Operating System poll

Esben Mose Hansen · #1 December 9th, 2006, 07:21 AM

Quote:

Evil Dave said:
Yup, that's why I do real work (and real play

) on Macs, and have one Linux system for when I want to play gearhead. Unless one is really hard up for money, there's really not much reason to use Linux (vs Mac): all the usual open source stuff builds just fine under Mac O/S, and everything else Just Works... unless you wanna fiddle with it.

One thing I really love about linux machines is that all software gets upgraded and maintained automatically. Does that work as well on Macs, or do you have to upgrade each piece of software manually (as on windows?)

Also, while Mac can be usable as a dev machine with enough FLOSS software bolted on... I really wouldn't want to develop without the kernel sources and oprofile. But for knocking up a web page, I suppose it can work. But then, if you end up replacing every piece of software, why not save yourself the money and go for a full linux box?

Personally I do recommend Macs... to the truly computer illitterates. Windows for my-computer-is-really-my-console people, BSD for the I-learned-unix-in-the-70s-and-it-was-the-best-that-ever-was and linux for the rest.

Dedas · #2 December 9th, 2006, 09:50 AM

Linux aaaall the way baby!

PrinzMegaherz · #3 December 9th, 2006, 12:09 PM

I'm using OSX on my Macbook and Windows on my PC.

Evil Dave · #4 December 9th, 2006, 10:43 PM

Quote:

Esben Mose Hansen said:

One thing I really love about linux machines is that all software gets upgraded and maintained automatically. Does that work as well on Macs, or do you have to upgrade each piece of software manually (as on windows?)

Sorta. Automagic upgrading is by "vendor", so the updater for Apple's stuff is built into the system, FinkCommander does all the open source, Adobe has their own tool, etc.

Quote:

I really wouldn't want to develop without the kernel sources and oprofile.

You can get kernel sources, and source for everything open source in Mac O/S, from:

http://developer.apple.com/opensource/index.html

You can't get sources for their GUI/window manager, or any other service they've written themselves.

AFAIK, nobody's ported oprofile to Mac O/S, but gprof seems to work fine for what I do. (I'm not sure if the PPC has the right hardware to support some of the fancier things oprofile does. Despite having an PPC Mac on my desk, I admit I don't know the architecture as well as x86, Itanium, MIPS, or ARM.)

HoneyBadger · #5 December 10th, 2006, 01:20 AM

I use Windows XP currently, but in my defense, I knew how to do a LOT with DOS, back in the caveman days. True, it's not a great...whatever it is, but it's simplistic. The biggest problem with Windows is their quality-control. You can't beat it for versatility though-it's got a bug to fit every function.

Gandalf Parker · #6 December 10th, 2006, 04:12 PM

If you knew DOS then you should look at Linux.
Id say that 90% of your knowledge transfers over quite nicely. And would even be greatly appreciated since so many linux people are getting hooked on GUI (windowy things) that they sometimes have trouble doing simple things that dont have a menu button

Velusion · #7 February 25th, 2007, 03:55 PM

All Windows, from server 2k3 to Vista. Of course I manage windows servers in a datacenter and used to work for Microsoft so I obviously scoff at all the linux fanboys out there.

SlipperyJim · #8 February 26th, 2007, 06:18 PM

100% Windows here, although I originally discovered Dominions:PPP through a Linux gaming website....

Like Velusion, I use Windows professionally. I even have the MCSE, for whatever that's worth. And my Windows is pretty well-customized to exactly what I like. Yes, it's possible to tweak the heck out of Windows with a little bit of work.

I've tried several different flavors of Linux, and my favorite is Ubuntu. Still, though, I'm not sure that I see the huge appeal. I can get all of the cool OSS stuff for Windows, plus Windows runs all of my games. Why switch?

hnchrist3 · #9 March 15th, 2008, 10:08 PM

Linux. (ubuntu 7.10 right now, although I've gone through everything from Caldera 2.2, to Red Hat 7.4, to Mandriva 8.6.)

Windoze 98 is installed on this computer, but now that I have 1G of memory it will no longer boot. Doesn't matter, I have a separate machine that has Red Hat 7.4 and Windoze 98 on it so I can play all my old (Loki! and other) games.

Interestingly, the hardware on this machine is failing, yet linux seems to deal with it, and Windoze just crashes; I mean more than usual (if I pull out a 512K stick to make it work).

In the end, is that DOM3 is a cross-platform game, and we all can enjoy it. What makes it easily cross-platform is that it is NOT developed in Windoze.

Also with linux I have the luxury of Wine and Dosemu for those times when I need them.
[I run ACBLSCORE (bridge players know) under Dosemu, and my favorite proxy-server/filter, the Proxomitron, under Wine.]

atul · #10 December 16th, 2006, 12:20 PM

Quote:

Esben Mose Hansen said:
Personally I do recommend Macs... to the truly computer illitterates. Windows for my-computer-is-really-my-console people, BSD for the I-learned-unix-in-the-70s-and-it-was-the-best-that-ever-was and linux for the rest.

Hm, guess it depends on your definition of true computer illiteracy. As a proud new mac-owner (got my 24" iMac last tuesday, still drooling) I've been happy with the fact that I haven't had much to fiddle in order to make this computer to work nicely. Compare to my experience with other OSs where nearly everything seems to be delivered half-finished with a motto of "configure it yourself". I'm well able to do such a chore, but to be honest couldn't care less...

But, to each their own and happy birthday EMH (I suppose that cake means a birthday or something)!