OS

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by buddyb

I've not used a Mac for more than 20 minutes in my life, but I can tell you that I'd prefer Windows and Linux over Mac by far.

I'd have to ask anyone who doesn't have more than 20 minutes of experience with, well, anything to refrain from comparing it to products they have extensive experience with. You simply cannot adapt to a new operating system, or much of anything for that matter, in only 20 minutes, making any opinions created during that experience essentially invalid.

[MrForbes]

It's an opinion, how can it not be valid? Because it differs from your opinion?

I've used Mac OS for quite a bit more than 20 minutes, although in fairness I have to admit that it was Mac OS 1 thru 7 so it's not very fair to compare it to modern Windows computers.

I never did like CP/M, but I have a pretty good feel for MS-DOS.

Every now and then I drag an old Kaypro luggable out of the basement and play with CP/M, just to remind myself how bad it is

[basicxman]

Ubuntu Linux > Windows 7 > Mac OS X.6 > Vista > XP

I'm currently running Ubuntu 9.10 on my laptop and desktop (desktop is virtualizing Win7).

Screenshots
http://tinypic.com/r/2ak0i9z/6
http://i49.tinypic.com/dq16io.jpg

Linux allows me to have a lot of flexibility over my system and frankly it's a saviour for programmers, built in Python/PHP and a majority of the GNU Compiler Collection. Ubuntu's gedit is a great programming editor IMO and it uses only a few MB of RAM on my system. Not to mention it's external tools plugin is awesome.

[Kage]

I like Mac OS 10.4.1
until about a month ago, I was running Mac OS 9.2
My internet browser was "Wamcom" which was a custom build of Mozilla 2 or something like that...I had ZERO javascript support, and it was slow as a snail...Not to mention it only had a 6GB hard drive.

Now I have Safari 4 with my OS 10.4
I am still running it on my G4 quicksilver, so not much about the speed has changed.
But overall It works much better, and I upgraded to 120GB of space!
The only downside is: I still only have 512 MB of ram

[Vermeulen]

I dual-boot XP and Ubuntu... Ubuntu works well for general stuff, and I use XP for CAD and gaming.

[Robototes2412]

Dude! use Ubuntu! it works with netbeans programming OOTB! anything you need is just an apt-get away!

I am currently using Win 7 pro 32 bit on my desktop/laptop and Win 7 pro 64 bit on the mobile laptop and only one problem so far and that is with one radio programming software from Butel.nl (the one for the 396/996XT series), it doesn't run properly on 64 bit and fails.

So far I have found win 7 to be as problem free as XP from back when.

Ideally learning all OS's and being fluent in them is a good idea, why not? you never know when you might need that knowledge let's say at work.

I'd like to learn Linux before Mac.

Originally Posted by basicxman

Ubuntu Linux > Windows 7 > Mac OS X.6 > Vista > XP

I'm currently running Ubuntu 9.10 on my laptop and desktop (desktop is virtualizing Win7).

Screenshots
http://tinypic.com/r/2ak0i9z/6
http://i49.tinypic.com/dq16io.jpg

Linux allows me to have a lot of flexibility over my system and frankly it's a saviour for programmers, built in Python/PHP and a majority of the GNU Compiler Collection. Ubuntu's gedit is a great programming editor IMO and it uses only a few MB of RAM on my system. Not to mention it's external tools plugin is awesome.

[MrForbes]

Originally Posted by Mark Rozitis

I'd like to learn Linux before Mac.

Fortunately linux is free, and you can use it on your non-Apple hardware, legally

Buy another hard drive to put in your computer to experiment with linux. Or run if from the CD, to get the feel of it.

Originally Posted by squirrel

Fortunately linux is free, and you can use it on your non-Apple hardware, legally

Buy another hard drive to put in your computer to experiment with linux. Or run if from the CD, to get the feel of it.

Good idea, I really need to get back into doing more "nerd things"

[Thomas Clark]

I use Linux exclusively. For practical and moral reasons, I don't regularly use Mac or Windows. In fact, I carry a Linux LiveCD with my at all times just in case, and I always use it on school computer (as opposed to Windows).

I have a (100% legally licensed) Mac and I used to have Windows XP MC and then later Windows 7 RC on my laptop. Windows is too screwy but with a "friendly" user interface with all the shiny stuff. Obviously Microsoft is trying to sell the product, they make it look good but suck.

The Macintosh operating system is better than Windows, but due to its closed nature, less modifications are possible, and I often come across software that's PPC only or 10.6+ only or something.

Just to be clear, I'm well familiar with both Windows and Mac. I far prefer FLOSS software, and I find a Linux terminal much easier than looking through the Windows control panel only to find that the setting isn't in the same place as the previous version of Windows.

[timytamy]

I prefer Linux for moral reasons, however I do have Windows 7 (100% legal) dual booting for gaming.

What is interesting is that the current poll results are in no way reflective of market share. e.g. Linux has by far smallest market share among consumers but it currently has more votes than Mac. Also Windows has only just got 50% of the votes while it has almost 90% market share.

Just goes to show how different we are...

Thanks,
timytamy

PS: At the time of this post the results were:

Mac: 14 21.88%
Windows: 33 51.56%
Linux: 17 26.56%

[rsisk]

I always had a preference for Unisys 1100 series Exec 8. Mainly because where I worked, I had the source code and could modify it as needed.

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by Phalanx

Whatever happen to simple elegance?

It got to be too much work, cheaper to just throw hardware at it. But, some of it still lives at Apple.

Originally Posted by BrendanB

But I really like Windows7 But I might go to a mac down the road as my cousin has had his for several years with no problems and it runs so much faster than my computer.

Good story, hope it gets fixed fast.
If you think a mac runs fast, try running DOS on a modern computer. That was when elegance wasn't an option - if you couldn't make it run in <640k RAM, it didn't run - and people still had to get things done as fast as possible, but with a 5 MHz clock speed.

For certain (non-commercial) programs, I still run DOS, because it's easier to write in and executes very fast on a 100 MHz Pentium. Same calculations in XP take longer.

Of course, my daily PC runs XP. Another prisoner of Windows. It could be worse (CP/M for instance)

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by squirrel

It's an opinion, how can it not be valid? Because it differs from your opinion?

No, because it's an uneducated opinion. I won't voice claims about Linux (which I have used for about an hour or two), and I would certainly hope that people who have attempted to learn another OS would do the same.
A rational person wouldn't claim that a particular brand automobile is inferior to another if all they've done is test drive both. They wouldn't gain any insight into the reliability, durability, or performance of the car in various conditions.
While a first impression is a valid aspect of an educated opinion, it simply isn't sufficient to create one on it's own in the case of operating systems.

[MrForbes]

Ok.....

I don't want to spend the money it would cost to acquire a "valid" opinion of the current Mac OS.