

Ask HN: What's your favorite OS and why? - jfaucett

I'd like to preface this by saying I'm hardcore linux biased :) - but I'd love to hear your most favorite features of any other os as well as things you don't like about it/others. Basically, why do like your os setup and what is it?<p>Personally, as much as I like linux, drivers issues are simply a pain, who want's to have to spend hours in forums and on google before buying a monitor to make sure its compat?<p>But drivers issues asside, linux is great for me as a developer b/c, with apt-get ( or the non Debian/Ubuntu distros equivalent),  I can grab libs on the fly in no time plug them in and start testing/building, the source is always there for me to run gdb on, I have an amazing list of cli utils (in coreutils, binutils &#38; co), also having complete control over my os and tab switching through 5 terminals all running my nifty lil' tasks just makes me happy :) Also emacs keyboard shortcuts (which work just about everywhere on linux) allow me to fly on just about any task, who wants to traverse the keyboard and hit 'END' to go to endline?
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jamesjguthrie
Favourite OS has to be Windows 7 x64. I run OS X ML in VM for Xcode etc and I
have given Ubuntu tons of chances over the last 7 years; I just always come
back to Windows.

Windows has all the applications I want - my CAD software and suspension
geometry software for Uni; I prefer the layout and look of the OS over Mac and
Ubuntu; every single piece of hardware I ever buy already has fully functional
drivers built; there's tons of reasons why I prefer Windows over everything
else.

Another big reason is that having to use the command line for simple tasks in
Ubuntu is an absolute pain in the arse. I'm perfectly comfortable with using
any CLI, I just feel I shouldn't have to be inconvenienced by having to use
one to do something like install a new package or an update.

~~~
jfaucett
Good points. Looks like windows might have the upper hand for your field. Its
kinda funny the thing you mention with the package updates, yum(or apt-get)
install is actually one of my favorite features on a linux box :)

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beloch
OS's I use in order of preference:

#1. Linux with KDE: For work, this can't be beat. KDE has insanely good
virtual desktop support. You can multitask heavily and still be very
efficient. I grew up with CLI's, so I view a good one as a pleasure to use,
not a hindrance as some do. Customizability is nearly infinite. It's generally
less work for me to get a Linux box set up to acceptable productive levels
than a Windows box.

#2. Windows 7: This runs my HTPC and I use it for games, movies, etc.. There's
pretty much no decent Bluray support on any non-MS OS, and I do like bluray!
Win7 still has some bugs, but it's a very livable OS.

#3. Windows XP: Yup. Ancient! However, a lot of our lab gear has drivers that
won't work in anything else. I use it because I have to.

OS's I have used and am glad not to anymore:

OSX. I had OSX on my laptop for most of last year. It's nice in that it has
better interoperability with Linux software than Windows thanks to it's BSD
roots, but if you want to use Linux you might as well use Linux!. It
technically has virtual desktops, but management is primitive. I've never
liked the OSX dock (Give me KBar or even the Win95 start-bar any day!). Bluray
support (one third-party app that does key management over the internet!) is
dodgy and gaming is still not so good, so it's not really a viable HTPC OS.
Lion was also _very_ buggy. Much worse than Windows 7. Customizability is the
worst of any modern OS. Apple tries very hard to force you to do things their
way. Oh, you can change things, but it's usually more trouble than its worth.
I expect the OS's I use to be capable of adapting to me rather than forcing me
to adapt to them. OSX is ahead of the game when it comes to trackpad gesture
support, but hopefully other OS's will catch up fast.

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anujkk
Linux. I was a Windows guy but from last two years I'm using Ubuntu. I don't
have any driver issues and everything works quite well. In fact, it works
better than Windows 7 for me. I'm primarily a developer and it is well known
that Linux is best for that purpose. I am also a part time designer and
GIMP/InkScape works well for most of my needs.

I still have Windows 7 installed, but I only use it(occasionally) if I need to
work on things like .net, photoshop, illustrator etc.

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david92
Ubuntu. I've found that a decent amount of software for development is just
harder to install on Windows. The open source community seems to mostly be on
Linux, and they often have the best support and installation processes for
Linux.

For example, setting up Emacs and getting the packages I want installed has
been much easier on Ubuntu than Windows. This has also been true for a lot of
other great open source software.

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goshakkk
Basically, I just need my OS to be a unix. On the desktop I also want to have
great UI/UX (font rendering is part of it. Can't stand for weird font
rendering on Windows, things are better on Ubuntu though.) So OS X is my
choice.

I also like such aspects of it as support of multitouch trackpad gestures,
Recovery HD, hard drive encryption out of the box, nice backup solution built-
in, awesome application ecosystem.

~~~
goshakkk
As Windows is not in option anyway, another point to prefer OS X over Linuxes
and BSDs is Apple's Aperture app. I do shoot photos from time to time, so I
need a nice app to process them and organize my library. Also, I need iTunes
to sync with my iPhone and iPad.

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superfork
I use Linux daily at home and at work, but Windows 7 is probably my favorite:

Win7 is an _extremely_ polished, and fast OS. everything just works out of the
box and the UI (atleast on MS apps) is intuitive, except for maybe Windows
Media.

I have a lot of gripes with OS X, especially the workflow. I find that it's
slower to navigate around than Windows, especially if you don't have a
trackpad -- OSX heavily relies on its touchpad to be efficient. The
keybindings/macros aren't that great either, and are cumbersome and annoying
to use. I also have many gripes with Finder. It looks pretty but it's not as
efficient as other OS' window managers

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khyryk
Most of my time has been spent in Windows 7, although I've always dabbled in
Ubuntu. Recently, inexplicable errors, winrot, etc. are pushing me to use
Ubuntu more often.

In my experience, technical Windows forums hardly ever manage to fix tough
problems, although, to be fair, I've never yet experienced any such problems
on Ubuntu.

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gjulianm
For me, OS X. Great design, speed, stability... It has all the apps I need,
it's great for development and under the hood is still a Unix machine with a
lot of CLI utils.

But I really like Windows 7 and Ubuntu too. It's just that I like OS X more.

~~~
jfaucett
what trumps the other two os's then? Any specific favorite's like Textmate or
Objective-C that make you prefer it?

~~~
gjulianm
Stability and design mainly. I like to see that all the interfaces are
consistent and pleasing to the eye. And well, I think the Magic Trackpad +
BetterTouchTool (I have a Macbook) does a lot for OSX.

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mrlyc
I'm stuck with Windows as my favourite image manager, ACDSee, doesn't work all
that well under Wine.

When I want to do online banking, I boot into Linux.

