Does Choosing An Operating System Really Matter Anymore

[livinthailandos]

This question is mostly for those of you out there who are not developers, programmers, just the average person, When it comes down to the end of the day does it really matter if you are using, windows, apple, linux, etc, the same applications are used everyday and really most people just use the computer to get online anyway for mail, videos etc, I've run all 3 operating systems. really see no difference in which you choose, yes I know the whole security issue and one or the other being more secure than other, thats a different posting though just want to hear your comments and opinions on this matter.

[dave_boo]

Yes. Information wants to be free, just look at history. Currently only the *nixes offer that.

[Guest Reimar]

This question is mostly for those of you out there who are not developers, programmers, just the average person, When it comes down to the end of the day does it really matter if you are using, windows, apple, linux, etc, the same applications are used everyday and really most people just use the computer to get online anyway for mail, videos etc, I've run all 3 operating systems. really see no difference in which you choose, yes I know the whole security issue and one or the other being more secure than other, thats a different posting though just want to hear your comments and opinions on this matter.

The OS does matter in terms of what you want to do with the computer!

You want to do mainly Designworks: A Mac is the best Choice!

You want to play Games: The PC with Windows OS is the best choice

you're an Composer: Atari still the best and widly used for composing

And so on.

But just use as an Typewriter or to surf the Internet: A PC with Linux OS is the cheapest choice.

Cheers.

[tjo o tjim]

Personally, I spend most of my time on a Mac laptop or Linux server. I like the mix of the two because you have the console and consistency there, and you pick the best environment for a GUI (the Mac...).

Applications matter, but even though I am not a programmer or developer using tools like grep really make *nix a great way to go. Windows is painful for me. Mainly because it is different than the other operating systems I use.

[anotheruser]

It really doesn't matter. I prefer to use a Mac. I found that most of the programs that I use are available free and of high quality. On windows I found that many programs would say free and turn out to be trialware or useless. Admittedly there is a much wider variety of windows apps out there but that means there is a lot of utter crap too. I hated installing something to find out is worthless and then the dam_n thing doesn't want to uninstall cleanly. I shouldn't have to install an app just to uninstall some app that won't play nice. *Goes online to find a free app that does this only to find that the registry cleaning app isn't free, doesn't work and won't uninstall either.*

I am also not that geeky and it seems that people that need things I never need prefer the flexibility of windows and the ones that feel that isn't enough go for linux. I don't care to quibble with people over which is better as both work. If I offer any further criticisms in this thread I will limit them to my own choice of operating system.

The main thing that matters in regards to software if you choose to run a Mac is that with out hacking it limits you in the world of hardware. If you want to run OS X you have a choice of 6 or so computers to choose from. It seems to me that Apple products are always beautiful, very expensive and always have some quirk to them that keeps me from having my cake and eating it too. My new MBP is great but charge times for the battery are like 5 hours LOL You can look at some of the things I wrote about the iPhone in another thread. That is the main thing in my opinion that matters if you choose OS X. On the flip side of the coin is that it does work nicely because it is only made for such few machines and hardware and software are made by the same vendor.

I am too stupid to get what I need easily from windows and don't really enjoy tweaking and hacking things that much. I am in utter fear of the registry system windows uses and not confident enough to toy with it. I loves me a good GUI and not using command lines. I know the mac can have some powerful uses also if you run command lines but I avoid it. I also just bought my first windows mobile phone ever (because of hardware limitations of my preferred choice of mobile operating system) and I won't be tweaking it or flashing the ROM or whatever people do to those things for fear of bricking it.

Quite the opposite is true for me on a Mac I am not afraid to go to anyway website dodgy or not. I am willing to take a chance on installing anything out there. I can always time machine back if I screw up my computer. I also know that for the majority of programs I can just drag it to the trash and not mess up my registry. Some apps are a bit more complex to remove and you get into the wonderful world of plists and application support files but for the most part 80% cleanly delete.

So I guess OS X looks pretty and does all the basic stuff the OP says that people use with minimal effort. That's why I choose to use it. I download movies and music, surf the net, and communicate with messengers or skype etc. I probably already have more computer and capabilities than I will ever need as it is. I think as far as computing goes specs are beginning to become meaningless for everybody except serious professionals with specific needs. We were all using the internet years ago on specs that are laughable now. Though the higher specs are a way to keep prices up. Why sell a low spec computer from years ago that works, when you can make a consumer feel that they need that 8.8 GHZ 64 GB RAM SUPERDUPER TM GPU with graphics with integration accelerating, self networking wireless Y on revised meriam webster napa valley chip set montecino centrino northbridge bus of 1066 GHz DDR 10 capable monster? Okay the last line I just made things up but most people wouldn't know the difference. Thankfully I don't sell computers or used cars.

So my conclusion is that operating system and what computer you use doesn't matter. If you buy something from a reputable company and it isn't defective they all do about the same thing for general computing purposes. With the exception of a few things such as converting video, wireless transfers and networking I could be on an operating system a decade old with matching hardware and wouldn't notice the difference.

Ugh after reading what I just typed anybody want to buy a 2.4 Macbook pro? I am going back to my commodore 64.

Edited November 15, 2008 by anotheruser

[LivinLOS]

I think its become less important as the web has advanced and the browser has become the desktop much more.. Gmail, google Docs, online photo storage and manipulation, etc etc etc..

[Crushdepth]

You can find free applications for most things on Windows too, if you are willing to do a bit of Googling. But why be a slave to an OS? Dual boot!

[Cuban]

Cloud Computing ?

[kiakaha]

You can find free applications for most things on Windows too, if you are willing to do a bit of Googling. But why be a slave to an OS? Dual boot!

dual booting is so 1990's.

virtualisation is a much better approach.

i run 3 operating systems simultaneously on my laptop(1 host(windows) and 2 guests(linux variants))

[mezzoninny]

I think it comes down to the finer details on each system, e.g. the way they lay things out in windows explorer/finder. And the apps.

I'm doing OS X for personal use, but my satisfaction has dropped with each subsequent release. I'm in fact not happy with Leopard; I think it's a bit of a bloat compared to Tiger, the dreaded rainbow beachball comes up all the time now, and you have to learn to tweak stuff just to regain some of that speed. I think Leopard is a crap release, and if Snow Leopard really turns out to be a ginormous bugfix, I can fully see why (and yes, frankly, Leopard needs it).

But while I'm so vehemently against Leopard, there's one killer app left for me on OS X (hear me out, I AM an average user, I learned the hard way that I'm NOT a power user). Audio Hijack Pro lets me record 3 or more audio streams at the same time, with a huge set of options. I can find no equivalent app with an equal feature set for Windows, and when I do recording in Windows I can't watch TV anymore, because I can't mute the recording. I can take 60,70,80K Baht and buy a very nice Windows subnotebook, with everything else, and I'll be fine with Vista, but I'll lose that flexibility in "time-shifting" all the lousy radio stations in Bkk and beyond. That I simply can't live with.

At the same time, I also consume a lot of things that might be Windows-only, or runs better in Windows. I remember in the earlier days of the Mac, when any USB file transfer seems to force an unbearable weight upon the system. Will the fanbois admit to this apparent strain? Nope, but it's there, and I'd just quietly use a windows computer to move files.

And as a key weakness of mine, I am a jinx when it comes to command line features, and that has stopped me personally from going to Linux, even though it'll undoubtedly be a great choice for some folks. For me right now, the best solution is to have two computers on hand at all times.

Edited November 17, 2008 by mezzoninny

[nikster]

I use Mac now, mainly for performance and looks. It's way faster than Windows for my purposes. No registry and a disk cache that works. I also appreciate that the install doesn't slow to a crawl after a year of heavy use, and that migrating my accounts is a snap. I do it about every 18 months so the amount of effort required for this does matter. Basic things.

I am a certified geek so I need the command line too, and there's nothing like it on Windows. Not for love or money. But I realize it's not all that useful for normal people.

For apps, it doesn't matter very much. OS X apps tend to be of higher quality, but not so much that it really matters.

Another reason for OS X is it's the least-worst. It's not perfect, and sometimes not so great. But Windows always had a higher "annoyance factor". E.g. time spent dealing with issues that are inherent to the OS and that, actually, I have absolutely no interest in. Dialog boxes that pop up and need to be answered before I can continue doing what I want to do, or the various system alerts in the systray. Vista has greatly improved looks but unfortunately also increased the annoyance factor. More dialogs, more text in them, everything is more verbose, and more in your face. The perfect OS is one that I don't see, and never have to deal with. OS X has as its only sin frequent software updates which almost always require a restart. But it's still way less annoying than Windows.

Linux never ran on my hardware so I have no idea how working with it would shape up in the real world. I have tried various Ubuntu releases and usually either the graphics card or the networking is fubared after every new release. Not so good. Sometimes I have searched forums and edited a text file or another to get it to work, but then gave up when a new release broke it _again_. I am not that much of a tinkerer. Stuff should just work out of the box. If it doesn't, I will pick something else. Never had issues with either Windows or OS X in that regard.

@anotheruser

It seems to me that Apple products are always beautiful, very expensive and always have some quirk to them that keeps me from having my cake and eating it too.

LOL that's very true. I thought the new MacBook Pros were perfect, finally! But then, they made the battery smaller. Same battery life since these use less power, but I was really hoping for more battery life, like 6+ hours. Then, it would be perfect. Alas, they are not. Same thing on the PC side though, especially when it comes to laptops, there is always a trade-off between power and size/weight. No way around it. But on the PC side you have many more choices.

Lastly, I made the decision to get a Mac for aesthetic reasons. I figured that if I spend 10+ hours a day staring at a screen, I would rather stare at something beautiful. Same with the hardware. I use this thing 10 hours a day, surely it's worth a dollar a day to make it something pretty? And not just pretty - more like really well designed. IMO Apple designs its hardware not just better than other computer makers - they design their products better than pretty much anyone else, with the possible exception of certain car manufacturers. It's really way up there. It's a personal choice of course.

[anotheruser]

The new MBP get under 4 hours when used conservatively and the battery for whatever reason takes over 4 hours to charge. Just thought people should know that. It doesn't have anything to do with the topic at hand however.

[LivinLOS]

And as a key weakness of mine, I am a jinx when it comes to command line features, and that has stopped me personally from going to Linux, even though it'll undoubtedly be a great choice for some folks. For me right now, the best solution is to have two computers on hand at all times.

Try ubuntu ibex.. I have tried linux releases every 6 months or so going back to slack 3.8.. And every time I just used it and felt as a desktop os it wasnt prime time.. I know ubuntu is considered noobuntu and die hard linuxphiles slate it.. But I installed it, it just works, everything so far out of the box.. Couple of minor aptget terminal sessions to install all the apps I need so far, but everything else has been GUI.. For the first time I think I could live with it happily.

Tho saying that I am typing this on a vista boot as I needed garmin mapsource !!

[sabaijai]

PC is the most compatible across the widest variety of applications, so is still the most practical, in my book. I work in an editoiral office that has all three platforms. We have a lot of compatibility problems between Mac and PC, despite Mac's marketing claims to the contrary.

[rjk]

We use mac at work for several reasons.

1. it just works

2. Internationalization is a doddle. Our english and thai users can share the machine easily and mix english and thai with absolute ease. In *all* applications.

3. it is aesthetically pleasing to use.

Leopard is a good release os OS X. Most people seem overwhelmed by the new features if anything.

Having the *nix core of OS X means that real command line interaction is available and the Aqua desktop is superb for presenting applications in a common, uniform style.

[kiakaha]

you dont need to choose....use virtualisation and run multiple operating systems simultaneously on the same physical machine ,get the best of all worlds, share files between your virtual machines....so easy !!!

[nikster]

The new MBP get under 4 hours when used conservatively and the battery for whatever reason takes over 4 hours to charge. Just thought people should know that. It doesn't have anything to do with the topic at hand however.

Do you have one? That's pretty disappointing. I read in other forums that 5 hours is realistic with the screen at 50% brightness.

[mezzoninny]

I made the decision to get a Mac for aesthetic reasons. I figured that if I spend 10+ hours a day staring at a screen, I would rather stare at something beautiful. Same with the hardware. I use this thing 10 hours a day, surely it's worth a dollar a day to make it something pretty?

I completely agree with that, though I'm noticeably less grumpy with earlier macs. Not counting the Macintosh Plusses we had at school, my first one was a Lombard in 1999, and I have a nagging feeling (paranoia?) that it's still more robust than any apple laptop that came afterwards.

I still have a copy of Parallels unused, gathering dust on my shelf, because I used the boot camp partition and M$ insisted that it counts as a separate activation. So I've shelled out money for another copy of XP, and I'll probably put it in the next time I reinstall. Meh is my middle name

[BergRace]

The new MBP get under 4 hours when used conservatively and the battery for whatever reason takes over 4 hours to charge. Just thought people should know that. It doesn't have anything to do with the topic at hand however.

Do you have one? That's pretty disappointing. I read in other forums that 5 hours is realistic with the screen at 50% brightness.

It also helps turning off services not needed/used like Wifi and Bluetooth, also take a look at your power/performance settings.

I am not on a portable Mac myself so I can not give you the specifics, it should however be self explanatory.

I switched from Windows boxes some 4-5 years back when the first Mac Mini came out, I am never going back! That being said, I still help others with their Windows machines, both stationary and portables..

[JetsetBkk]

Interesting, but old, article here: http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/56437/index.html

Also interesting that not many XP users have posted here. I guess the silent majority are happy in their ignorance.

[Gary A]

Interesting, but old, article here: http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/56437/index.html

Also interesting that not many XP users have posted here. I guess the silent majority are happy in their ignorance.

I'm a happy XP Pro user. I like to plug things in and have them work. If not for living in Thailand, I might give Apple a try but getting an Apple computer serviced when living out in the boonies is nearly impossible without taking a long road trip to a major city. I also have problems with the high cost of Apple and everything being proprietary. Small Thai computer shops can repair my PC and Somchai does a pretty good job for a VERY small price.

I do have Mandriva on an extra hard drive and I play with it once in a while. Mandriva is the only distro that I can use my GPRS EDGE phone with. I use Map Source and Autocad programs along with other MS compatible stuff. Linux WINE sucks. I tried to update Firefox and even that is a huge problem with Linux. When you techies get things worked out and I can download Linux programs and auto install them without putting in many lines of GREEK code, I'll make the change.

[Crushdepth]

dual booting is so 1990's.

virtualisation is a much better approach.

i run 3 operating systems simultaneously on my laptop(1 host(windows) and 2 guests(linux variants))

1990s??? Them's fightin' words

I think virtualisation is interesting but I don't like the overhead - I prefer working directly in one or the other and having all my grunt intact.

[bkk_mike]

For basic stuff - web browsing, email, videos, word processing.

Beyond that, you end up finding a reason for choosing one over the others.

i.e, For games, it will be Windows.

In my own case, the office VPN software is for Windows, so I have no choice.

But similarly, there are reasons for picking a Mac, just as there are reasons for picking Linux, or Windows, but for the basics, it doesn't matter.

As for virtualisation, it doesn't work too well with games as you generally find that the virtual PC you're running the other OS on doesn't have access to the hardware acceleration of your graphics card.

Edited November 23, 2008 by bkk_mike