Which OS?

[MsTrMind]

Hey all,

 

I am deciding on which operating system I should use ...

My pc will be used MOSTLY for productivity (textediting, spreadsheets, netbeans, ...).

But I also play some games...

 

I have experience with Ubuntu, Fedora, Windows xp -> 8 and have free access to all of them (via school).

I have no problems with installing a dualboot.

 

 

EDIT: Please state which version of the operating system you are recommending (IE: ubuntu 13.04, Fedora Spherrical Cow, Windows 7, ...)

[joelthezombie15]

If you are playing games, then windows. imo and everything else is good on windows to :D

[pewpewmerica]

Always use windows, except if you are serious about music and video editing and dont care for PC gaming, then i would use a mac :)

[MsTrMind]

Always use windows, except if you are serious about music and video editing and dont care for PC gaming, then i would use a mac :)

 

I don't have the funds to go mac... 

I will try to install OSx on my new pc :)

[pewpewmerica]

I don't have the funds to go mac... 

I will try to install OSx on my new pc :)

well then, windows 8 or 7 is best for you :)

[Nit3Rid3R]

Just install Windows 7, it works :P 

[91Chris]

If you wanna play games you'll need Windows somewhere. I use OS X as my primary OS though.

[threee6]

it's really easy to dual boot Windows and Linux (tons of tutorials online) and i would go Win 7 and Kubuntu (because it's pretty lol)

[Rhizo]

Ok there are 3 options. I am mostly unbias, and have used linux, mac and windows extensively.

Linux: If you want a very fast, productive experiance where you can work with extreme efficiency but can only play a few games on steam4linux, and many applications for windows are not on here. There are however many good projects community made that substitute popular software well, and you will learn that the linux community is a special place to be. I'd suggest starting on ubuntu and mint then from there trying out other distros.

Windows: If you want a slower environment with less productivity but an 'easier' learning curve. Everything takes a few more clicks, but because it is familiar for many people, it is used by the majority. It has great support for games and applications, get this if you want a general purpose machine that will work with pretty much everything. This is the average consumer.

Mac: If you want to spend money for no reason, and think that because lots of audio producers/video editors use it that it's a good product, or think dr dre beats are amazing, buy a mac. If you go on instagram and facebook constantly, get a mac. For anything that you need to be efficient, don't get a mac. It is based off of unix so the terminal is a familiar affair but the gui is bloated and inefficient. Of course there is the argument that final cut, pro tools, etc are amazing tools, and they are good, but on windows you can get just as good of an experiance in a much more powerful machine for the same cost.

Thanks,

[MsTrMind]

it's really easy to dual boot Windows and Linux (tons of tutorials online) and i would go Win 7 and Kubuntu (because it's pretty lol)

 

Dualbooting won't be a problem for me :) Currently have Pear OS (a mac-like ubuntu distro) for my daily stuff, windows 8 for .net developping & fedora for my "Operating systems" class.

I think I'll go with Ubuntu - Windows 8.

[MsTrMind]

Mac: If you want to spend money for no reason, and think that because lots of audio producers/video editors use it that it's a good product, or think dr dre beats are amazing, buy a mac. If you go on instagram and facebook constantly, get a mac. For anything that you need to be efficient, don't get a mac. It is based off of unix so the terminal is a familiar affair but the gui is bloated and inefficient. Of course there is the argument that final cut, pro tools, etc are amazing tools, and they are good, but on windows you can get just as good of an experiance in a much more powerful machine for the same cost.

Thanks,

hahahahahaha, lol'ed at your mac "description" :D

I will never get a Mac (as long as they cost double/triple in Belgium, about 3000 dollar for the cheapest macbook I can use). But I am considering to install Mac OS X on my new machine, just to check out how it is.

[rashdanml]

Linux: If you want a very fast, productive experiance where you can work with extreme efficiency but can only play a few games on steam4linux, and many applications for windows are not on here. There are however many good projects community made that substitute popular software well, and you will learn that the linux community is a special place to be. I'd suggest starting on ubuntu and mint then from there trying out other distros.

http://www.playonlinux.com/en/supported_apps-1-0.html

 

Wine is surprisingly good for a good chunk of games not listed there. With good hardware, it'll last until Steam games are fully ported over. Crossover (paid) is also a good option.

[threee6]

Dualbooting won't be a problem for me :) Currently have Pear OS (a mac-like ubuntu distro) for my daily stuff, windows 8 for .net developping & fedora for my "Operating systems" class.

I think I'll go with Ubuntu - Windows 8.

Kubuntu is based on linux and comes with all of its features, just looks a lot better.

[Rhizo]

http://www.playonlinux.com/en/supported_apps-1-0.html

 

Wine is surprisingly good for a good chunk of games not listed there. With good hardware, it'll last until Steam games are fully ported over. Crossover (paid) is also a good option.

Yeah I should have added that wine is actually really good with a lot of games, as long as you have decent hardware.

[smjpl]

If you're not too pushed on learning all you can about computers and you will just use it for games and a couple of programs, go Windows 7. Its the easiest to use with least amount of problems (I mean compatibility with all programs/games etc). If you want to learn computers as well, I personally would still use Win 7 but set Ubuntu up on a virtual machine to play around with it (Virtualbox). If you got big into Linux, then get another HDD/or partition and dual boot it. 

[GoodBytes]

Ok there are 3 options. I am mostly unbias, and have used linux, mac and windows extensively.

Linux: If you want a very fast, productive experiance where you can work with extreme efficiency but can only play a few games on steam4linux, and many applications for windows are not on here. There are however many good projects community made that substitute popular software well, and you will learn that the linux community is a special place to be. I'd suggest starting on ubuntu and mint then from there trying out other distros.

Windows: If you want a slower environment with less productivity but an 'easier' learning curve. Everything takes a few more clicks, but because it is familiar for many people, it is used by the majority. It has great support for games and applications, get this if you want a general purpose machine that will work with pretty much everything. This is the average consumer.

Mac: If you want to spend money for no reason, and think that because lots of audio producers/video editors use it that it's a good product, or think dr dre beats are amazing, buy a mac. If you go on instagram and facebook constantly, get a mac. For anything that you need to be efficient, don't get a mac. It is based off of unix so the terminal is a familiar affair but the gui is bloated and inefficient. Of course there is the argument that final cut, pro tools, etc are amazing tools, and they are good, but on windows you can get just as good of an experiance in a much more powerful machine for the same cost.

Thanks,

So much wrong, bias, and ignorance it's not even funny.... on all 3 OS.

[Rhizo]

So much wrong, bias, and ignorance it's not even funny.... on all 3 OS.

Explain? I use windows 7 day to day, have debian on my thinkpad and my mum uses a mac. Seems to work well. 

[GoodBytes]

Fine.

Rhizo, on 10 Jun 2013 - 05:34 AM, said:

Linux: If you want a very fast, productive experiance where you can work with extreme efficiency but can only play a few games on steam4linux, and many applications for windows are not on here. There are however many good projects community made that substitute popular software well, and you will learn that the linux community is a special place to be. I'd suggest starting on ubuntu and mint then from there trying out other distros.

Linux is not an efficient OS in terms of usage. The simplest thing requires the terminal, and hacking. Sure you can use the highly modified Debian and Ubuntu, which is hated more than WinME by the Linux community. Getting help is very difficult, because a lot of instructions like terminal commands don't apply for you as you use a highly modified Linux, or it was intended for another highly modified Linux distro. File structure is a mess. Devs don't even know where to put their own things.

Using XWindows environment is also a pain... as every application is focused on a specific xWindows GUI guideline, things wont' fit nicely. So there is no consistency between programs, and programs are usually over flowed with useless options, with no focus or decision making from the dev. Help documentation of software doesn't exists, making that if you have a problem with a software, the tweak of values and settings in the program are just ignorantly inserted by you, without knowing what you are doing. Community of Linux, is extremely snobbish toward new commerce, and completely innovating. Complaints by you, end up being "Here is a link of the source code of Linux.. you fix it! LOL! Go away!", type of reaction, without presenting alternative or solution. Except if you stay with communities like Ubuntu's.

Also, under Linux, the end user experience is not thought about at all. Simple things like the font rendering of xWindows environment is laughable in 2013. Text is very hard to read. And there is 0 attention to details. And that is all understandable... devs don't like doing GUI work, because for many, it's boring. Commercialization software require this for competitive purposes, so everyone in the company is pushed to it.

Linux is amazing for low powered system, runs on anything, and excellent for servers... for an end user, forget it.

Also, drivers... oh boy. Many products you buy can't be used under Linux. Or not fully features. So it's a pain to find the right hardware.

Quote

Windows: If you want a slower environment with less productivity but an 'easier' learning curve. Everything takes a few more clicks, but because it is familiar for many people, it is used by the majority. It has great support for games and applications, get this if you want a general purpose machine that will work with pretty much everything. This is the average consumer.

You are right, Linux requires you to write a novel in command... 0 clicks!

Try and setup a wireless connection without a wireless connection manager add-on in Linux... good luck! Oh and hope it doesn't drop.. because you have to restart it all again. It doesn't auto reconnect or things like that. And let's not even talk about certifications. As I said, the simplest things, are way over complicated under Linux. No wonder, Windows is the prefer choice of "average consumer" (nice.. continue to lower people to feel superior), because people want to get their work done, not spend a week end to figure out how to do things with the system.

Quote

Mac: If you want to spend money for no reason, and think that because lots of audio producers/video editors use it that it's a good product, or think dr dre beats are amazing, buy a mac. If you go on instagram and facebook constantly, get a mac. For anything that you need to be efficient, don't get a mac. It is based off of unix so the terminal is a familiar affair but the gui is bloated and inefficient. Of course there is the argument that final cut, pro tools, etc are amazing tools, and they are good, but on windows you can get just as good of an experiance in a much more powerful machine for the same cost.

MacOS is a very efficient OS. Everything is straight to the point, and easy to use. This cost you flexibility and power to do this (I don't mean system power.. I mean you have more things you can do with the system). Dr Dre. is used for social status symbol. Not because they are good. It's a fashion statement product.

Many PC users, have Dr Dre headphones. I see them on Android phone in the Metro and bus. In fact, I see more people with Dre Headphone with Android phone than Apple. People just prefer the white headphones, especially girls.

People that uses MacOS, is because they don't want the hassle of doing anything with the system. Does their work software runs.. does it surf the web, good. They don't want a command prompt, they don't want a million options, they don't want to do any system maintenance. Direct access to their handful programs is all they want. Nothing more.

[dolarsignzeroxeighty]

latest version of ubuntu.

my 5 year old and 3 year old nephews use a laptop with ubuntu installed in it & can do any basic stuff pretty easy.

setting it up was more easy & took less time then windows and i didn't even need to install any drivers since the kernel had them already.

 

@GoodBytes , have you ever used linux? because you're saying non-sense.

 

windows is fine , but i don't really like it unless i'm gaming personally. it's a overpriced os that most people use just to do simple things like browsing the internet after spending 1 hour getting an AV , doing updates , installing drivers & reboot 2-3 times before it's complete.

 

i use os-x personally when i'm not on my laptop, i find it neat for surfing the web and doing everyday tasks ( except gaming). the price vs specs isn't that great compared to a custom computer , but compared to a prebuilt , it's quite decent & the support is great.

 

on my laptop , i use freebsd to learn how to use it without a user interface so i can learn the operating system since they're all the same for when they have a user interface, meaning that it's easy to go surf the web with them after you connect to the internet which is really simple if you have the drivers installed.

[piplupgao]

Do a tri boot Mac and Windows and Linux Hackintosh.

[calebp123]

Windows 7 probably and maybe ubuntu 13.04 if you would like on a dual boot

[Rhizo]

Fine.

Linux is not an efficient OS in terms of usage. The simplest thing requires the terminal, and hacking. Sure you can use the highly modified Debian and Ubuntu, which is hated more than WinME by the Linux community. Getting help is very difficult, because a lot of instructions like terminal commands don't apply for you as you use a highly modified Linux, or it was intended for another highly modified Linux distro. File structure is a mess. Devs don't even know where to put their own things.

Using XWindows environment is also a pain... as every application is focused on a specific xWindows GUI guideline, things wont' fit nicely. So there is no consistency between programs, and programs are usually over flowed with useless options, with no focus or decision making from the dev. Help documentation of software doesn't exists, making that if you have a problem with a software, the tweak of values and settings in the program are just ignorantly inserted by you, without knowing what you are doing. Community of Linux, is extremely snobbish toward new commerce, and completely innovating. Complaints by you, end up being "Here is a link of the source code of Linux.. you fix it! LOL! Go away!", type of reaction, without presenting alternative or solution. Except if you stay with communities like Ubuntu's.

Also, under Linux, the end user experience is not thought about at all. Simple things like the font rendering of xWindows environment is laughable in 2013. Text is very hard to read. And there is 0 attention to details. And that is all understandable... devs don't like doing GUI work, because for many, it's boring. Commercialization software require this for competitive purposes, so everyone in the company is pushed to it.

Linux is amazing for low powered system, runs on anything, and excellent for servers... for an end user, forget it.

Also, drivers... oh boy. Many products you buy can't be used under Linux. Or not fully features. So it's a pain to find the right hardware.

You are right, Linux requires you to write a novel in command... 0 clicks!

Try and setup a wireless connection without a wireless connection manager add-on in Linux... good luck! Oh and hope it doesn't drop.. because you have to restart it all again. It doesn't auto reconnect or things like that. And let's not even talk about certifications. As I said, the simplest things, are way over complicated under Linux. No wonder, Windows is the prefer choice of "average consumer" (nice.. continue to lower people to feel superior), because people want to get their work done, not spend a week end to figure out how to do things with the system.

MacOS is a very efficient OS. Everything is straight to the point, and easy to use. This cost you flexibility and power to do this (I don't mean system power.. I mean you have more things you can do with the system). Dr Dre. is used for social status symbol. Not because they are good. It's a fashion statement product.

Many PC users, have Dr Dre headphones. I see them on Android phone in the Metro and bus. In fact, I see more people with Dre Headphone with Android phone than Apple. People just prefer the white headphones, especially girls.

People that uses MacOS, is because they don't want the hassle of doing anything with the system. Does their work software runs.. does it surf the web, good. They don't want a command prompt, they don't want a million options, they don't want to do any system maintenance. Direct access to their handful programs is all they want. Nothing more.

From what you have said, i'm going to go ahead and assume you haven't used linux for very long if at all. There is practically no maintenance, wireless is a no-problem, i'v never had problems with it, and it is a VERY efficient os for work. You DO NOT need to use the terminal for everything if you don't want, you don't even need to touch it if you don't want to. Use synaptic package manager if you want a gui for package managing, and that's all you need.

 

Drivers are better than you think, they always work out of the box, and even if all the features don't work, it's never a real problem. Linux has such a good community problems are simple to solve, for example, the arch linux wiki is the most to the point, information filled help wiki that has pretty much every solution. File structure in linux is great, the reason devs have a problem coding for linux is because of the smaller current player base and the problem with creating multiple-distribution friendly setup files.

 

xWindows? What does that have to do with linux? Of course it's going to be horrid, but don't look at the bad community projects, look for the good ones (of which there are many).

 

Please spend 6 months in linux, trying out different distro's, WM's and DE's, you say that ubuntu is hated in the linux community, but I have no idea where you get that assumption. Sure it is put down for its mainly gui based interface, but it is also praised for bringing a wider audience to the os. You will see how efficient and easy to use it really is. It sounds like you have been told things about linux. and as the internet is, difficulty of linux was expanded to the point that people are making wild assumptions about its driver compatability, difficulty to use, difficulty to install, etc. But really, it's a simple enough process, the problem at the moment is that people are very used to windows, and the way linux works is not the same way. This makes the learning curve a lot bigger than just going back to good ole' windows/osx that just works. Linux just works, it works in a way people are not used to.

 

I do not have linux on my main system. But I know it's potentials and it's flaws, sure, there isn't the best driver support, sure, there isn't the best game support, sure, there isnt the best big company application support, but the programs that exist that emulate current offerings (libre office for example) are fantastic, but again, may take a little getting used to.

[MsTrMind]

Just love reading this comments ^

[smjpl]

Just love reading this comments ^

Me too. Looking forward to GoodBytes  response. I am not too sure on the ease of using Ubuntu. I have used it for a couple of things but nothing major. I am under the assumption that not all features are supported in the GUI and the command line is still needed. This scares some people but then again these people aren't generally looking change their OS from Windows. 

[MsTrMind]

Me too. Looking forward to GoodBytes  response. I am not too sure on the ease of using Ubuntu. I have used it for a couple of things but nothing major. I am under the assumption that not all features are supported in the GUI and the command line is still needed. This scares some people but then again these people aren't generally looking change their OS from Windows. 

I mostly used Ubuntu for java-developping in netbeans and some stuff in libreoffice.

It is great to use, once you are used to it.