What OS do you use and why?

[radi6404]

 

 

An OS that requires you to update every single one of your applications individually is not an easy to use OS for sure... *cough* Windows

An OS that requires you to find an application installer on the internet, download the exe, check that its a reputable site and file, then find and run the installer, and click through every stage, is not an easy to use OS for sure... Windows

 

In Arch Linux, one of the most difficult Linux variants, all you have to do to install say, Audacity, is open up a command prompt (link on your desktop) and type "pacman -S audacity" ... then Audacity will LITERALLY install in seconds. 10x faster than Windows.

To update EVERY application, all you have to do is type "pacman -U"

 

There are good guides that explain every stage, you could be a donkey and still do fine because you're only following instructions, on a machine that runs much smoother and efficiently than Windows does.

 

BUT you don't even have to use the command prompt, as people have repeatedly pointed out to you. Ubuntu created a software center, which Mac I think are trying to copy (but I don't know much about Macs, and would never use one unless I was a professional video editor or touring musician)

 

All that exists is your unwillingness to change. If you'd used Linux your whole life, then you'd think that Windows was difficult, slow and counterintuitive.

 

 

But installing the apps with setup wizards is great, you can set up where it will install, which components and many more things, so it is not as you say it is.

 

The only reason why I would use linux is nice looks and the safety, which is better as on vanruable microsoft products.

[acid-brain]

On 6/26/2013 at 9:53 PM, radi6404 said:

   

 

But installing the apps with setup wizards is great, you can set up where it will install, which components and many more things, so it is not as you say it is.

 

The only reason why I would use linux is nice looks and the safety, which is better as on vanruable microsoft products.

It's so great that you get a bunch of malware installed on your computer because you accidentally left a checkbox ticked. Software compatability is the main problem with Linux not installation procedure

[radi6404]

man I don't run into conflicts with you but you know for yourself that you don't seriously make any sence. I am a user who cares about design.

 

And anyway you are totally wrong. Is linux an OS my parents can use, can go to the internet, work with text processing and e-mail clients, that print on a normal canon printerß Can I listen to music in linux with good music software that has an EQ, media library and visualisation like mediamonkey? Does such a thing exist for linux? Can I install heavy music daw's like cubase or FL Studio on Linux or can I install the great picture editing tools with a proper interface instead of the buggy and crappy gimp? No, I can't.

 

Linux is good, but only for a second OS, it is by far not capable replacing windows for now.

[Rotwang]

I use Windows 7 because it's less buggy and prettier to look at than any Linux distro I've tried, and good for playing games. I use Linux because it's faster, lets me do things that Windows doesn't, and makes installing most things I want much easier than Windows does. I don't think either is better than the other, they both have their own merits that make them better suited to some users. And given how cheap HDD space is these days there's not much to stop a PC user from having both.

[radi6404]

But the new hdd space is not cheap at all even these days. It has to get cheap, the SSD space.

[Veracohr]

I also have Windows 7, used with Parallels, but only for school stuff.

[Dolmot]

Currently Mint at home, CentOS and Scientific Linux at work. A few Solaris machines may linger but they're being phased out.

 

Some thoughts:

 

First, what is an OS? For a casual user, the most recognisable feature might be the look and feel of a windowing system. Surely it's important to an end user but from a technical point of view it's just minor decoration and easy to change. Bundled applications are even further down on that path. The real soul of an OS is how it handles users, processes, files and hardware access. Then there are drivers which ultimately provide the access to hardware. Again, those are technically easy to add but often a PITA due to business decisions.

 

Considering the design, I'd say Unix systems have been superior for decades, providing excellent multi-user and network features, proper multitasking and powerful system management while Windows was just an ugly hack for single-user PCs. DOS/Windows shell was a total joke compared to *sh. The system tools that are taken for granted in Unix had to be bought, installed and maintained individually in Windows. It worked fine for home users as long as a PC was just a box sitting unconnected in a corner, but when the internet provided networking for everyone, the fundamental virtues of 'nix started to show again.

 

Does anyone use Unix-based OSs, then? Let's see...

• A majority of internet infrastructure (servers, routers) does.
• Android, the most popular mobile OS is a Linux derivative so close that it is often considered another distro.
• OS X is derived from OPENSTEP/NeXTSTEP/BSD so Apple users are effectively Unix users too.
• Out of world's top 500 supercomputers (at the moment of writing), 476 are running Linux, 16 Unix, 1 BSD, 4 mixed and exactly three Windows. (Those are at positions #187, #241 and #289. One of them is Microsoft's own cloud...)
• Cars, nuclear plants and other saftety-critical places are often running QNX or such. Definitely not Windows.
• And most recently, PlayStation 4 was found to use modified FreeBSD 9.

So the Unix family can be found in small devices, huge clusters, consoles, critical systems and professional applications. That's because it really can operate a system. Windows is fine if you mainly want to launch Office on a single-user PC but in every other direction you'll find something else, for a good reason.

 

The nifty thing is that I can run the very same OS on my home PC as on high-end supercomputing clusters. Everything works directly between them. Mint installation took maybe 20 minutes and now it boots in five seconds from an SSD. Most everyday software is included, the rest is behind a few clicks. No need for special anti-virus scanners, malware removal tools or "critical update" reboots every week. Full access to the whole system. No company dictating what I'm allowed to do on my own machine. If I want to change the distro, all my data and software config is at ~ and immediately ported. That's what counts as an operating system to me. It does what it's supposed to do (run stuff, access hardware/data) and stays out of the way for everything else.

 

However, I don't care that much what people run on their own machines. It's a personal choice of a tool, and for an end user those "decorative" parts may be far more important than any virtues of the underlying OS itself.

 

But I start to care when millions of PCs turn into botnet zombies due to fundamentally broken security. Also, please use open formats for sharing your data. That way other people are free to choose their platform too. If locked-in data forces you to buy a certain system, eventually everyone will be royally screwed. We've seen that too many times.

 

Phew. Enough for now.

[Muerto]

Win7 with objectdock. Love it.

On my older laptop I'm running Ubuntu 12.04. I'm however looking for a new Linux distro to use, possibly Mint. Any tips?

[Rotwang]

I'm however looking for a new Linux distro to use, possibly Mint. Any tips?

I don't have much other Linux experience with which to compare it (I did briefly use Ubuntu and didn't like it, but that was several years ago and I expect it's changed a lot since then) but I can recommend Mint. I've tried both the MATE and Cinnamon DE's and Cinnamon looks much better (but not as good as W7 IMO).

[Muerto]

I don't have much other Linux experience with which to compare it (I did briefly use Ubuntu and didn't like it, but that was several years ago and I expect it's changed a lot since then) but I can recommend Mint. I've tried both the MATE and Cinnamon DE's and Cinnamon looks much better (but not as good as W7 IMO).

 

Thanks for the tip. I think I too will go with Cinnamon. I've been reading and looking at some comparisions before and it simply just looks more appealing. I will probably give MATE a go as well.

 

[Rotwang]

Thanks for the tip. I think I too will go with Cinnamon. I've been reading and looking at some comparisions before and it simply just looks more appealing. I will probably give MATE a go as well.

 

You can have both installed and choose between them on the login screen.

[Padmapani]

Why? I have Mountain Lion running in on MB and Snow Leopard in another. The Lion beats the Leopard in every aspect.

 

messages is more cumbersome to use than ichat, the new safari displays the colours all wrong and freezes every now and then, spaces is only one-dimensional instead of two-dimensional as in snow leopard, the dock gets jumbled up upon connecting or disconnecting a display and the lack of a "save as..." option drives me nuts, as well as the lack of proper scroll bars. all the while, i don't see anything that's improved in mountain lion over snow leopard besides being able to backup to two hard drives without switching in system preferences.

mission control? i prefered expose and the old spaces

launchpad? comeon... it's much more practical to just put your applications folder in the dock if you are in need of such a thing

notification center? horrible beyond imagination, thankfully i could turn it off.

[Procyon]

 

messages is more cumbersome to use than ichat, the new safari displays the colours all wrong and freezes every now and then, spaces is only one-dimensional instead of two-dimensional as in snow leopard, the dock gets jumbled up upon connecting or disconnecting a display and the lack of a "save as..." option drives me nuts, as well as the lack of proper scroll bars. all the while, i don't see anything that's improved in mountain lion over snow leopard besides being able to backup to two hard drives without switching in system preferences.

mission control? i prefered expose and the old spaces

launchpad? comeon... it's much more practical to just put your applications folder in the dock if you are in need of such a thing

notification center? horrible beyond imagination, thankfully i could turn it off.

Funny, we have been using it for sometime, it never crashed and we're in an interesting situation because mine is running on SL and my bf's macbook is using ML. We swap our Macs every now and then, and I don't have any problems or haven't heard any from his side. And he indeed doesn't like having to use mine, as he is used to Mountain Lion by now.

What I really found difficult to use is an iPad, I am using my sister-in-law's one, (I want to buy a new MacBook Air, but I have read these forums of people buying an iPad and a detachable cover and wanted to give it a try) but the lack of a phyisical keyboard is really something I think I can't get used to. I have been trying my Wireless Apple keyboard to handle the iPad. But it lacks a pointer, a touchpad, the spreadsheets from different programs I have tried don't work satisfactorily - I can't even select cells with values I want to make an addition operation. When I finally select then, there's no simple command to have them added as in a laptop. All programs ask me to write the whole SUM formula...without a trackpad or a mouse. I really like Apple devices, but I honestly admit that iPads are not productive. A pity really because other tablets out there can do everything a laptop does. But I cant' use Android or Windows anymore. Will buy a new MBA with Mavericks, it was my final decision.

[Padmapani]

yeah, ipads aren't productive. my parents have one at their house, and it's only ever used for browsing the internet. it's convenient for that purpose, lying at the living room table and having a large screen, but for editing spreadsheets or something like that a real computer is surely preferable. i have also noticed that ios on the ipad is much less stable than on the iphone or mac os (which for me is rock solid aside from the occasional glitches like i mentioned above). for your intents i think the mba is a good choice, and as far as i can see now, mavericks is finally going to be an improvement over previous version (except for the name )

[Procyon]

I read in another site why Apple won't allow apps that emulate touchpads and mouses on iPad to be in the App Store: the day it occurs, their profitable MacBook Air line would simply stop selling, people would simply do what I am trying to do - buy an iPad and a side keyboard and have a notebook and a tablet, two-in-one for half the price of a MBA. I had not thought of that.

[FatKidWitAJetPak]

I agree with Dolmot. Unix is godlike, but it is more of a highly customizable strand of DNA that makes up the OS's we see today. The reason Macs don't have any viruses is because they use portions of Unix security. It's EXTREMELY powerful and governments everywhere use it because it is unpredictable. You can turn Unix into... soooo many different things.

I read in another site why Apple won't allow apps that emulate touchpads and mouses on iPad to be in the App Store: the day it occurs, their profitable MacBook Air line would simply stop selling, people would simply do what I am trying to do - buy an iPad and a side keyboard and have a notebook and a tablet, two-in-one for half the price of a MBA. I had not thought of that.

 

The thing is, experts claim tablets will replace laptops some day. The market isnt going to allow this to happen, however, because you can fit in SO MUCH MORE power into a laptop than in a tablet. I highly consider tablets, iPads for me, to be additional accessory to everyday workflow, being for fun or for business. I set up businesses with technology all the time, highly recommending iPads for remote connection, customer databasing, and presentation. The laptops and computers are the motherships behind these ideas, crafting in detail what the company needs to happen. The iPad is simply a wonderful addition to the family. Plus, it syncs wirelessly with information, making it key for backup.

[Muerto]

You can have both installed and choose between them on the login screen.

 

Ah, that's even better. Didn't know about that.

Now, I just need to purchase a new charger for my laptop since my dog chewed off its end.