The OS Wars

[Paul]

What's your OS and why? Hate someone else's OS? Tell us why you hate it.

Personally I'm a fan of XP for desktops/laptops and 2k3 Server for servers. Stability and ease of use being key reasons.

Things I hate:

OSX - Steve Jobs is a jackass
anything as400 based - goes back to a long running issue I have with canadians

How about you?

 

[Helheim]

I use XP/Vista on my main computers, just more software out there for Windows than Linux, and I have one Windows 2003 server and one WHS. On my web hosting server I run CentOS.

 

[Micah]

OS/2 Warp is the only OS worth running and if you think otherwise, you're wrong.

 

[Lagerhead]

OS/2 Warp is the only OS worth running and if you think otherwise, you're wrong.

Naah, IBMers are jackasses too. Proprietary this, proprietary that, etc. etc. blah blah blah.

Pick is a pretty good OS.

 

[86turbodsl]

Linux. For servers. Period.

Desktops - WinXP or Linux. I grow extremely tired of Microsofts insistence that I purchase a copy for each PC in my household.
Not everyone just buys a Dell when they need a new PC. I tend to build them from scratch.

 

[electron]

I definitely am starting to lean towards a Linux based desktop as well. I have been slowly switching all the software I use to solutions which are either open source and/or can run on multiple platforms, or software which can run fine in a wine environment.

Question is, which distribution is better for the desktop? At this point, I am a big Ubuntu fan, but OpenSUSE looks pretty good as well. My only problem right now is the known hard drive load cycle issue in laptops. It looks like this issue still hasn't been addressed successfully in Ubuntu, or I would switch my main laptop as well.

 

[Skibum]

Linux. For servers. Period.
I grow extremely tired of Microsofts insistence that I purchase a copy for each PC in my household.

What... are you kidding me???
Do you work for free?

 

[roussell]

For Linux, I'm a big fan of Debian-based distros. I have used Ubuntu as my desktop for years, but recently had trouble with 8.04 on my laptop. I switched to Linux Mint which is basically Ubuntu with a few extra packages, codecs and themes. It works much better with my laptop , but I may give the new 8.10 Ubuntu distro a try just to compare.

I used SuSe for years as it was always my favorite RPM based distro, I'm not quite as crazy for OpenSuSe but I can't exactly say why. They are still on a flaky version of KDE 4 (IMHO) and the install of 11 took forever vs an Ubuntu install (2 hours VS 15 minutes).

For servers I have a mix of Ununtu 8.04 LTS server, FreeBSD (fav for servers) and Apple Leopard Server (quickly becoming new favorite). My firewall is PfSense which is based on MonoWall and FreeBSD. My main HA server is HouseBot that runs on a PIII 833 with 256MB of ram and WinXP SP2. It is solid as a rock and runs until it loses power or I have to restart for other reasons (moving, power failure, etc.) but I also ONLY run HB on it and leave ancillary tasks to other boxes. My wife runs Apple Leopard on a MacBook, my daughter has Vista on a laptop and XP on her desktop, I use Linux as mentioned above, and trimmed down versions of XP or Wine on linux to run the HouseBot client on the touchscreens.

And yes; Jobs is a Jackass, but man I love his products. I also agree that we've yet to see anything better than OS/2 Warp.

Terry

 

[86turbodsl]

I definitely am starting to lean towards a Linux based desktop as well. I have been slowly switching all the software I use to solutions which are either open source and/or can run on multiple platforms, or software which can run fine in a wine environment.

Question is, which distribution is better for the desktop? At this point, I am a big Ubuntu fan, but OpenSUSE looks pretty good as well. My only problem right now is the known hard drive load cycle issue in laptops. It looks like this issue still hasn't been addressed successfully in Ubuntu, or I would switch my main laptop as well.

Desktops - good question. I've tried the following:
Mandrake/Mandriva
Slackware
Gentoo
Arch
Redhat

I tend to like non-RPM based distros as I've had less trouble with them and like to compile my software by hand. Arch is my current favorite. Similar to Gentoo, but less hassle to install.

I have a buddy who's into SUSE and he thought that one was a pretty good desktop os. I have never tried Ubuntu, even though that's the new hot ticket. I may soon though.

 

[86turbodsl]

Linux. For servers. Period.
I grow extremely tired of Microsofts insistence that I purchase a copy for each PC in my household.

What... are you kidding me???
Do you work for free?

No, I get paid a flat rate per month no matter how much I work though. While MS may think I should pay them for each copy, I can't use more than one of them at a time can I?

 

[86turbodsl]

For Linux, I'm a big fan of Debian-based distros. I have used Ubuntu as my desktop for years, but recently had trouble with 8.04 on my laptop. I switched to Linux Mint which is basically Ubuntu with a few extra packages, codecs and themes. It works much better with my laptop , but I may give the new 8.10 Ubuntu distro a try just to compare.

I used SuSe for years as it was always my favorite RPM based distro, I'm not quite as crazy for OpenSuSe but I can't exactly say why. They are still on a flaky version of KDE 4 (IMHO) and the install of 11 took forever vs an Ubuntu install (2 hours VS 15 minutes).

For servers I have a mix of Ununtu 8.04 LTS server, FreeBSD (fav for servers) and Apple Leopard Server (quickly becoming new favorite). My firewall is PfSense which is based on MonoWall and FreeBSD. My main HA server is HouseBot that runs on a PIII 833 with 256MB of ram and WinXP SP2. It is solid as a rock and runs until it loses power or I have to restart for other reasons (moving, power failure, etc.) but I also ONLY run HB on it and leave ancillary tasks to other boxes. My wife runs Apple Leopard on a MacBook, my daughter has Vista on a laptop and XP on her desktop, I use Linux as mentioned above, and trimmed down versions of XP or Wine on linux to run the HouseBot client on the touchscreens.

And yes; Jobs is a Jackass, but man I love his products. I also agree that we've yet to see anything better than OS/2 Warp.

Terry

Someone once told me that eventually, every linux fan ends up at Debian... I think they may be right.

 

[roussell]

Someone once told me that eventually, every linux fan ends up at Debian... I think they may be right.

Once you drink the Kool-aid that is 'apt-get', nothing else will satisfy the thirst.

Terry

 

[Waynedb]

Linux. For servers. Period.
I grow extremely tired of Microsofts insistence that I purchase a copy for each PC in my household.

What... are you kidding me???
Do you work for free?

No, I get paid a flat rate per month no matter how much I work though. While MS may think I should pay them for each copy, I can't use more than one of them at a time can I?

I have 8 paid for copies of Windows XP and 3 Win2000, I have four touchscreens running all the time with Windows on them plus my SageTV server and my Home Automation server also run 24/7, I am using my laptop now so that is 7 computers running at the same time. I don't see a problem with paying Microsoft for every copy I use.

 

[Skibum]

Linux. For servers. Period.
I grow extremely tired of Microsofts insistence that I purchase a copy for each PC in my household.

What... are you kidding me???
Do you work for free?

No, I get paid a flat rate per month no matter how much I work though. While MS may think I should pay them for each copy, I can't use more than one of them at a time can I?

If you had 2 cars do you have to pay for insurance on both vehicles?
You can't drive both at the same time....

 

[Micah]

I have 8 paid for copies of Windows XP and 3 Win2000, I have four touchscreens running all the time with Windows on them plus my SageTV server and my Home Automation server also run 24/7, I am using my laptop now so that is 7 computers running at the same time. I don't see a problem with paying Microsoft for every copy I use.

Capitalist pig.