Crux of choosing an OS

[Alex]

If you don't know what a 5 inch paper jacketed floppy, a stiff 3 inch floppy is, please ignore.
If you do.
I'm looking for opinions on OS's

[NigelJK]

Well I know those intimately. And the 7" Grandaddy. And the various tape interfaces that came before. What you after?
If you want a modern OS that wouldn't have issues with the above have a look at Risc OS on a raspberry (or better still on one of the native Risc OS machines). They come with a modern version of BBC BASIC which should have all of the legacy commands (like *Tape) in place. As the original disk shape for OS1.2 (for the BeeB) was arbitrary you could basically have any shape you wanted. Some games (notoriously Elite) would play with the boot sector to allow a different shape so the disc would be very hard to copy if you didn't know this.

[QCS]

You don't choose an OS.

The OS chooses you.

In similar matters:
Linux is user friendly. It is just picky about its friends.

--
Written on a Gentoo machine. It accepts me at least as a Browser input provider

[ffutures]

Pretty sure the first discs I used were 8" floppies.

I'd say go with Mac if you can afford it - much more stable than Windows, and easier to work with than Linux, especially if you're not a tech-head.

Having said that, the Windows versions of Oolite generally seem to be marginally the best at present.

[maik]

Server-side: Debian Linux, for upgradability and wide support with packages
Client-side: Mac OS X, for ease of use coupled with power-user features and upgradability

[QCS]

Server-side: Debian Linux, for upgradability and wide support with packages

Pretty sure that's only for a few years now (5 years?). Before that, upgradable Debian has been an oxymoron. I've lost about 10 Debian/Ubuntu based hosts while doing distribution upgrades before I switched to Gentoo mainly because it doesn't have that fault-ridden procedure (rolling release distribution).

About the floppy disks: I used the flappy 5.25" ones in the C64/C16/C+4 as well as the PC (720kB doublesided without turning them around, that was awesome when coming from the Commodore world).

And to answer the OS question: Depends on your expectations.
If you want to learn, or are young, or technophile, or paranoid, or frustrated by people telling you what to use, choose a Linux distribution. If you are eager to learn much more without need to, create a Linux distribution If you are feeling exotic, try a PC-Unix like DragonFly BSD, they have a cool mascot, and the GNU platform is basically the same as with Linux.
Of course, if you want a server, use one of the common Linux server platforms (Gentoo, Debian, Ubuntu). Better stay conservative here.
Windows is for people who have to use it at work, and don't want to learn something for using at home, and are not concerned about security.
MacOS is for the shiny boys who have too much money and don't need to use a cable mouse or external HDD drive while charging their Laptop

So, if you would elaborate on your experience, expectation and usage scenarios, I believe the answers would be more useful for you. Otherwise you will probably only get more spam like this and people telling you which OS they use.

[Vincentz]

Pros and cons : http://www.informatics-tech.com/linux-v ... rison.html

I have tried all of them :
Macs before they were "cool", and was the only real option in graphics industry.
Imho : I loved the "simpleness", I hated the lack of options

Linux when I jumped the "Microsoft are evil!" bandwagon.
Imho : Didn't like it that much. Too much work to do simple things.

Windows pretty much on every computer I had at home.
Imho : The lesser evil. Lots of free stuff.

Regarding virus :
The funny thing is, that most (especially Apple fanboys) claims that its "Virus-free", but truth is I have had 4 virus in my 25+ years computing.
3 of them were on Macs. The last was on installation discs for my sound card, provided by the vendor (long history).
If you use a little bit of common sense, I think its pretty easy to avoid viruses, and I have downloaded ALOT of questionable programs, as well as quite a few torrents when I was younger, and have never got any virus (that I or my virus scanner knows of).

Regarding stability :
I think the "Windows crashes all the time/BSOD" is bs tbh. Maybe it was like that with windows 95, but that is 20 years ago...

All this being said, I have to mention that my brother in law, who is a programmer, used to work in Linux (Microsoft is EVIL!!! muhaaa), but have changed to work on Macs instead (which I'm still a big question mark about), so I guess what it all comes down is preference.

My choice is windows 7. Because, when I plug in my obscure "PS2 controller to USB" plug, it takes a couple of seconds, and then its installed, and when I need a tool for modding (sound, image, 3d, compiling etc etc) then I do a simple google search, click download, click install and then click run, and it runs.

[QCS]

http://www.informatics-tech.com/linux-v ... rison.html
video/graphics producers will probably tend towards Mac

That's a bit outdated. Apple will not support 10bit color depth neither in hardware nor in software in the next years, although graphics professionals urge them that they need support for it in the professional segment. Little examples by Lloyd Chambers

So, for graphics producers, the choice probably tends towards Windows right now.

[Vincentz]

http://www.informatics-tech.com/linux-v ... rison.html
video/graphics producers will probably tend towards Mac

That's a bit outdated. Apple will not support 10bit color depth neither in hardware nor in software in the next years, although graphics professionals urge them that they need support for it in the professional segment. Little examples by Lloyd Chambers

So, for graphics producers, the choice probably tends towards Windows right now.

I certainly agree, but "back then" it was unquestionable to choose anything but Macs.
My honest opinion right now is that the best part about Macs/Apple is their Marketing division (which is doing a damn fine job)

[Smivs]

Frankly, there is no point in saying "I tried XXX a while ago, and blah, blah, blah....." because things change. Well, except the way Microsoft still can't even trust you to 'own' your own computer.
I can't comment on Macs as I've never even used one, let alone owned one.
I haven't used any flavour of Windows since XP so cannot give an honest appraisal of them as operating systems, and as I seriously dislike Microsoft for all sorts of reasons I am very unlikely to.
I have used Linux since I dumped XP years ago, firstly Ubuntu and more recently Mint and I can assure you that Linux today is a fully mature O/S. Mint 17.1 with the Cinnamon desktop environment (which I use) is as user-friendly and intuitive as you could want, it does everything I need (and that is quite a lot!) very well and in a fuss and hassle-free way. It is simply no longer true that installing stuff is 'hard' - a modern Linux distro is as easy as any other to live with.
At the end of the day, all three O/Ss are accessible and useable and do pretty much the same things as each other.
So, you pays yer money and takes yer choice.....or get Linux for free.

[Cody]

Onion sauce! Onion sauce!

So, you pays yer money and takes yer choice.....or get Linux for free.

TANSTAAFL

[Vincentz]

1) Frankly, there is no point in saying "I tried XXX a while ago, and blah, blah, blah....." because things change.
2) Well, except the way Microsoft still can't even trust you to 'own' your own computer.

3) ...and more recently Mint and I can assure you that Linux today is a fully mature O/S. Mint 17.1 with the Cinnamon desktop environment (which I use) is as user-friendly and intuitive as you could want,
4) it does everything I need (and that is quite a lot!) very well and in a fuss and hassle-free way. It is simply no longer true that installing stuff is 'hard' - a modern Linux distro is as easy as any other to live with.

1) They hopefully do Though while I still have tried all of them, I agree that its not similar to "I have 3 computers and switch back and fourth between them everyday". I still think its somewhat relevant.
2) Why? I hear it a lot from Linux users. Never really understood why.
3) I'm glad to hear. I used Ubuntu around 8-10 years ago. It was a nightmare just to install a game (civilization)
4) But I think its a consensus, that for every program there is for Linux, there is 10 for Mac and 100 (or even 1000) for Windows. Since I almost entirely use Open Source software, and sometimes Ad-wares or Trial programs if its just simple things (though stuck with Photoshop from way back) the Free label fits Windows perhaps more than with Linux, given that most PCs are preinstalled with Windows and installing Linux is an active choice which includes erasing HD.

[Disembodied]

TANSTAAFL

Oolite?

[Vincentz]

TANSTAAFL

Oolite?

Oolite takes away lots of manpower and workhours, therefor costing society both taxes and productivity

edit : so, in a way we all pay for Oolite. Even your 96 year old neighbor

[another_commander]

Oolite takes away lots of manpower and workhours, therefor costing society both taxes and productivity

I was about to reply that we work on Oolite as a hobby on our free time, but then I realized I am writing this from work... oh well.