Macintosh.

There are things I like about each platform and things I hate about each. There are things I both like and hate about the environments in which these various technologies arose and are being extended and managed. And everyone's approach is different. Everyone wants something different out of their computers and out of the industry.

I'm committed to Linux in the high-performance computing industry and in infrastructural roles. I work very hard to evangelize Linux for those roles. I'm less committed to Linux on the desktop. Not because I don't believe Linux can have a future there, but because I sympathize with people who "just want to get the job done." They aren't willing to spend hours evading Dia's clunkiness when they can have the same drawing done in half an hour with Visio.

[LunarOrbit]

I just installed a second hard drive and will probably get around to installing Linux on it either some time today or tomorrow. Once I get the Linksys card working again I'll let you know whether I like it.

[JayUtah]

I'd like to recommend VMWare for those who might want to try a new operating system without committing wholly to it. VMWare Server is a free product you can download, and I've used it for many years to virtualize various systems. You can run it on Windows and install a Linux as the guest, or on Linux to run Windows as the guest.

I installed Linux PPC on an old iMac just to see if it could be done. It can, but the native OS ran better on that platform.

[JayUtah]

Believe it or not, Windows 3.1 is still viable and still being used in life-safe embedded systems.

[Ginnie]

VMWare Server is a free product you can download, and I've used it for many years to virtualize various systems.
I've tried it so I could run Sonic Stage but for some reason it couldn't see my CD, DVD or Memory card slots. I lost patience trying to figure it out. So now, I reboot into Windows XP to run it.
When I used to have Windows 3.1 I used the Norton Desktop. It was fabulous. A lot of its features were duplicated in Windows 95 making Norton Desktop redundant.
One version of Linux that I like a lot is Puppy Linux. Just boot from your Puppy Linux CD and you have a very fast, functioning operating system. The whole operating system is only about 70 MB! Better yet, it all runs in RAM if you have at least 128 MB. Its a breeze to connect to the net, it has a word processor, spreadsheet, media player, and you can even save your data to CD (it can burn CD's too!).
A very handy tool if your Windows crashes and you need access to your data to back it up.