Windows, Mac, or Linux?

You can boot to an Ubuntu flash drive or CD and let the others stare out their Windows!

 

I thought about that. It seems like more trouble than it's worth. My son does have our old Toshiba laptop, and we lost the Windows key for it, so that might be a likely candidate for Ubuntu. Right now I can't format the HD because we can't reload the OS.

 

It's not hard to boot if you go into BIOS (setup program) and change the boot order or at least do it on a one-time basis.
Flash drives of course can be updated.
CD's are static, but that can be a good thing if you are getting attacked a lot.

An UBUNTU OS load can breathe new life into an old machine. Windows is so bloated in comparison.

I purchased a replacement key from Microsoft once, but I don't plan to make a habit of it.

 

Yeah, the machine is not worth putting money into it. I might give it a try--see how my son likes it.

 

I use iOS 6.

 

I'm loving ubuntu much more now. I got a free geforce 8600gts, and xrandr and nvidia play nice with it, so my graphics driver actually works.

But it still pisses me off that LINUX didn't work with a common and powerful card from about 6 years ago. What the fuck?

 

I have Linux running on my laptop and Linux and Windows 7 running on my desktop.

 

Had windows since forever.

95 -> 98 -> xp -> and now vista x64

When I'll move and change PC I'll get Windows 7

I liked Ubuntu. It is good if you don't play games and don't develop windows applications.

But windows has everything the other two have

Mac is good if you are generally bad with computers... and/or have shitload of money.
If seeing console gives you hearth attack, then your good to go with mac...

 

Android is quickly taking over most of my computing needs. I'm also phasing out my pc tower and replacing that with a 45 watt Atom mini PC with win7/linux dual boot. The tower I intend to use on rare ocassions when I need the power, 75% of the time I want to be using Android. It is my 'go to' HD media player, gaming, web surfing device/OS.

 

i like the mac....

 

Ahh,

The original "dull little boxes"

 

Skip, running light and lean seems to be a good move no matter which OS you run. Have just what you need and nothing else.

There are so many different Linux bundles, some better than others depending on how you use the machine.

DistroWatch may offer some guidance on choosing one.

If you have one PC, I don't blame you for running Windows on it. If you have a network, there's room for other OS to play with in addition to the almost obligatory Windows box.

 

Linux Mint

 

LOL, I recently did some housecleaning and moving files off my macheen onto the NAS. Now I have over 1.5 terabytes of free drive space. Didn't realize I had sooo much crap on there. Thank goodness Win 7 is a little better at housekeeping than it's predecessors.
But yeah, bought a 120gig SSD for my OS/boot/work programs and a 60gig SSD for games. Much nicer and snappier setup.

 

I discovered the downside to having 3TB of storage. It eventually fills and then you have 3TB of files to sort through and decide if you need to delete or backup to disks which will be a big long job or leave the data alone and just buy more hard drives.

Smaller drives were more manageable as in they forced me to basically do semi-routine housekeeping. My new router supports USB drives for network sharing so I'm going to put all my media on a 1.5 TB drive hooked to the router. That should work freakin' awesome for streaming to my android TV box in the living room.

I keep my OS partitions small. Windows XP on my tower PC is in a 45GB partition that is frozen with DeepFreeze. I have a butchered netbook with no screen mounted to the back of my monitor that has Windows 7 installed on a 60GB drive, which is also frozen with Deepfreeze. If I just want to surf the web, the netbook gets it done and only draws 20-30 watts of power. We also have 3 laptops in the house all running Win 7, mainly because they don't support XP but there's always XP via VMware workstation or Virtual PC.

I'm keeping an eye on the Android X86 project for installing android on PC's. They have many images available up to Android 4.3. I tried one on my netbook but it did not have the wifi driver for my particular netbook. Android is basically a Linux Ubuntu kernel with a fancy GUI launcher for slick java apps. About half of my web browsing is now done on my Androids and at least 75% of my gaming. I spend a lot more time playing Terraria on my tablet than GTA5 on the 360, and Bloody Harry's pretty fun too, and Angry birds, and Bad Piggies, and Plants VS Zombies... but I'm happy to say that I'm Candy Crush free for over two months now.

Check out android-x86.org, maybe they have an iso for your hardware...

 

I use Windows at home and Ubuntu on my server

My favourite desktop Linux distro is Linux Mint - I find it a joy to use overall, although the lack of compatibility is my biggest issue with Linux in general.

Android I find great, especially on 4.x devices.

 

I use Windows 7 primarily. Sometimes I fuck around with Unix-like stuff, and my favorite is OpenBSD. My phone is Android.

 

I've been with mac for a long time, but I find all their new OS's beyond OSX 10.6 have been shit. I was very happy with my custom-built 2.4ghz quad core machine (top of the line when I built it) that I ran osx 10.5 (and later 10.6) on through osx86. It was a sick hackintosh, but now I just run linux mint on it.

I think apple died along with steve jobs. The new operating systems are more and more windows-y in their interface (the com;any is run by a former ms employee!) and now that ppc is out of the picture they're essentially just fancy pc's.

I really like linux because it's so completely customizable, but it can certainly be a pain in the ass. But now that Linux supports steam for games, I'm really down with it.

I think windows 8 is crap, but windows xp and windows 98 were pretty good systems. Since then, they haven't produced anything good.

Basically, the way I see it, there is no CURRENT system that is any good, but the most recent good system from any of the big 3 is OSX 10.6. Unfortunately, it has only gone downhill for apple from there, so I don't see anything good for mac os in the future, I doubt windows has much of a future either (windows 7 is okay, but I wouldn't use anything past xp and windows 8 is almost as much of a disaster as vista and me).

I think linux is the future, but for now OSX 10.6 seems to be the best option. I would switch to linux on a pc laptop, but there just doesn't seem to be anyone making laptops that can stand up to macbook pros. Even the best pc's aren't quite up to par with good macs (although I think the macbook pro retina's with soldered on components that can't be removed are dumb as fuck). The tech industry is pretty shit right now. I'm hoping someone will produce a revolutionary PC soon and linux will continue to improve...

I would say, for now mac osx snow leopard is the best, but in the future, linux will be the best, and windows will remain crap forever unless they change something fundamental about the way they make their software (but at the end of the day mac and linux are unix and are more stable, more secure, more customizable and more fun to use)


a note about osx86:

I did it... I even built my own custom desktop with the perfect parts for it (in a sexy brushed aluminum lain li case from japan ) and wrote my own .kexts and drivers for it and perfected my leopard install and it ran perfectly for many years, until my mom went on it and clicked OK on a software update, and then the whole thing came tumbling down. Since then, I've just put linux mint on it, and I'm starting to like it.

I would say that hackintosh's are a great idea for desktops, but they're still far too unstable for most laptops. If you're going to custom build a desktop it's a great idea, but it's more instability and problems than are worth it for the average user.

I'm honestly really pissed off with the whole tech market right now. Since steve jobs died, there has been no truly perfect solution out there, even for someone with a few grand to shell out on a computer :S

 

LOL, as if Jobs provided any "perfect solutions".
For me the perfect solution is build it yourself.
As far as the best OS is concerned, doesn't it really come down to what you want to do with a computer and what software will get it done?
The main reason the PC/Windows took over the majority of the market comes down to two main things only, wide compatibility across hardware platforms and very few restrictions on software developers.
Apple adopted the exact opposite approach and gained the proportionate amount of market share.
Proprietary shit always fails in the computer marketplace. Anybody remember the IBM-PS2?

The only reason Windows 8 sucks is because Microsoft, along with every other tech company, thought that touchscreen technology would take off in all areas of computing.
They were all wrong.
But Windows 8.1 is by far more robust, secure, and functional than any previous iterations of Windows.
Everybody always hates the newest version of whatever more because they are unfamiliar with it rather than any major fault of the new system itself.
Most people I have known over the last two decades have gone through these stages with each new release;
"I hate it!!!" :cuss:
"Eh' it's not too bad once you know your way around"
"OMG! this is the best thing since sliced bread!" :love:


Everybody doesn't go through those stages, but the majority of "average Joe" users do exactly that.
I currently am using Win 7 Professional with no issues whatsoever.