[Turey]

Why don't you people ever put the GOOD operating systems on these polls?

My computers are running (ranked in order of power):
Win XP Pro / Fedora Core 6 Dualboot (currently being built)
Win XP Pro
Win XP Home
Win 98 / Fedora Core 4 Dualboot (needs new RAM, and I can't find any old enough to fit in the slot.)
Win 98 (needs to be cleaned of all the crap that my siblings put on the hard drive.)
Win 3.1 / OS/2 Warp Dualboot (Slow as hell, but works.)

[MatthewPapa]

hey WMC i have a solution to your problems

it's called Fedora Core

----
[edit]
*reads your post in it's entirety*

i've never had to reconfigure my kernel because of any typical-user task, i've never had to build my own binaries for typical-user tasks, i've never have to "search" for the software on any typical-user task.  only piece of hardware i haven't worked in years was a wonky new PCI wireless g network card.


oh.. you used ubuntu - there was your problem.  Ubuntu is absolute abject crap.

i've never seen the linux bootloader fail, that sounds more like a hardware problem than the bootloader (the bootloader doesn't have write capability to the MBR... only the bootloader installer....)


Linux really IS the "next great thing" and it IS a viable alternative to vista.  Just stop using the geek-edition distros like gentoo and crapbuntu and use Fedora

I will have to agree with Kazan on this one. Linux based Fedora Core is a very viable operating system. It has lots of options, an easy upgrade interface, secure processes,  its very powerful, and its free. No, I wouldnt recommend it to someone who has never used an operating system before, but most seasoned users can handle it.

[Eishtmo]

Personally, I'd prefer DOS, but since it isn't an option. . .

[brozozo]

I use Windows 98 and XP.

[WMCoolmon]

I was put off of Fedora Core by the bloat of the last Red Hat version that I used (I'm not sure which version - 7+, I think). My understanding was that Ubuntu was one of the most user-friendly and minimalist versions of Linux around. I'm still a bit reluctant to go for FC, just because in the past I've heard a lot of negative things about it; although in the past, I don't think it enjoyed quite so much support on HLP, so perhaps it's gotten better in recent years.

But, the number of distros is also a problem for me when it comes to Linux. I can't just sit down and get any kind of objective opinion of which distro I should use, I have to try them all myself to get any kind of accurate feeling of how well I really will like that distro. OK, choice is great, but it seems to me like the Linux community would greatly benefit from having _one_ fully-configurable, works-right-out-of-the-box, efficient, compatible distro that pretty much everyone is willing to stand behind and make work.

To me it seems like the Linux situation is a problem of big egos...somebody writes a piece of software, then somebody else decides that they can do it better and writes another piece of software. The problem ends up being that either neither side ends up conceding that the other person is doing it better, or they and their fanbase just decide not to care and go with brand loyalty. So you end up with redundant code and divided effort, resulting in more choices, but none of them are necessarily better than the other.

My opinion on all this may change if/when I try out Linux again, but if discussions on slashdot are any sign, I don't think that people have really learned from the situation.

[Setekh]

Personally, I'd prefer DOS, but since it isn't an option. . .

I don't know, I think it has some pretty good games on it. Actually, there's a whole suite of games I can't play any more because I'm not on DOS any more...

[Descenterace]

My machines all run Gentoo, and some of them have a flavour of Windows too. The Tablet PC and both gaming boxen run WinXP Pro, and the LAN party server can run Win98SE for those times when I don't want to screw around with DOSBox or Combatability Mode to get an old game running.

The reason I selected these OSes is:
 * Gentoo pretty much Just Works(TM). You don't need to be capable of anything more than following instructions to install it. Once installed, you can tinker if you like but by and large everything works pretty seamlessly. OK, so compilation times are a *****, but I've yet to have the kind of trouble with Portage that Aptitude gave me on Debian.
 * WinXP really is the best Windows yet for gaming. Win2K is OK too, but I don't have a licence for it.
 * Win98SE was the last DOS-based Windows, making it the best choice for playing old games.

When Vista arrives, I'll probably get it. But I'll wait six months first, so they can patch the larger holes.
The reason? Driver stability.I do not fear DRM; as long as it's in the software only it cannot be absolute. It is logically impossible to produce software DRM that cannot be cracked. I do not care about Vista's bloat; no doubt it'll be possible to slim it down in much the same way as XP, with Slipstream. All I care about is being able to run games on a machine that won't crash because of some barely-tested piece-of-**** driver released in a hurry by nVidia.

[Fury]

I have been using linux (Ubuntu/Kubuntu) for about 5 months now on my own computers. On my main PC I've been dual-booting between Windows (for gaming) and Ubuntu/Kubuntu (for everything else) and I've liked the arrangement. For past six months or so I haven't been doing much gaming, largely because of lack of good games that take longer than two days to finish, so dual-booting between two OS' hasn't been trouble really.

I've been using linux long enough to make some educated opinions on it. It's not for everyone, but I recommend it over Windows for people who don't have or buy computers with very latest components and who don't play computer games. Linux has excellent hardware support, but there are a few caveats. First of, not all hardware manufacturers support linux properly. As an example I can give you video cards, sound cards and WLAN-cards.

NVIDIA has much better linux support than ATI, NVIDIA usually releases new drivers soon after a new product is launched but ATI might take as long as half-a-year before drivers supporting latest cards is released. Sound Blaster X-Fi cards were released two years back, yet there is no linux support for these cards because Creative has not done anything to help it. You can just imagine how long it takes to develop drivers without any help from manufacturer. I've heard that Creative is planning to do something about linux driver support sometime next year though. The situation is similar with WLAN-cards where many manufacturers don't want to release specifications for their cards so that proper drivers could be developed, and many of those don't even supply proprietary drivers.

Another thing are linux disto release cycles, most major linux distros use six-month release cycles meaning a new version of the disto is released every six months. This basically means that you may have to wait 6-18 months for new hardware to be supported properly in your favorite linux distro. While it is usually possible for you to go and grab latest drivers, installing the drivers manually s nowhere near as straightforward as in Windows. There are exceptions of course, one such example is ATI linux driver binary installer which works very similarly to its Windows counterpart, this kind of installer is rare though.

That covers hardware support, software is pretty much covered on linux. You should be able to find a decent or good alternative for your favorite programs should it not have a linux version. But there is one software category where linux is playing catchup, and that is multimedia. The most common proprietary formats are mostly well covered, including MP3, Real and QuickTime. There is one common media format which to the date has not been properly covered, and that is Flash. The latest official Flash version of still 7, but there is beta version of 9 available for those who want to try it. Final version should be out sometime early next year which should finally bring Flash capability of linux on par with Windows and OS X. That covers Flash, the last major hurdle in linux media playback capability.

Lets move to the minor multimedia hurdles then. There are some less common proprietary or bizarrely licensed media formats which might cause a few headaches. During the past five months I have only encountered one not counting Flash, and that is Monkey's Audio (APE). Monkey's Audio is a lossless audio format akin to FLAC. For Monkey's Audio there is only one unofficial linux port and only one plugin has been created for one media player. What this meant is that I had to find an unofficial repository containing deb-files to install unofficial Monkey's Audio port and a Monkey's Audio plugin for XMMS. XMMS I had to install only to play APE-files because no other media or audio player would support the format.

In the end, how does this differ from Average Joe having to look for and install a better media player and a codec pack to play all kinds of video and audio that Windows does not support out-of-the-box? It doesn't. In fact for a first-time user it is much easier to install media codecs in linux than in Windows, this is because 99% of the stuff you're ever going to need can be found from the official repositories of the linux distro.

But yet there is a new threat to linux multimedia support; DRM. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Rights_Management

Is linux for you? If you play PC games a lot, then probably no unless you want to keep booting between Windows and linux a lot. If you have one PC for playing games and another for doing other stuff, you could install linux on the other PC. If you're not an avid PC gamer, you could probably keep dual-booting because you won't be booting into Windows many times a day just for your gaming fix.

Descenterace above recommended Gentoo and earlier Kazan recommended Fedora Core, for a linux newbie I would rather recommend Ubuntu or kubuntu. Gentoo is for those who really want to mess with their operating system and who have patience to read through documentation just to get the damn thing properly installed. Fedora Core is a better choice, but the development philosophy is not quite as end-user friendly as Ubuntu's is. If you're in doubt, try them both and choose whichever you prefer. For new users there is http://www.fedorafaq.org/ for Fedora and https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ for Ubuntu/Kubuntu.

[Turnsky]

WinXP home service Pack 2.. the reason behind this is simple, winXP has better memory management for amounts of ram about 512 mb, and photoshop is something of a memory hog, yeah i know i can use the gimp with linux, but since i'm a gamer as well, Xp suits me down to the ground.

also having win98 bsod each time i wanted to use my scanner if i didn't unplug it, then put the plug back in was certainly annoying.

[Eishtmo]

I don't know, I think it has some pretty good games on it. Actually, there's a whole suite of games I can't play any more because I'm not on DOS any more...

It's why I'm still using 98.  At least it can still play most of the DOS games I have, even if it can't touch the ancient stuff.

[Taristin]

Im using Vista Beta RC1 (x64). Lurve it.

[Herra Tohtori]

VDMSound runs practically all DOS games on NT based Windows.

AS a bonus, you get to use USB game controllers, too. I've had great success in running such classics as Red Baron and GP2 on my XP Home SP2 system.


AS for the thread's question... I'm using Windows XP Home SP2, but I also have Kubuntu 6.06.1 LTS "Dapper Drake" installed - Edgy didn't, for some reason, recognize my wireless keyboard and mouse after I installed it, so I'm staying on long term support version.

I'm mainly using Windows, basically because I can only get stereo sound out of my external SoundBlaster Live! 24bit sound card, and "only" four-channel sound with my onboard Realtek AC97 soundcard. I know that is in fact better than many ever get out of Creative card (or onboard for that matter), but I really want to actually use my hardware as it was intended to be used... It's not fun to own a 5.1 speaker system and 5.1 capable sound card and run them on OS that can only use 1/5th of their capacity or so. It would not be an issue if I used standard 2.1 speakers, or a headset, but...meh. So I'm running Windows to:

-play games
-listen to music
-watch movies and stuff

...what's left? I can use GIMP better in Linux than in Windows, and OpenOffice is at least on par with Microsoft Office (Without the annoying speaking paperclip of doom, and without as many annoying auto-edits). I can also use Internet in Linux without any problems.

The trouble is, I can also do those very well in Windows anyway, and to use them in Linux I would have to boot into other OS, which takes time, regardless of how much faster Linux starts than Windows.


That brings me to another interesting thing. System speed.

I used to have a 64bit edition of Ubuntu Dapper, but it was like hell to get things like Opera or Flash working. It could be done, but I simply fed up with having to play around with chroot... and the sound didn't work any better, unsurprisingly. So now I am slightly more happily running 32bit Kubuntu/Ubuntu/Xubuntu (havent't decided on my favourite desktop environment yet, although KDE feels better than Gnome or XFCE to me). I haven't noticed any immediate speed changes, and things got whole lotta easier for, say, playing Windows media files and DVD's. Not that I would actually want to watch DVD's with half-assed, semi-functional sound system anyway, to tell the truth.

Obviously Windows has its annoyances - like requiring about the same time as a nuclear power plant to start up, explorer.exe sometimes being more than a little sluggish or even collapsing altogether (Heck, I don't even have it running half of the time for that exact reason), or having to boot the whole system when it simply stops responding, whereas in Linux I (usually) only have to Ctrl-Alt-Backspace the desktop environment. And Linux is in overall more carefree system to use Internet with, for obvious reasons.


I would very much like to move to using Linux for watching movies and listening to music, as that would enable me to use Linux for perhaps 95 per cent of the time. Last 5 % I would run Windows to play Pacific Fighters or Rome: Total War. The third game I'm playing is Freespace Open, and that I could run in Linux rather well - if the sound wasn't b0rked in that, too. The sound effects were always about half a second late on my 64bit installation. It was okay, but slightly distracting in some situations.


So... it's mainly sound problems that keep me using Windows despite the alternative. In my view, the Linux installation is kinda "backdoor" to use if Windows installation gets somehow screwed up by a spyware, virus or any (other) crap that Microsoft calls "a feature".

If I would only use my PC to do some office work, use Internet services and simple basic stuff like that, Ubuntu (32-bit) would be my choice for sure.

[Flipside]

I use XP, to be honest, that's mostly because (a) It runs the programs I want it to run and (b) It's there.

[castor]

Running Debian GNU/Linux here.
My common gripes with Windows are: the registry, use of binary configuration files, the 'black box' mentality in general.
I'd prefer a BSD system, if just the driver support was better.

[Turey]

the registry

Come on, that's the best part! If you know what you're doing, you can do so many useful things! It's so nice having all the configuration in the same spot!

[achtung]

Has anyone here ever fiddled around with AmigaOS?  I was thinking about trying it out just to say I did.

[castor]

Come on, that's the best part! If you know what you're doing, you can do so many useful things! It's so nice having all the configuration in the same spot!

Good for you if you like it, I don't - mostly because the configurations made there tend to be undocumented.
Also, having so much stuff in there means it gets accessed all the time, which means it being under a constant risk of getting messed up.

[Nix]

There's a registry viewer freely available from sysinternals that shows you the activity going in and out of the registry.  Just imagine what could happen to it if the power was cut to your machine during one of those reads.  That's probably one of the most common reasons why Windows users have to reinstall every 6 or so months.  It's crazy, the amount of activity going on, just in reading and writing to the registry. 

[ZylonBane]

That's probably one of the most common reasons why Windows users have to reinstall every 6 or so months.

Only idiots have to reinstall every six months. If you're even somewhat computer-literate, a Windows install will run fine for years.

[Nix]

That's probably one of the most common reasons why Windows users have to reinstall every 6 or so months.

Only idiots have to reinstall every six months. If you're even somewhat computer-literate, a Windows install will run fine for years.

Umm.. yeah, but I wouldn't call them "idiots"...  During my years here as a network technician at the ski resort I work at, I've had to maintain every brand new ticket-selling system we've used.  In one season, which is about a 4-6 month period, after a fresh load of everything, about three out of the 15 machines I maintained wouldn't boot, and most of the systems were functioning so poorly that a reformat would be the simplest way to restore functionality.  In this kind of environment, people with little to no knowledge of how to use a computer properly use these machines, which leads to all sorts of problems.  Problems ranged from damaged registry files (Messages recieved upon boot that have said the registry was damaged, and repaired with a backup...) to missing files, and viruses/malware slowing down the systems.