Mac OS. People say it costs more, but I am not paying for a hardware and then some software that tries to make use of it. Instead I’m paying for a well thought out product that just works.
that (mostly) just works.
FTFY
As a Mac user since 2007 it feels like that statement gets a little less true every couple of years. But for me it’s still light years ahead of Windows when it comes to my workflow.
And even though it does cost more at first, it lasts a lot longer and gets lots more free OS updates that most other ones.
More free OS updates? You can upgrade your PC from Windows 7 to 10 for free (even to 11 if you have TPM2). That will be decades of free updates and upgrades.
Not to mention Linux, FreeBSD, and the like.
Call me crazy, but I don't see people rocking laptops from 2008 until this date, I have seen people using Macs from that day using recent macOS versions (with OCLP) and some hardware tweaks like upgrading the RAM or SSD if needed, or replacing the battery.
Heck my Mac is from 2014 and it runs fairly fine.
I happened to sell an old PC recently, from 2010 IIRC. It had a Windows 8 license that could be "upgraded" to Windows 10 which would run fine on this machine until at least 2025.
I think 15 years is quite okay. After that it could still run Linux like forever.
My 2012 MBP is still my daily driver. Before this every PC based laptop I had was lucky to make it 2 years
I just finally broke the charging port on my 2015 MBP. Otherwise, I’d still be using it.
Doesn’t it have MagSafe?
Yeah, the contacts are all worn down. I considered repairing it, but decided against it.
Daaamn fair!
I have an asus laptop from the windows 8 days, sticker doesn't even say 8.1. Can't run windows for shit anymore but it flies with linux, even distros with gnome. I think my toshiba was 8.1, that thing flies with linux too.
How is the ad display there in your start menu?
On macOS here, no ad AT ALL.
True, in that order. Win 7, then 10, which almost doesn’t run because of hardware requirements, then all those Linux distros. You will be busy with installing and configuring these for decades, because it mostly doesn’t just work.
But it’s free, if you value your time to nothing.
With all respect, that's rubbish. I won't comment on this further.
The os updates thing may hold more water for iOS... It's a bit suspect when comparing to Windows and just plain wrong if you compare to any major Linux distro.
Linux of course. I don't invite Apple or Microsoft into my computer. Apple has good hardware though so I can understand using a mac.
I use EndeavourOS. I like pacman and AUR, as well as the fact that Arch-based distros are well-supported by most software. I'm too much of a noob/too lazy to setup an OS without a GUI installer though, which is why I prefer Endeavour over Arch.
I use it too, it’s great. I’ve been using Linux for decades and I know it intimately but why waste time fiddling with installing when Endeavour OS can do it with sane defaults while I brew a coffee ‽ I recently got a new laptop and I was ready to play Baldur’s Gate 3 from the old SSD in 20 min.
I did spend a minute installing btrfs-assistant and btrfsmaintenance though, it’s nice being able to boot a snapshot from grub just in case. I could probably have grabbed Garuda Linux instead but I’m happy with Endeavour.
I've installed Arch myself plenty of times, and I use Endeavour now just because I don't feel like spending the time. Automation is a wonderful thang.
Windows because I know how to use it.
Windows 7.
It was the peak of windows.
It was slick. It was fast. It was stable, and it was super easy to use. Never had a single problem with it, and unlike past windows OS's it didnt require regular reformats to clean house for stability.
Unfortunately its dead now, and Microsoft abandoned that approach and switched to a slow burn approach at walled gardening.
I use Linux now, have been for years, because I saw where microsoft was going when Win10 was in previews, and there was no way I was going to be part of it.. So I jumped ship as soon as EoL was announced for Win 7
Launch by hitting windows key and start typing (this is now a bullshit web search)
The taskbar was usable (fuck this app grouping)
Virtual desktops
Fast
Stable
Looked fine
Hit F8 for recovery options on boot
System rollback
I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're refering to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.
Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called Linux, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project.
There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine's resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called Linux distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux!
I don't stop there. I like to give the FULL name of my operating system when I use it. Example:
"What distro are you running?"
"Oh on this laptop here? This laptop is running Mint, daughter of Ubuntu, son of Debian, daughter of Linux, son of GNU! Her ancestors hail from the mountains of Copyleft, where the mighty Stallman wields his hammer Emacs to forge her people's legendary tools!"
Anything shorter is just disrespectful.
This is so annoying
My 2nd favorite pasta, only topped by
Own a musket for home defense, since that's what the founding fathers intended. Four ruffians break into my house. "What the devil?" As I grab my powdered wig and Kentucky rifle. Blow a golf ball sized hole through the first man, he's dead on the spot. Draw my pistol on the second man, miss him entirely because it's smoothbore and nails the neighbors dog. I have to resort to the cannon mounted at the top of the stairs loaded with grape shot, "Tally ho lads" the grape shot shreds two men in the blast, the sound and extra shrapnel set off car alarms. Fix bayonet and charge the last terrified rapscallion. He Bleeds out waiting on the police to arrive since triangular bayonet wounds are impossible to stitch up. Just as the founding fathers intended.
Found the Stallman!
🤣 🤣 🤣
GNU gets credit for the GPL, and for being the first major project to start to create a free Unix operating system. So it's true that when the Linux kernel was first released, the fact that you could boot a usable operating system on top of it was due to GNU.
But...the success of what most of us just call "Linux" since then is due to thousands of individuals and organizations other than GNU. The vast majority of free software running on top of a Linux operating system has nothing to do with GNU and is not licensed under the GPL.
Let's say I'm running Linux on a server, for a small app running the MERN stack. Literally none of the MERN stack is GNU.
Let's say I'm running Linux on a desktop. I'm depending on Wayland, KDE, Chromium, VSCodium, and a dozen other tools, none of which are GNU.
However, the fact that I can use the same OS to run a tiny embedded device or a superpowered server, that's due to the Linux kernel and the thousands of individuals, organizations, and companies who have made it into the most efficient and versatile operating system kernel in the world, period.
So to me, I have no problems at all calling the operating system "Linux".
First? BSD just chuckles to itself
As a user of the GNU Guix operating system, and a big fan of the GNU Emacs editor...
yeah, you're completely right. Linux is a perfectly apt name.
Linux because Linux
Mac OS
It’s pretty, functional, and has unix underneath so I can use it the way I really like to.
Debian. Been running debian stable on 99% of my servers at work. And debian testing on the desktop, and daily driver. What orginally made me switch from redhat 7 was how frequent i ran into rpm hell, and how difficult it was to do an inplace upgrade. When i could just dist-upgrad to debian woody and everything worked, with a few well documented tweaks, I was sold. And have been running Debian on everything since 2002 ish.
It is stable, reliable, and dependable for the most critical applications. Truly the universal operating system for me.
Edit: forgot to mention that on the 3 desktop machines i prefer KDE. It looks and acts most similar to amiga os, that i grew up with.
Completely agree. Switched from Debian to unraid for my new server at home 4 weeks ago. Boy do I regret that decision.
MacOS, so easy to use that even 5 year old me had no trouble using it. Also because of how reliable it is, my custom PC running Windows has crashed more times in the past year than all the Mac’s I’ve ever had combined (since 2007)
Windows is rock solid and doesn’t crash unless there are problems with a 3rd party driver or hardware like RAM. That’s why custom rigs can sometimes have problems because it’s not all controlled by one company.
I prefer Linux though. I find Windows annoying.
I'm not sure if this is a joke or not, but in case it isn't: Windows isn't stable at all, third party drivers or not. I've never had a Windows PC that I would describe as stable, including the preconfigured laptops and towers I've had. They all bluescreen and crash or freeze more or less regularly (but stability isn't what I care about when I run Windows).
It was not a joke, I've worked on Windows and Linux for decades and I've worked on Symbian OS and Android as an OS engineer. With the right hardware and stable drivers neither crash. Anecdotally (which admittedly proves nothing) my gaming PC's only ever crashed because I had bad RAM, which i diagnosed with memtest86.
It's not the operating system. This is the weakness of Windows/Linux - the many many vendors of PC components and badly written drivers. It's not the operating system's fault as such, unless you count the OS' fault for not running a microkernel with drivers in a less privileged ring like Symbian OS did.
Now, the UI freezing and having weird random slowdown that's another thing and one of the reasons I prefer Linux. I'm very grateful for Valve/Proton that I have been able to ditch Windows completely now.
I’ve have Windows for at least the last ten years and this has maybe happened at few times. Windows is still a privacy hell, but it is stable.
Yeahhhh this sounds like user error. We have heaps of computers in my house we’re currently using. One is a prebuilt from like 2009 (Phenom II x4) and the rest I’ve built myself. They all run incredibly stable. The old Phenom is up nearly 24/7 as a media player in the living room. It’s got some hodgepodge random RAM I found and a low-end SSD. Never crashes.
My other computers are all higher end gaming machines and the only crashes I have are when I’m playing a game that is known to crash. Never just random bluescreens or freezes. Oldest machine is 10 years, newest machine is a few months.
I also have some Linux machines and an old MacBook and those are stable as fuck as well, but man… something is wrong with your Windows usage.
macOS and I like that despite how closed it is you can find new features, commands, apps and cool facts any day, I am gonna start to log all the good shit it has because my brain can't keep up LMAO.
I always hear people say how good macOS is but never say what exactly is good about it. Please tell me why I should try it out
Well, for starters do you have a mac?
I wouldn't attempt to try hackintosh or something like that in a non Apple product, not if you don't like thinkering at least.
Obviously macOS works better with Apple products, performance and battery wise (for example in models where you can install Windows it sucks big time battery performance wise, and the hardware doesn't help either).
What I like about my mac is that it is like having the best of Windows and Linux merged, you got a nice interface with good program support and also scratches the Linux itch with its terminal, and you can also install homebrew from there, very similar as you'd do from any Linux distro (I manage completely my Synology NAS from there with SSH for example, something that was not always possible in Windows natively).
The keyboard commands are nice as well.
Maybe I just feel that way because my OS journey went from Windows > Linux > macOS.
By no means it is a perfect OS, It sucks that it is not as customizable as the other two, also its window management sucks balls without the proper programs (apps/programs really improve the experience overall).
Honestly I don't think I can cover all the good and bad things about this OS, or any other, if you are interested you can give a quick glance in any Apple store, but that is just the tip of the iceberg obviously.
Personally for me it's that it's not as resource heavy as windows whilst offering a similar out of box 'it just works'. Sure it's not the best tool for the job in a lot of regards but for example I have two laptops from early 2014. A macbook air and a windows laptop running windows 10. The macbook air runs smoothly when browsing the Web, or studying whereas the windows laptop ends up slowing down a lot and chugging.
I will say I am a fan of the best tool for the job approach though. Doing a lot of office based work and need word editing or spreadsheet editing? Windows. Gaming? Windows. Server work? Linux. Music/video production? Macs
Debian 12 just overtook Fedora for me after the Red Hat debauchery. With podman/distrobox/qemu/flatpak installed I really don't need my base OS to constantly be the latest and greatest. And I sure love that debian is community run and has taken the step to include non free software.
Yea, went the other way to OpenSuse Leap and have a tumbleweed, Fedora and arch distrobox. Distrobox is such a helpful tool.
Debian 12 runs all my servers. It's like the pinnacle of stability.
Debian Linux on the server: all the flexibility I need in a server OS.
macOS on the desktop: it just gets out of the way and lets me do my job
Amiga Forever…I always wanted an Amiga
Do you mean Workbench, or AmigaOS?
I do like the aesthetics of Workbench 3.9, the pixel art for the icons is very cute :-)
I don’t have a favorite, use the best tool for the job.
Paranoid Android back in the android 4/5 days slapped hard.
On my Google Nexus 5. Noice.
Nexus 4. Such a good looking phone. But the battery died long ago.
Linux by far because of the customisation abilities it offers
Linux Mint. Just works. Zero hassle. Zero shitfuckery.
My answer isn’t unique, but Arch linux is just my favorite to use. I just really love the ability to assemble things exactly the way I like them during the installation process.
I also really like the idea of a rolling release distro, meaning no major upgrades. I just run pacman -Syu once a day and things have been great.
Lastly, almost any piece of software I could want is available in the official repositories or the AUR, and it’s super convenient to be able to install things right away from the command line.
Editing to add: My work laptop is a MacBook Pro and I love it. macOS is really pleasant to use and anyone who says it’s not is a liar. Apple’s user experience game is on point
I used to use windows but recently I installed Linux Mint to see how Linux works and to get more performance for gaming from my thinkpad.
Whatever the fuck my brain runs. It's done a pretty okay job keeping me alive, and that's worth something, right?
It's done a pretty okay job keeping me alive
Well I'm glad it's doing a pretty okay job for someone.
Are you... a ghost? D:
Unfortunately no
I use windows because what i do most is gaming and just browsing. Gaming is just easiest on my windows pc
But i use a mac for school and i run linux on my gaming pc, because i put it on my sons pc.
I prefer windows because i just know it. Been using it for decades. So its easier for me.
But linux and macOS arent bad. They are just different.
MacOS is a bit annoying though. And a lot of apps for it has a subscription.. lol
Windows 95 and Debian were my “holy crap this is cool” operating systems as a kid.
Windows slowly went to hell over the years, and Debian didn't, so now I mostly use Debian.
Debian 11 for my personal server, openSUSE tumbleweed for my personal use. Debian for stability and openSUSE for the latest and greatest of KDE plasma desktop environment!
Love how most of the responses are different distros of Linux.
1998:
Me: I’d rather be running Linux
Systems Manager: Linux is a day late and a dollar short. Novell is the future. Microsoft might be interesting too.
She went off to teach community college after she got laid off.
I've been using Unix in one form or another since the mid 80s, so that's pretty deeply ingrained by now.
I was strongly biased towards Solaris & OpenBSD for many years (Solaris on nice Sun hardware, OpenBSD on small machines) but both began to annoy me a little bit recently, so I switched to Void linux. (Also, there was ONE feature of Linux that I REALLY wanted - extended attributes (name=val) in the filesystem. Love those.)
I'm fascinated by Multics & Control Data's NOS (70s mainframe OS's), but that's for historic study, not actual use.
I still have a copy of Solaris for x86 somewhere, I liked it because it had a nice window manager before Linux and I hold onto the disk out of nostalgia
CDE had the advantage of being useful with a default config, at a time when most window managers required HUGE amounts of fiddling to get a nice environment.
Yeah, the first time I saw CDE was doing AIX for PPC admin and I thought it was nice so went and got the student edition of Solaris for something like €7.50, lol
IIRC at the time CDE for Linux was available for about €50, which was a lot of money back then!
Unfortunately I had approximately zero apps for Solaris, so apart from playing with the OS I got no actual use out of it.
Will I get jumped if I say MacOS?
I'm just kidding, but I do like MacOS. I just find it more aesthetically pleasing than Windows and I find it easier to use and longer lasting than Windows. Like, I had to use my 2014 MacBook Air with 4GB of RAM for a week because I needed to repair my main Mac. Yes, it was slow, I couldn't have too many apps running at the same time, and I couldn't have my customary 20 tabs open, but it was certainly usable and not too frustrating.
Been daily driving Pop OS with the Xanmod kernel for a couple years. Love it.
I've been a Pop OS user for several years as well. I like how much GUI control I have via the keyboard. I've always disliked having to switch between keyboard and pointer all the time.
Debian Linux. Because it just works.
Runner-up: Mac OS. Same reason as above, but not free, so it’s #2.
Second-runner up: Free DOS because why not?
Distant last place: Windows, cause occasionally you need to call in your retarded cousin who is the only one that can do that one thing just right.
Arch Linux
So that I can brag about using Arch Linux.
Seriously though, I wanted to learn about Linux and chose trial-by-fire. I've used other (Debian based) distros but pacman + the Arch user repository are hard to live without now.
Though if I ever had to reinstall I'd probably save myself some headache and install EndeavorOS.
I use arch btw.
Gives me the flexibility to do what I want and contrary to the internet I haven't managed to break everything. I managed to break Ubuntu through
"arch linux" with EndeavourOs. Simple to set up, light weight, they seem to have good opinions on package choices. What I like about arch is that if something breaks, I know how to fix it since everything is so configurable and modular. If something breaks in Windows/Ubuntu I don't know how to fix it and the os/distro isn't designed to let you solve the issue yourself.
Right now, macOS. Switched to it when I started uni and I'm never going back to Windows. The main reasons are:
unix based
generally easier to manage software
the OS itself has most of the basic utilities already packed in and most of them with the right features. I rarely felt the need to install new software to cover lacking parts.
Also, generally stuff is packed fairly well, with care for user experience.
I will say, I'm dipping my feets in linux as well, and it looks like a lot of distro now are mature and accessible. If I ever were to buy a second pc I would seriously consider the penguin.
FWIW I've been a continuous Linux user for 30 years and prefer macOS as my "daily driver".
Always have a Linux server running though, so in a way I could be described as 50/50 I suppose.
You could always try Asahi Linux if you're on a newer MacBook
Currently running fedora, because it is stable, easy to use and just works.
Also, gnome is imo the best designed major, full-featured desktop environment that exists out there (even including windows or macos).
You might get a more tailored experience with window managers but im currently to lazy to set that up. I did use dwm for a time though, but it wasnt really flexible enough for me.
Dwm is literally the most flexible wm imaginable, its just not for everyone. The intention is that the codebase is so small that you can just program whatever you want (or download patches from others and do your best to make them all work together)
Linux.
But of course I need a desktop UI too so that alone isn't enough. I don't have a favorite though.
Windows has a decent core and good core UI, but makes it awful with win11 UI and product pushing. I'm being pragmatic, not enthusiastic, using it.
Ubuntu has or had PPA for selective more direct and up to date software, but I guess with the newer package distribution formats (flatpak and the others) I guess that's not necessary or a comparative upside anymore.
The UIs I tried or used on Linux I never really liked. It was reasonable or acceptable at most. I wonder if there's one I'd like out there.
plan 9
I don't actually have the patience to run it, mind you. But it's definitely my favorite in principle.
Server:
Freebsd: simple, reliable
Desktop:
Linux: Pop os distro
Ubuntu compatibility without any canonical garbage
Works and works well
Out of the box ready for most use cases
Competent engineers and support
I'm glad you asked. How much time do you have?
Arch Linux all the way. I love the AUR, the Arch wiki (though it applies to a lot of distros) and customizable it is.
I’ve had a Mac for a few years, but the Linux « itch » came back and I couldn’t scratch it with macOS.
Now I see just how snappier Linux is compared to Windows or macOS on the same hardware and I really don’t wanna go back.
My favorite OS is Gentoo Linux.
The main reason being that you have full control of the system, from the kernel, init (OpenRC or SystemD), to the different packages.
I've also found Gentoo to be very reliable.
(I've had some bad experiences with distros like Void with KDE Plasma freezing/crashing).
It's a rolling release distro, but with more stable package versions, unlike ArchLinux. However it also gives you the option to use the lastest packages (By adding them to accept_keywords)
And if you want you can experiment with different setups, for example using musl instead of GNU's GLIBC, or using clang as the default compiler instead of GCC.
I would miss Manjaro if it went away. I like how it (cliche alert) "just works".
I'm mainly privacy and security focused when it comes to software. My first Linux distro was Whonix. It's like if Tor expanded from the browser into an OS. Its a bit clunky and outdated though, so not a great daily driver. My second and current distro was the KDE spin of Fedora. It's been amazing top to bottom. Unfortunately Red Hat recently started some drama, but Fedora shouldn't be impacted as its upstream. If Red Hat's greasy paws do mess things up, I'm thinking about running OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. Hopefully it's just me over thinking and Fedora will remain a stellar OS option for years to come.
If you want the security/privacy of whonix capabilities with the flexibility of fedora you should checkout Qubes OS. As long as you have the correct hardware to run Qubes it can make for a secure and unique experience.
I've given Qubes a go, it's a bit much for my threat model. Fedora is a well ranked OS from a privacy and security standpoint, not on the same level as Qubes, but Qubes uses it as the base OS. Fedora's easier on the eyes and straight forward. Is Qubes your daily driver?
Yep, I've been using it daily for a few years now to keep my personal, social, research and work lives separate and compartmentalized. It's the most user friendly way I've been able to keep things straight with the different color schemes and ability to run whonix/Debian/fedora/windows and switch between them with ease.
Windows. Because I can run WSL alongside the industry standard business tools such as Outlook etc.
The virtual machine workflow has made me completely rethink how I use computers, and there's huge security benefits of compartmentalizing your digital life through Qubes. Qubes OS successfully compartmentalizes your VMs and brings them together under one unified desktop, so even though you have several VMs running, you can see all of them at once because you see their windows as if it was a regular Linux desktop.
There are some issues with it though, such as lack of 3D acceleration for gaming, and its rather picky hardware support. Along with needing hardware that supports Linux drivers, you need a crap ton of RAM (I'm running 20 GBs on my Thinkpad T450s) for all of the VMs you run at one time. It doesn't take as much CPU power as you'd think, though, as it uses Xen's PVH emulation, instead of full-blown virtual machines like you'd see with VirtualBox.
However, if you have the right hardware for it, and you don't mind dual-booting or using another machine for gaming, I urge you to give it a whirl.
Void Linux. It was the OS that made me stop distro hopping
Arch, because the documentation and support is really good. And it 'just works.'
When it comes down to it, the only difference between distros is basically just the package manager right?
I've never used arch but I've used it's documentation quite a bit, it's really useful
Not only package manager - init system, wiki, display manager, community support, package freshness vs stability also play their role. There are many other points that are important too.
I was going to mention wikis etc but that's not really part of the distro that's running on your PC, it's part of the surrounding ecosystem.
Can you not change the init + display manager on other distros?
It's easy to change display manager (except the case of keeping multiple of them to test out, if they are big and complex, like Gnome and KDE - there are conflicts).
Some distros may have worse support for specific display managers, but I cannot say as my experience was relatively smooth for Debian, Manjaro, Arch, Endeavour and Artix. In Ubuntu I had some issues, but I could live with them for a time being because I couldn't change the workplace OS.
But for init system it's usually PITA. Many packages, including critical for system operation may have dependency on systemd, for example.
In case of Artix Linux there are separate versions of packages for each init system that's supported, if package has dependency on the init system.
Daily driving OpenBSD for 1 year and 8 months now. The simplicity of it and its sane defaults make it much easier to configure than the Linux distros I've used in the past, and it has been more reliable than FreeBSD on my main system. On my X230, It Just Works™.
Nobody in here talking about BeOS, QDos, Geos (like windows for the C64!), AIX, or OS2 Warp? For shame!
QNX fucking rocked, I wish it had been useable as a day-to-day system. If I had to pick one it would be that sighs wistfully
I liked BeOS. Rock solid.
Yeah, BeOS looked, for about 5 minutes, like it might be the future!
And then it wasn't :-(
I wanted to like BeOS so much. I even have a VM with Haiku on it. I occasionally spin it up, gawk at how retro-cool the UI is, look around at everything I'd like to be able to do, realize I can't seem to find any usable software for it, close it and try again in six months.
My experience with AIX was very early, on first generation RS/6000s. AIX 3? I had a Powerserver-930 at home. SMIT was weird.
I want to say my exposure was 5.something? On a PPC server used for a production management database. I liked SMIT from what I can remember (the documentation was good), but everything went well silky smooth once I managed to track down bash for it and basically automated half my job with basic scripts, lol
Also fun fact, I once took the server offline by tripping over a SCSI 3 cable to the raid array (while sorting out the bird's nest of a comms room) and it took me 3 days to restore everything from backup.
That was my first steady IT job.
Setting up the server I had involved booting & installing from (8mm) tape! Slowwwwwww.
Oh fantastic! I was one of those young whipper-snappers with the technology of the future for OS installations - floppy disks. I can't remember what sort of tape was being used during my "learning the value of backups the hard way" experience above, but they were chonky and took about 8 hours to parse each full one so I could pop home and eat between feeding them into the machine.
It all worked like a charm though, no lost data or anything :-)
The first "real hardware" (ie: not a "personal computer") I had at home was a 3B2/300 (mid-80s AT&T 32 bit WE32000). Installing Unix on that was about a dozen floppies. (I still have them!)
Full Unix (SVR3) on a system with 2 meg of ram & a 40 meg hard drive...
lol, I never had anything like that at home (though I did end up with a 68K based VME system at one point). That AIX server was outgoing tech for SMEs even then, and I never worked for anywhere big enough to have anything Unix-y on it after that :-/
Still, it used to be cool how much oddly mixed hardware there used to be, whereas now there's a slick VM solution for any size of business.
Oh, I've always liked VME. A lot of big computers (low-end supercomputers, exotic high-end servers) had a proprietary system bus, but multiple VME busses for IO. Very nice arrangement.
Yeah, I use a VME setup at work for data capture and it's serviceable and reliable (reliable enough to still be working off a coax network cable, lol).
The one I had at home had a 60K-based motherboard with some custom roms and a load of serial ports ... I never managed to get it to do anything useful, unfortunately
RISC OS. It's quite unique, and the UI design is great. Want to save a file? Drag this icon where you want to save it. Access the menu? Middle button, oh and it's all context sensitive, directly under the pointer. Applications are just directories - there are no hidden files.
Between Linux Mint for its reliability and ease of use and Gentoo for just being really nice to use overall with a ton of the control linux is well known for.
Fedora and Debian. It just works, can't complain. Need to use windows 11 on a notebook, absolutely hate it.
Fedora for its stability.
Arch for its customisability.
My favorite was Linux, but I got really into producing music and fl studio and all of my vsts don't run in Linux afaik. I'm just not willing to throw away the money I've spent and try and find open source alternatives
Look up yabridge. I personally use pipewire+bit wig+yabridge, works pretty good.
I'll look into it, thanks!
I use Debian 12. I very recently switched to it from windows after using windows for about 10 years or more.
What do I like about Debian when compared to Windows?
I really enjoy using the terminal. Still a beginner. Yes learning the commands is tough but sometimes I just prefer using the terminal instead of using a gui.
Everything else about debian is also great.
I don't have a favorite. Every OS has its pros and cons, so it's "right to for the right job" situation for me.
I run Windows 10/11 on my desktops because some piece of software requires it (trust me, I've looked at alternatives.) unRAID on one server, and Ubuntu on a couple of other servers. They all have quirks that I absolutely hate, but there's no such thing as perfect operating system.
Mint but replace cinnamon with sway. It just works, is reliable and has minimal bloat
What? No love for ElementaryOS? It runs really well on my Pinebook Pro.
Last time I tried it, the liveCD booted fine but the full install had an extreme yellow tint to it.
macOS for personal use, Rocky Linux or Ubuntu for my servers
And what do you like about it?
macOS is just a great OS. It's polished, and thoughtfully designed with care, as are many of the apps available for it. I like that it integrates very well with my other Apple devices. Because of its BSD underpinnings, a lot of Linux-y things work very well with it. I use the Terminal (actually Warp, but same idea) on a daily basis for different things. A lot of the tools that I know and use on my Linux servers work here as well. I can write automation for it, and apps like Raycast and Alfred make building workflows and scripts, and tying those together, really easy. It's much more secure than Windows. I also don't have to worry about stupid shit like literal fucking advertising being built into the OS, as you have with Windows.
As for Rocky Linux, well, I'm a co-founder of it (and the Rocky Enterprise Software Foundation) and helped build it, so my biases there are obvious.
Opensuse Tumbleweed after the whole Red Hat situation i started looking for similar distros as i really liked Fedora went to Opensuse Tumbleweed had no issues almost as if i never switched distros (obviously package manager is slightly different but not too hard to get used to honestly) i mean i can even still install Rpms
I've been using Kali for a while now, after only using Windows and Ubuntu for ages. It's surprisingly refreshing!
Android, because between this one, Linux, and Windows:
it's the one I need to care less about the OS. The OS (or how does swirling transition animations look better in your beloved distro GUI) should be just an invisible, unobtrusive tool to run your apps, not something that matters or requires babysitting nor tinkering.
it's the one running the apps I use the most, FOR ME, as opposed of for work
manjaro kde + bismuth for tiling
Linux and Windows.
Windows for "just works" functionality and software compatibility
Linux for light weight, customization, and overall support on hardware (ie there is some distro that will run on just about any set of hardware)
If we're talking Windows, I'd say Windows 7 is the definitive windows version out there.
Windows 7 was definitely the pinnacle of the windows OS, All went down hill from there.
MacOS for the trackpad gesture functionality.
My favorite and the longest I’ve used was Antergos until they stopped maintaining it. At the time, it was the most popular Arch-with-an-installer distro. Before that, I was a fan of Peppermint OS simply because it was a beautiful looking distro. I’m currently running Mint because I don’t have time to maintain an OS and I just want something that works. It’s pretty good I’d say.
Windows. Everything is straight forward and I can still make some custom or niche stuff work.
I don't like Linux, because a lot of programs don't work, and I don't want to create my own 3D application or DAW from scratch. Not worth my time.
I don't like Apple because the money I'd put into that I'd rather put to better use.
All three of your answers are (wrong) stereotypes.
How is thst wrong?
I second this, and 1 and 2 are the reasons i am not on Linux yet wirh my main PC.
Win 11 runs without issues for me, i cant install Essential Software and Hardware thag i use on Linux and Apple is expensive and i really dont like the Windowmanagement and some other Quirks of macOs. btw i use all three of them, win 11 on my main pc, linux on my old laptop and macOS at work.
The comments are so vague as to be useless.
Windows. Everything is straight forward and I can still make some custom or niche stuff work.
I can say the same thing about Linux.
I don't like Linux, because a lot of programs don't work, and I don't want to create my own 3D application or DAW from scratch.
This sounds like a 2005 opinion. There is professional grade software on Linux (for example Pixar RenderMan). If there is a specific application a person needs that is Windows only (and there are many) that's fine, but suggesting the need write your own application for Linux from scratch is ridiculous.
As for "a lot of programs don't work", I have no clue what that's supposed to mean... XD
No one said linux doesnt work, the Person just said this is one point why He uses Windows.
Building your own Software is definitely exaggerated.
My graphics applications dont work properly (Affinity Suite), my Video Tool barely works although its supported natively (davinci), my DAW (maschine) and my music Hardware (maschine mk3) dont work at all. Installing my vsts is very Tricky (aome dont work at all). My cloud storage has no linux Client (proton drive). This is just the most important stuff for my use case, which keeps me from switching to Linux.
What you're describing in 3. is the exact reason why I said "build software from scratch" btw. Some software just will never work properly or never work period. And usually, every Linux compatible software can technically do 80% of the stuff you need, but even that takes 10x the time and effort. I'm talking 3d applications like AutoCAD, cinema4d, DAWs like FL Studio and Ableton, video cutting like Sony Vegas or Adobe Premiere Pro, and this is not even talking about use cases where there's highly specific, proprietary or custom software.
You either use Windows, or you pay with your time, effort and sanity.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a data scientist and software Dev and I know there are good reasons why Linux should be the golden standard. But I'm also a realist and while I love the idea of what Linux' goal is, it's a really hard sell for most non computer science people.
I understand. Thank you for your response. :)
I've used Linux exclusively since 2002 for school, work, hobbies, and gaming, and I sometimes forget how much is still missing.
I tried Davinci for Linux and I agree, I could barely get it to work. XD
I've always used Windows as my main OS, but I have experience with Macs as school computers, and now I'm exploring Linux. I gotta say Linux is probably my favorite. It's so configurable and my workflow is so smooth now that when I try and use my Windows laptop instead I find myself trying to use keybinds from my WM lol. I miss my terminal! WSL is just not the same.
I have to have Windows on my school laptop, and I still have it on my PC. My hope is that I can switch my PC to Linux when Win10 loses support. Hopefully Nvidia will play nice.
But I do prefer Windows over Mac simply cause I've used it longer. I've only ever used Macs on a surface level, never had my own or was able to tweak settings and such. So idk I might feel differently if I had one. But I'm definitely liking Linux a lot more cause of the customization and no update badgering lol
Honestly, I'd say don't bother waiting for Windows 10 EOL and just go for a Linux install on your PC whenever you feel comfortable with it! You can always dual boot also for those weird cases that you absolutely need to do something in Windows
I want to but my dad said "no more Linux projects"
Idk I told him I wanted to do it with a different drive so I would still have a windows install but he wants me to wait ig
I prefer Carbon6 for my daily work. I'm considering going to Silicon, but it's just not user tested yet and I can't risk the disruption to my work flow.
So far I only ever used Windows and Linux Mint, but I'm happy with the latter so I guess I'll stay with it for a while.
Windows because I have to use it at work anyway. Also it's simple, nearly everything works out of the box and it's still the best choice for gaming.
Xubuntu
Simple, somewhat retro interface
Highly customizable
Stable as hell
Fast
Simple to setup
Regular OS versions upgrades
I've been a loyal System/MacOS/OS X/macOS user since System 6. From the first time I sat down at a Mac, it's the only OS family that allows me to forget that I'm using a computer and just do things.
Architecturally the Classic MacOS was a hacked-together mess (though I was pretty good about managing my extensions, and I put together some pretty impressive uptime with my old Power Macs), but the UI was incredibly fast and responsive. Even on my M2 Pro Mini I don't believe I can navigate my filesystem as quickly or as easily as I could on my OG iMac running 9.2. And I'd still love to visit an alternate universe where macOS evolved from the Server 1.0 UI rather than the Aqua UI.
OS X/macOS feels a little more cumbersome, a little less personal. I don't always love all the new features Apple pushes in its new releases. (IDEK with the new Settings menu.) And I really didn't love the hoops I had to jump through to get PHP running on my Mini (I could have gone with an all-Homebrew setup, but I wanted to keep things relatively uncomplicated). The last version of macOS I unabashedly loved was 10.14 Mojave. But in the end, I appreciate all the things that bringing Unix to the Mac allows me to do, and there's enough of the old MacOS DNA that I'm still mostly able to sit down, forget I'm using a computer, and just get my work done. That's what I look for in an OS.
windows
because it was already installed
1? Linux
2? Freedom
Gentoo. It makes me feel like I’m in full control of my system.
Linux, no m$/crapple bs
My favorite distro is Mint, because it just works
If you did not recommend arch, you basically recommended poop on a stick
My favorite is chromeOS because it requires zero maintenance and I can access all my data, apps, and preferences in minutes on any compatible device by just signing into my account.
TempleOS. All other operating systems are sinful.
Do you pray before logging in?
It wouldn't let you log in at all if you didn't. It's devine 2FA.
You don't need to log in with TempleOS because God said so.
Mac OS. People say it costs more, but I am not paying for a hardware and then some software that tries to make use of it. Instead I’m paying for a well thought out product that just works.
FTFY
As a Mac user since 2007 it feels like that statement gets a little less true every couple of years. But for me it’s still light years ahead of Windows when it comes to my workflow.
And even though it does cost more at first, it lasts a lot longer and gets lots more free OS updates that most other ones.
More free OS updates? You can upgrade your PC from Windows 7 to 10 for free (even to 11 if you have TPM2). That will be decades of free updates and upgrades.
Not to mention Linux, FreeBSD, and the like.
Call me crazy, but I don't see people rocking laptops from 2008 until this date, I have seen people using Macs from that day using recent macOS versions (with OCLP) and some hardware tweaks like upgrading the RAM or SSD if needed, or replacing the battery.
Heck my Mac is from 2014 and it runs fairly fine.
I happened to sell an old PC recently, from 2010 IIRC. It had a Windows 8 license that could be "upgraded" to Windows 10 which would run fine on this machine until at least 2025. I think 15 years is quite okay. After that it could still run Linux like forever.
My 2012 MBP is still my daily driver. Before this every PC based laptop I had was lucky to make it 2 years
I just finally broke the charging port on my 2015 MBP. Otherwise, I’d still be using it.
Doesn’t it have MagSafe?
Yeah, the contacts are all worn down. I considered repairing it, but decided against it.
Daaamn fair!
I have an asus laptop from the windows 8 days, sticker doesn't even say 8.1. Can't run windows for shit anymore but it flies with linux, even distros with gnome. I think my toshiba was 8.1, that thing flies with linux too.
How is the ad display there in your start menu? On macOS here, no ad AT ALL.
True, in that order. Win 7, then 10, which almost doesn’t run because of hardware requirements, then all those Linux distros. You will be busy with installing and configuring these for decades, because it mostly doesn’t just work.
But it’s free, if you value your time to nothing.
With all respect, that's rubbish. I won't comment on this further.
The os updates thing may hold more water for iOS... It's a bit suspect when comparing to Windows and just plain wrong if you compare to any major Linux distro.
Linux of course. I don't invite Apple or Microsoft into my computer. Apple has good hardware though so I can understand using a mac.
I use EndeavourOS. I like pacman and AUR, as well as the fact that Arch-based distros are well-supported by most software. I'm too much of a noob/too lazy to setup an OS without a GUI installer though, which is why I prefer Endeavour over Arch.
I use it too, it’s great. I’ve been using Linux for decades and I know it intimately but why waste time fiddling with installing when Endeavour OS can do it with sane defaults while I brew a coffee ‽ I recently got a new laptop and I was ready to play Baldur’s Gate 3 from the old SSD in 20 min.
I did spend a minute installing btrfs-assistant and btrfsmaintenance though, it’s nice being able to boot a snapshot from grub just in case. I could probably have grabbed Garuda Linux instead but I’m happy with Endeavour.
I've installed Arch myself plenty of times, and I use Endeavour now just because I don't feel like spending the time. Automation is a wonderful thang.
Windows because I know how to use it.
Windows 7.
It was the peak of windows.
It was slick. It was fast. It was stable, and it was super easy to use. Never had a single problem with it, and unlike past windows OS's it didnt require regular reformats to clean house for stability.
Unfortunately its dead now, and Microsoft abandoned that approach and switched to a slow burn approach at walled gardening.
I use Linux now, have been for years, because I saw where microsoft was going when Win10 was in previews, and there was no way I was going to be part of it.. So I jumped ship as soon as EoL was announced for Win 7
Launch by hitting windows key and start typing (this is now a bullshit web search)
The taskbar was usable (fuck this app grouping)
Virtual desktops
Fast
Stable
Looked fine
Hit F8 for recovery options on boot
System rollback
I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're refering to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX. Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called Linux, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project. There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine's resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called Linux distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux!
I don't stop there. I like to give the FULL name of my operating system when I use it. Example:
Anything shorter is just disrespectful.
This is so annoying
My 2nd favorite pasta, only topped by
Own a musket for home defense, since that's what the founding fathers intended. Four ruffians break into my house. "What the devil?" As I grab my powdered wig and Kentucky rifle. Blow a golf ball sized hole through the first man, he's dead on the spot. Draw my pistol on the second man, miss him entirely because it's smoothbore and nails the neighbors dog. I have to resort to the cannon mounted at the top of the stairs loaded with grape shot, "Tally ho lads" the grape shot shreds two men in the blast, the sound and extra shrapnel set off car alarms. Fix bayonet and charge the last terrified rapscallion. He Bleeds out waiting on the police to arrive since triangular bayonet wounds are impossible to stitch up. Just as the founding fathers intended.Found the Stallman!
🤣 🤣 🤣
GNU gets credit for the GPL, and for being the first major project to start to create a free Unix operating system. So it's true that when the Linux kernel was first released, the fact that you could boot a usable operating system on top of it was due to GNU.
But...the success of what most of us just call "Linux" since then is due to thousands of individuals and organizations other than GNU. The vast majority of free software running on top of a Linux operating system has nothing to do with GNU and is not licensed under the GPL.
Let's say I'm running Linux on a server, for a small app running the MERN stack. Literally none of the MERN stack is GNU.
Let's say I'm running Linux on a desktop. I'm depending on Wayland, KDE, Chromium, VSCodium, and a dozen other tools, none of which are GNU.
However, the fact that I can use the same OS to run a tiny embedded device or a superpowered server, that's due to the Linux kernel and the thousands of individuals, organizations, and companies who have made it into the most efficient and versatile operating system kernel in the world, period.
So to me, I have no problems at all calling the operating system "Linux".
First? BSD just chuckles to itself
As a user of the GNU Guix operating system, and a big fan of the GNU Emacs editor...
yeah, you're completely right. Linux is a perfectly apt name.
Linux because Linux
Mac OS
It’s pretty, functional, and has unix underneath so I can use it the way I really like to.
Debian. Been running debian stable on 99% of my servers at work. And debian testing on the desktop, and daily driver. What orginally made me switch from redhat 7 was how frequent i ran into rpm hell, and how difficult it was to do an inplace upgrade. When i could just dist-upgrad to debian woody and everything worked, with a few well documented tweaks, I was sold. And have been running Debian on everything since 2002 ish.
It is stable, reliable, and dependable for the most critical applications. Truly the universal operating system for me.
Edit: forgot to mention that on the 3 desktop machines i prefer KDE. It looks and acts most similar to amiga os, that i grew up with.
Completely agree. Switched from Debian to unraid for my new server at home 4 weeks ago. Boy do I regret that decision.
MacOS, so easy to use that even 5 year old me had no trouble using it. Also because of how reliable it is, my custom PC running Windows has crashed more times in the past year than all the Mac’s I’ve ever had combined (since 2007)
Windows is rock solid and doesn’t crash unless there are problems with a 3rd party driver or hardware like RAM. That’s why custom rigs can sometimes have problems because it’s not all controlled by one company.
I prefer Linux though. I find Windows annoying.
I'm not sure if this is a joke or not, but in case it isn't: Windows isn't stable at all, third party drivers or not. I've never had a Windows PC that I would describe as stable, including the preconfigured laptops and towers I've had. They all bluescreen and crash or freeze more or less regularly (but stability isn't what I care about when I run Windows).
It was not a joke, I've worked on Windows and Linux for decades and I've worked on Symbian OS and Android as an OS engineer. With the right hardware and stable drivers neither crash. Anecdotally (which admittedly proves nothing) my gaming PC's only ever crashed because I had bad RAM, which i diagnosed with memtest86.
It's not the operating system. This is the weakness of Windows/Linux - the many many vendors of PC components and badly written drivers. It's not the operating system's fault as such, unless you count the OS' fault for not running a microkernel with drivers in a less privileged ring like Symbian OS did.
Now, the UI freezing and having weird random slowdown that's another thing and one of the reasons I prefer Linux. I'm very grateful for Valve/Proton that I have been able to ditch Windows completely now.
I’ve have Windows for at least the last ten years and this has maybe happened at few times. Windows is still a privacy hell, but it is stable.
Yeahhhh this sounds like user error. We have heaps of computers in my house we’re currently using. One is a prebuilt from like 2009 (Phenom II x4) and the rest I’ve built myself. They all run incredibly stable. The old Phenom is up nearly 24/7 as a media player in the living room. It’s got some hodgepodge random RAM I found and a low-end SSD. Never crashes.
My other computers are all higher end gaming machines and the only crashes I have are when I’m playing a game that is known to crash. Never just random bluescreens or freezes. Oldest machine is 10 years, newest machine is a few months.
I also have some Linux machines and an old MacBook and those are stable as fuck as well, but man… something is wrong with your Windows usage.
macOS and I like that despite how closed it is you can find new features, commands, apps and cool facts any day, I am gonna start to log all the good shit it has because my brain can't keep up LMAO.
I always hear people say how good macOS is but never say what exactly is good about it. Please tell me why I should try it out
Well, for starters do you have a mac?
I wouldn't attempt to try hackintosh or something like that in a non Apple product, not if you don't like thinkering at least.
Obviously macOS works better with Apple products, performance and battery wise (for example in models where you can install Windows it sucks big time battery performance wise, and the hardware doesn't help either).
What I like about my mac is that it is like having the best of Windows and Linux merged, you got a nice interface with good program support and also scratches the Linux itch with its terminal, and you can also install homebrew from there, very similar as you'd do from any Linux distro (I manage completely my Synology NAS from there with SSH for example, something that was not always possible in Windows natively).
The keyboard commands are nice as well.
Maybe I just feel that way because my OS journey went from Windows > Linux > macOS.
By no means it is a perfect OS, It sucks that it is not as customizable as the other two, also its window management sucks balls without the proper programs (apps/programs really improve the experience overall).
Honestly I don't think I can cover all the good and bad things about this OS, or any other, if you are interested you can give a quick glance in any Apple store, but that is just the tip of the iceberg obviously.
Personally for me it's that it's not as resource heavy as windows whilst offering a similar out of box 'it just works'. Sure it's not the best tool for the job in a lot of regards but for example I have two laptops from early 2014. A macbook air and a windows laptop running windows 10. The macbook air runs smoothly when browsing the Web, or studying whereas the windows laptop ends up slowing down a lot and chugging.
I will say I am a fan of the best tool for the job approach though. Doing a lot of office based work and need word editing or spreadsheet editing? Windows. Gaming? Windows. Server work? Linux. Music/video production? Macs
Debian 12 just overtook Fedora for me after the Red Hat debauchery. With podman/distrobox/qemu/flatpak installed I really don't need my base OS to constantly be the latest and greatest. And I sure love that debian is community run and has taken the step to include non free software.
Yea, went the other way to OpenSuse Leap and have a tumbleweed, Fedora and arch distrobox. Distrobox is such a helpful tool.
Debian 12 runs all my servers. It's like the pinnacle of stability.
Debian Linux on the server: all the flexibility I need in a server OS.
macOS on the desktop: it just gets out of the way and lets me do my job
Amiga Forever…I always wanted an Amiga
Do you mean Workbench, or AmigaOS?
I do like the aesthetics of Workbench 3.9, the pixel art for the icons is very cute :-)
I don’t have a favorite, use the best tool for the job.
Paranoid Android back in the android 4/5 days slapped hard.
On my Google Nexus 5. Noice.
Nexus 4. Such a good looking phone. But the battery died long ago.
Linux by far because of the customisation abilities it offers
Linux Mint. Just works. Zero hassle. Zero shitfuckery.
My answer isn’t unique, but Arch linux is just my favorite to use. I just really love the ability to assemble things exactly the way I like them during the installation process.
I also really like the idea of a rolling release distro, meaning no major upgrades. I just run pacman -Syu once a day and things have been great.
Lastly, almost any piece of software I could want is available in the official repositories or the AUR, and it’s super convenient to be able to install things right away from the command line.
Editing to add: My work laptop is a MacBook Pro and I love it. macOS is really pleasant to use and anyone who says it’s not is a liar. Apple’s user experience game is on point
I used to use windows but recently I installed Linux Mint to see how Linux works and to get more performance for gaming from my thinkpad.
Whatever the fuck my brain runs. It's done a pretty okay job keeping me alive, and that's worth something, right?
Well I'm glad it's doing a pretty okay job for someone.
Are you... a ghost? D:
Unfortunately no
I use windows because what i do most is gaming and just browsing. Gaming is just easiest on my windows pc
But i use a mac for school and i run linux on my gaming pc, because i put it on my sons pc.
I prefer windows because i just know it. Been using it for decades. So its easier for me.
But linux and macOS arent bad. They are just different.
MacOS is a bit annoying though. And a lot of apps for it has a subscription.. lol
Windows 95 and Debian were my “holy crap this is cool” operating systems as a kid.
Windows slowly went to hell over the years, and Debian didn't, so now I mostly use Debian.
Debian 11 for my personal server, openSUSE tumbleweed for my personal use. Debian for stability and openSUSE for the latest and greatest of KDE plasma desktop environment!
Love how most of the responses are different distros of Linux.
1998:
Me: I’d rather be running Linux
Systems Manager: Linux is a day late and a dollar short. Novell is the future. Microsoft might be interesting too.
She went off to teach community college after she got laid off.
I've been using Unix in one form or another since the mid 80s, so that's pretty deeply ingrained by now.
I was strongly biased towards Solaris & OpenBSD for many years (Solaris on nice Sun hardware, OpenBSD on small machines) but both began to annoy me a little bit recently, so I switched to Void linux. (Also, there was ONE feature of Linux that I REALLY wanted - extended attributes (name=val) in the filesystem. Love those.)
I'm fascinated by Multics & Control Data's NOS (70s mainframe OS's), but that's for historic study, not actual use.
I still have a copy of Solaris for x86 somewhere, I liked it because it had a nice window manager before Linux and I hold onto the disk out of nostalgia
CDE had the advantage of being useful with a default config, at a time when most window managers required HUGE amounts of fiddling to get a nice environment.
Yeah, the first time I saw CDE was doing AIX for PPC admin and I thought it was nice so went and got the student edition of Solaris for something like €7.50, lol
IIRC at the time CDE for Linux was available for about €50, which was a lot of money back then!
Unfortunately I had approximately zero apps for Solaris, so apart from playing with the OS I got no actual use out of it.
Will I get jumped if I say MacOS?
I'm just kidding, but I do like MacOS. I just find it more aesthetically pleasing than Windows and I find it easier to use and longer lasting than Windows. Like, I had to use my 2014 MacBook Air with 4GB of RAM for a week because I needed to repair my main Mac. Yes, it was slow, I couldn't have too many apps running at the same time, and I couldn't have my customary 20 tabs open, but it was certainly usable and not too frustrating.
Been daily driving Pop OS with the Xanmod kernel for a couple years. Love it.
I've been a Pop OS user for several years as well. I like how much GUI control I have via the keyboard. I've always disliked having to switch between keyboard and pointer all the time.
Debian Linux. Because it just works.
Runner-up: Mac OS. Same reason as above, but not free, so it’s #2.
Second-runner up: Free DOS because why not?
Distant last place: Windows, cause occasionally you need to call in your retarded cousin who is the only one that can do that one thing just right.
Arch Linux
So that I can brag about using Arch Linux.
Seriously though, I wanted to learn about Linux and chose trial-by-fire. I've used other (Debian based) distros but pacman + the Arch user repository are hard to live without now.
Though if I ever had to reinstall I'd probably save myself some headache and install EndeavorOS.
I use arch btw.
Gives me the flexibility to do what I want and contrary to the internet I haven't managed to break everything. I managed to break Ubuntu through
"arch linux" with EndeavourOs. Simple to set up, light weight, they seem to have good opinions on package choices. What I like about arch is that if something breaks, I know how to fix it since everything is so configurable and modular. If something breaks in Windows/Ubuntu I don't know how to fix it and the os/distro isn't designed to let you solve the issue yourself.
Right now, macOS. Switched to it when I started uni and I'm never going back to Windows. The main reasons are:
Also, generally stuff is packed fairly well, with care for user experience.
I will say, I'm dipping my feets in linux as well, and it looks like a lot of distro now are mature and accessible. If I ever were to buy a second pc I would seriously consider the penguin.
FWIW I've been a continuous Linux user for 30 years and prefer macOS as my "daily driver".
Always have a Linux server running though, so in a way I could be described as 50/50 I suppose.
You could always try Asahi Linux if you're on a newer MacBook
Currently running fedora, because it is stable, easy to use and just works. Also, gnome is imo the best designed major, full-featured desktop environment that exists out there (even including windows or macos).
You might get a more tailored experience with window managers but im currently to lazy to set that up. I did use dwm for a time though, but it wasnt really flexible enough for me.
Dwm is literally the most flexible wm imaginable, its just not for everyone. The intention is that the codebase is so small that you can just program whatever you want (or download patches from others and do your best to make them all work together)
Linux.
But of course I need a desktop UI too so that alone isn't enough. I don't have a favorite though.
Windows has a decent core and good core UI, but makes it awful with win11 UI and product pushing. I'm being pragmatic, not enthusiastic, using it.
Ubuntu has or had PPA for selective more direct and up to date software, but I guess with the newer package distribution formats (flatpak and the others) I guess that's not necessary or a comparative upside anymore.
The UIs I tried or used on Linux I never really liked. It was reasonable or acceptable at most. I wonder if there's one I'd like out there.
plan 9
I don't actually have the patience to run it, mind you. But it's definitely my favorite in principle.
Server: Freebsd: simple, reliable
Desktop: Linux: Pop os distro
Ubuntu compatibility without any canonical garbage
Works and works well
Out of the box ready for most use cases
Competent engineers and support
I'm glad you asked. How much time do you have?
Arch Linux all the way. I love the AUR, the Arch wiki (though it applies to a lot of distros) and customizable it is.
I’ve had a Mac for a few years, but the Linux « itch » came back and I couldn’t scratch it with macOS.
Now I see just how snappier Linux is compared to Windows or macOS on the same hardware and I really don’t wanna go back.
My favorite OS is Gentoo Linux.
The main reason being that you have full control of the system, from the kernel, init (OpenRC or SystemD), to the different packages.
I've also found Gentoo to be very reliable. (I've had some bad experiences with distros like Void with KDE Plasma freezing/crashing).
It's a rolling release distro, but with more stable package versions, unlike ArchLinux. However it also gives you the option to use the lastest packages (By adding them to accept_keywords)
And if you want you can experiment with different setups, for example using musl instead of GNU's GLIBC, or using clang as the default compiler instead of GCC.
I would miss Manjaro if it went away. I like how it (cliche alert) "just works".
I'm mainly privacy and security focused when it comes to software. My first Linux distro was Whonix. It's like if Tor expanded from the browser into an OS. Its a bit clunky and outdated though, so not a great daily driver. My second and current distro was the KDE spin of Fedora. It's been amazing top to bottom. Unfortunately Red Hat recently started some drama, but Fedora shouldn't be impacted as its upstream. If Red Hat's greasy paws do mess things up, I'm thinking about running OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. Hopefully it's just me over thinking and Fedora will remain a stellar OS option for years to come.
If you want the security/privacy of whonix capabilities with the flexibility of fedora you should checkout Qubes OS. As long as you have the correct hardware to run Qubes it can make for a secure and unique experience.
I've given Qubes a go, it's a bit much for my threat model. Fedora is a well ranked OS from a privacy and security standpoint, not on the same level as Qubes, but Qubes uses it as the base OS. Fedora's easier on the eyes and straight forward. Is Qubes your daily driver?
Yep, I've been using it daily for a few years now to keep my personal, social, research and work lives separate and compartmentalized. It's the most user friendly way I've been able to keep things straight with the different color schemes and ability to run whonix/Debian/fedora/windows and switch between them with ease.
Windows. Because I can run WSL alongside the industry standard business tools such as Outlook etc.
It’s the best of both worlds for me.
Qubes OS
The virtual machine workflow has made me completely rethink how I use computers, and there's huge security benefits of compartmentalizing your digital life through Qubes. Qubes OS successfully compartmentalizes your VMs and brings them together under one unified desktop, so even though you have several VMs running, you can see all of them at once because you see their windows as if it was a regular Linux desktop.
There are some issues with it though, such as lack of 3D acceleration for gaming, and its rather picky hardware support. Along with needing hardware that supports Linux drivers, you need a crap ton of RAM (I'm running 20 GBs on my Thinkpad T450s) for all of the VMs you run at one time. It doesn't take as much CPU power as you'd think, though, as it uses Xen's PVH emulation, instead of full-blown virtual machines like you'd see with VirtualBox.
However, if you have the right hardware for it, and you don't mind dual-booting or using another machine for gaming, I urge you to give it a whirl.
Void Linux. It was the OS that made me stop distro hopping
Arch, because the documentation and support is really good. And it 'just works.'
When it comes down to it, the only difference between distros is basically just the package manager right?
I've never used arch but I've used it's documentation quite a bit, it's really useful
Not only package manager - init system, wiki, display manager, community support, package freshness vs stability also play their role. There are many other points that are important too.
I was going to mention wikis etc but that's not really part of the distro that's running on your PC, it's part of the surrounding ecosystem.
Can you not change the init + display manager on other distros?
It's easy to change display manager (except the case of keeping multiple of them to test out, if they are big and complex, like Gnome and KDE - there are conflicts). Some distros may have worse support for specific display managers, but I cannot say as my experience was relatively smooth for Debian, Manjaro, Arch, Endeavour and Artix. In Ubuntu I had some issues, but I could live with them for a time being because I couldn't change the workplace OS.
But for init system it's usually PITA. Many packages, including critical for system operation may have dependency on systemd, for example. In case of Artix Linux there are separate versions of packages for each init system that's supported, if package has dependency on the init system.
Daily driving OpenBSD for 1 year and 8 months now. The simplicity of it and its sane defaults make it much easier to configure than the Linux distros I've used in the past, and it has been more reliable than FreeBSD on my main system. On my X230, It Just Works™.
Nobody in here talking about BeOS, QDos, Geos (like windows for the C64!), AIX, or OS2 Warp? For shame!
QNX fucking rocked, I wish it had been useable as a day-to-day system. If I had to pick one it would be that sighs wistfully
I liked BeOS. Rock solid.
Yeah, BeOS looked, for about 5 minutes, like it might be the future!
And then it wasn't :-(
I wanted to like BeOS so much. I even have a VM with Haiku on it. I occasionally spin it up, gawk at how retro-cool the UI is, look around at everything I'd like to be able to do, realize I can't seem to find any usable software for it, close it and try again in six months.
My experience with AIX was very early, on first generation RS/6000s. AIX 3? I had a Powerserver-930 at home. SMIT was weird.
I want to say my exposure was 5.something? On a PPC server used for a production management database. I liked SMIT from what I can remember (the documentation was good), but everything went well silky smooth once I managed to track down bash for it and basically automated half my job with basic scripts, lol
Also fun fact, I once took the server offline by tripping over a SCSI 3 cable to the raid array (while sorting out the bird's nest of a comms room) and it took me 3 days to restore everything from backup.
That was my first steady IT job.
Setting up the server I had involved booting & installing from (8mm) tape! Slowwwwwww.
Oh fantastic! I was one of those young whipper-snappers with the technology of the future for OS installations - floppy disks. I can't remember what sort of tape was being used during my "learning the value of backups the hard way" experience above, but they were chonky and took about 8 hours to parse each full one so I could pop home and eat between feeding them into the machine.
It all worked like a charm though, no lost data or anything :-)
The first "real hardware" (ie: not a "personal computer") I had at home was a 3B2/300 (mid-80s AT&T 32 bit WE32000). Installing Unix on that was about a dozen floppies. (I still have them!)
Full Unix (SVR3) on a system with 2 meg of ram & a 40 meg hard drive...
lol, I never had anything like that at home (though I did end up with a 68K based VME system at one point). That AIX server was outgoing tech for SMEs even then, and I never worked for anywhere big enough to have anything Unix-y on it after that :-/
Still, it used to be cool how much oddly mixed hardware there used to be, whereas now there's a slick VM solution for any size of business.
Oh, I've always liked VME. A lot of big computers (low-end supercomputers, exotic high-end servers) had a proprietary system bus, but multiple VME busses for IO. Very nice arrangement.
Yeah, I use a VME setup at work for data capture and it's serviceable and reliable (reliable enough to still be working off a coax network cable, lol).
The one I had at home had a 60K-based motherboard with some custom roms and a load of serial ports ... I never managed to get it to do anything useful, unfortunately
RISC OS. It's quite unique, and the UI design is great. Want to save a file? Drag this icon where you want to save it. Access the menu? Middle button, oh and it's all context sensitive, directly under the pointer. Applications are just directories - there are no hidden files.
Between Linux Mint for its reliability and ease of use and Gentoo for just being really nice to use overall with a ton of the control linux is well known for.
Fedora and Debian. It just works, can't complain. Need to use windows 11 on a notebook, absolutely hate it.
Fedora for its stability. Arch for its customisability.
My favorite was Linux, but I got really into producing music and fl studio and all of my vsts don't run in Linux afaik. I'm just not willing to throw away the money I've spent and try and find open source alternatives
Look up yabridge. I personally use pipewire+bit wig+yabridge, works pretty good.
I'll look into it, thanks!
I use Debian 12. I very recently switched to it from windows after using windows for about 10 years or more.
What do I like about Debian when compared to Windows?
I really enjoy using the terminal. Still a beginner. Yes learning the commands is tough but sometimes I just prefer using the terminal instead of using a gui.
Everything else about debian is also great.
I don't have a favorite. Every OS has its pros and cons, so it's "right to for the right job" situation for me.
I run Windows 10/11 on my desktops because some piece of software requires it (trust me, I've looked at alternatives.) unRAID on one server, and Ubuntu on a couple of other servers. They all have quirks that I absolutely hate, but there's no such thing as perfect operating system.
Mint but replace cinnamon with sway. It just works, is reliable and has minimal bloat
What? No love for ElementaryOS? It runs really well on my Pinebook Pro.
Last time I tried it, the liveCD booted fine but the full install had an extreme yellow tint to it.
macOS for personal use, Rocky Linux or Ubuntu for my servers
And what do you like about it?
macOS is just a great OS. It's polished, and thoughtfully designed with care, as are many of the apps available for it. I like that it integrates very well with my other Apple devices. Because of its BSD underpinnings, a lot of Linux-y things work very well with it. I use the Terminal (actually Warp, but same idea) on a daily basis for different things. A lot of the tools that I know and use on my Linux servers work here as well. I can write automation for it, and apps like Raycast and Alfred make building workflows and scripts, and tying those together, really easy. It's much more secure than Windows. I also don't have to worry about stupid shit like literal fucking advertising being built into the OS, as you have with Windows.
As for Rocky Linux, well, I'm a co-founder of it (and the Rocky Enterprise Software Foundation) and helped build it, so my biases there are obvious.
Opensuse Tumbleweed after the whole Red Hat situation i started looking for similar distros as i really liked Fedora went to Opensuse Tumbleweed had no issues almost as if i never switched distros (obviously package manager is slightly different but not too hard to get used to honestly) i mean i can even still install Rpms
I've been using Kali for a while now, after only using Windows and Ubuntu for ages. It's surprisingly refreshing!
You use Kali as your main OS?
No, on a VM
Android, because between this one, Linux, and Windows:
it's the one I need to care less about the OS. The OS (or how does swirling transition animations look better in your beloved distro GUI) should be just an invisible, unobtrusive tool to run your apps, not something that matters or requires babysitting nor tinkering.
it's the one running the apps I use the most, FOR ME, as opposed of for work
manjaro kde + bismuth for tiling
Linux and Windows.
Windows for "just works" functionality and software compatibility
Linux for light weight, customization, and overall support on hardware (ie there is some distro that will run on just about any set of hardware)
If we're talking Windows, I'd say Windows 7 is the definitive windows version out there.
Windows 7 was definitely the pinnacle of the windows OS, All went down hill from there.
MacOS for the trackpad gesture functionality.
My favorite and the longest I’ve used was Antergos until they stopped maintaining it. At the time, it was the most popular Arch-with-an-installer distro. Before that, I was a fan of Peppermint OS simply because it was a beautiful looking distro. I’m currently running Mint because I don’t have time to maintain an OS and I just want something that works. It’s pretty good I’d say.
Windows. Everything is straight forward and I can still make some custom or niche stuff work.
I don't like Linux, because a lot of programs don't work, and I don't want to create my own 3D application or DAW from scratch. Not worth my time.
I don't like Apple because the money I'd put into that I'd rather put to better use.
All three of your answers are (wrong) stereotypes.
How is thst wrong? I second this, and 1 and 2 are the reasons i am not on Linux yet wirh my main PC. Win 11 runs without issues for me, i cant install Essential Software and Hardware thag i use on Linux and Apple is expensive and i really dont like the Windowmanagement and some other Quirks of macOs. btw i use all three of them, win 11 on my main pc, linux on my old laptop and macOS at work.
The comments are so vague as to be useless.
I can say the same thing about Linux.
This sounds like a 2005 opinion. There is professional grade software on Linux (for example Pixar RenderMan). If there is a specific application a person needs that is Windows only (and there are many) that's fine, but suggesting the need write your own application for Linux from scratch is ridiculous.
As for "a lot of programs don't work", I have no clue what that's supposed to mean... XD
No one said linux doesnt work, the Person just said this is one point why He uses Windows.
Building your own Software is definitely exaggerated.
My graphics applications dont work properly (Affinity Suite), my Video Tool barely works although its supported natively (davinci), my DAW (maschine) and my music Hardware (maschine mk3) dont work at all. Installing my vsts is very Tricky (aome dont work at all). My cloud storage has no linux Client (proton drive). This is just the most important stuff for my use case, which keeps me from switching to Linux.
What you're describing in 3. is the exact reason why I said "build software from scratch" btw. Some software just will never work properly or never work period. And usually, every Linux compatible software can technically do 80% of the stuff you need, but even that takes 10x the time and effort. I'm talking 3d applications like AutoCAD, cinema4d, DAWs like FL Studio and Ableton, video cutting like Sony Vegas or Adobe Premiere Pro, and this is not even talking about use cases where there's highly specific, proprietary or custom software.
You either use Windows, or you pay with your time, effort and sanity.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a data scientist and software Dev and I know there are good reasons why Linux should be the golden standard. But I'm also a realist and while I love the idea of what Linux' goal is, it's a really hard sell for most non computer science people.
I understand. Thank you for your response. :)
I've used Linux exclusively since 2002 for school, work, hobbies, and gaming, and I sometimes forget how much is still missing.
I tried Davinci for Linux and I agree, I could barely get it to work. XD
I've always used Windows as my main OS, but I have experience with Macs as school computers, and now I'm exploring Linux. I gotta say Linux is probably my favorite. It's so configurable and my workflow is so smooth now that when I try and use my Windows laptop instead I find myself trying to use keybinds from my WM lol. I miss my terminal! WSL is just not the same. I have to have Windows on my school laptop, and I still have it on my PC. My hope is that I can switch my PC to Linux when Win10 loses support. Hopefully Nvidia will play nice. But I do prefer Windows over Mac simply cause I've used it longer. I've only ever used Macs on a surface level, never had my own or was able to tweak settings and such. So idk I might feel differently if I had one. But I'm definitely liking Linux a lot more cause of the customization and no update badgering lol
Honestly, I'd say don't bother waiting for Windows 10 EOL and just go for a Linux install on your PC whenever you feel comfortable with it! You can always dual boot also for those weird cases that you absolutely need to do something in Windows
I want to but my dad said "no more Linux projects" Idk I told him I wanted to do it with a different drive so I would still have a windows install but he wants me to wait ig
I prefer Carbon6 for my daily work. I'm considering going to Silicon, but it's just not user tested yet and I can't risk the disruption to my work flow.
So far I only ever used Windows and Linux Mint, but I'm happy with the latter so I guess I'll stay with it for a while.
Windows because I have to use it at work anyway. Also it's simple, nearly everything works out of the box and it's still the best choice for gaming.
Xubuntu
I've been a loyal System/MacOS/OS X/macOS user since System 6. From the first time I sat down at a Mac, it's the only OS family that allows me to forget that I'm using a computer and just do things.
Architecturally the Classic MacOS was a hacked-together mess (though I was pretty good about managing my extensions, and I put together some pretty impressive uptime with my old Power Macs), but the UI was incredibly fast and responsive. Even on my M2 Pro Mini I don't believe I can navigate my filesystem as quickly or as easily as I could on my OG iMac running 9.2. And I'd still love to visit an alternate universe where macOS evolved from the Server 1.0 UI rather than the Aqua UI.
OS X/macOS feels a little more cumbersome, a little less personal. I don't always love all the new features Apple pushes in its new releases. (IDEK with the new Settings menu.) And I really didn't love the hoops I had to jump through to get PHP running on my Mini (I could have gone with an all-Homebrew setup, but I wanted to keep things relatively uncomplicated). The last version of macOS I unabashedly loved was 10.14 Mojave. But in the end, I appreciate all the things that bringing Unix to the Mac allows me to do, and there's enough of the old MacOS DNA that I'm still mostly able to sit down, forget I'm using a computer, and just get my work done. That's what I look for in an OS.
windows
because it was already installed
1? Linux 2? Freedom
Gentoo. It makes me feel like I’m in full control of my system.
Linux, no m$/crapple bs
My favorite distro is Mint, because it just works
If you did not recommend arch, you basically recommended poop on a stick
My favorite is chromeOS because it requires zero maintenance and I can access all my data, apps, and preferences in minutes on any compatible device by just signing into my account.