Comments on: Operating Systems

By: Chance

Chance — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 18:48:50 +0000

I think some of your remarks are right on, especially concerning the elitists on the Linux message boards. It’s like asking Ph.D in math asking an intermediate algebra student why they don’t understand certain math concepts.

What I personally do is run OpenSuSE 11 at home, and for the few things that Linux doesn’t do, I have a 9 year old Win XP laptop that I bought off ebay for $60.

By: Anti Elitist

Anti Elitist — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 10:39:05 +0000

Ubuntu is better than Windows XP, comparable to Vista, but not quite up to the level of Windows 7 yet. I don’t do Mac so I can’t speak from that perspective. If all you like doing is surfing the web, use office suites, etc, and spend half a day tweeking the look of your desktop, Ubuntu is fantastic. But I would warn heavily about going full conversion and ditching your windows 7 for Ubuntu because you will be crying in your cornflakes once you do and realize it’s not as great as some would have you believe. Although it is virtually virus free(money saver), it does have it’s share of issues. Linux itself suffers from distro inflation. If for some unknown reason you do experience a problem, getting help at times can be as difficult as keeping a straight face when talking over the phone with a service tech guy from India. Ubuntu offers a forum that is filled with people who really are as knowledgeable as a cucumber when it comes to the OS itself, and then there are the infamous elitist groups that much rather insult you than help you with a problem. If you read this and think about trying it, I say knock yourself out, you will most likely enjoy it. But take heed to warning. It wouldn’t take you long to find truth in this statement. lol

By: UberTurret

UberTurret — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 23:40:45 +0000

Stable? ANYTHING ON A MAC STABLE?

I’ve had 28 kernel panics throughout 2010.

Yes, i counted.

Only 2 errors where i had to restart on my windows.

By: Chance

Chance — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 03:56:46 +0000

I do agree that incompetent users have poorly maintained Windows boxes. However, average users who install a reputable program have to deal with extra stuff being installed, and almost everything wants to hang out in the system tray and/or run as a service. And the idea that people only get viruses from porn sites is a myth as discussed in the latest print edition of PC World. The Linux boxes at work are as fast as they were when we got them 3 years ago.

By: Chance

Chance — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 03:49:35 +0000

Although I haven’t used OS X, Linux is open source – I don’t think you can get more customizable than that.

By: Rui

Rui — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 14:38:57 +0000

I want mac os

By: Pyrophosphate

Pyrophosphate — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 04:28:40 +0000

Windows= games… and that’s it.
Linux= everything else, and some games (Battle for Wesnoth is a damn good game. Give it a try if you haven’t already).

By: Pyrophosphate

Pyrophosphate — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 04:24:36 +0000

Actually you’re wrong. I just fired up Xfce Taskmanager in linux. By default, it doesn’t even show root processes, let alone allowing me to close them. The worst I could do is close the window manager or something and be stuck at a command line, which is far from a broken operating system.

The problem with Windows is that it lists all processes together, and any idiot who can press ctrl+alt+delete can get confused and close any one of them.

That’s not to say I couldn’t break linux if I wanted to, it’s just really, really hard to do, without root permission.

By: randomguy

randomguy — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 05:41:03 +0000

I have a Windows operating system, but a You Wish operating system would be nicer. Does anyone know where to find one?

By: Someone

Someone — Mon, 31 May 2010 10:50:28 +0000

It’s like everyone’s speaking in tongues!

By: Peter

Peter — Thu, 27 May 2010 04:11:26 +0000

Linux does have a steep learning curve but almost every problem can be solved by just asking google.

“Play *problem file* in *Distro* Linux help”

Install is easy now too, with a couple exceptions like BSD.

You have to install BSD under a full moon and sacrifice a virgin.

By: don't feel like a name today

don't feel like a name today — Tue, 11 May 2010 04:25:50 +0000

Fanboy is a term used to describe a male who is highly devoted and biased in opinion towards a single subject or hobby within a given field. The earliest known recorded use is dated 1919.[4]
Fanboy-ism is often prevalent in a field of products, brands or universe of characters where very few competitors (or enemies in fiction, such as comics) exist. An example is the market for CPUs for PCs, where AMD and Intel together hold a market share of 99.6% (as of Q1 2009)[5]. In this market, users of home computers realistically only have a choice between two brands, and hence, a fight over which is better easily ensues. In this field, an “Intel fanboy” prefers CPUs made by Intel, and might aggressively defend their supposed superiority compared to the other brand(s), be skeptical or in denial about negative reviews of the product, and exert a high level of brand loyalty. The same brand war ensues when comparing video card brands Nvidia and ATI, which together dominate the video card market.
The term originated in comic book circles, to describe someone who was socially insecure and used comics as a shield from interaction, hence the disparaging connotations.[citation needed] Fanboys are often experts on minor details regarding their hobbies, such as continuity in fictional universes, and they take these details extremely seriously. The term has also been applied to criticize perceived fan elitism[citation needed]. The term itself is often used in a derogatory manner by less serious fans of the same material. Nevertheless, self-labeling usages of the term have been noted; in the songs of the fannish parody musician Luke Ski, many characters proudly consider themselves fanboys.
The term is usually used by and applied to people in their teens or 20s; an age group which is typically found pursuing geeky hobbies obsessively. Within this group, common objects of deference for fanboys are TV shows, movies, anime, cars, video game consoles, video games, music, operating systems, trains, home computers (in earlier decades), MMORPGs, ISPs, software and computer hardware companies.
The term fangirl can be used to describe a female member of a fandom community (counterpart to the masculine “fanboy”). Fangirls may be more devoted to emotional and romantic aspects of their fandom, especially shipping. However, it is commonly used in a derogatory sense to describe a girl’s obsession with something, most commonly a male teen idol or an aspect of Japanese pop culture. Fangirl behavior can vary in intensity. On one end of the scale are those that, while harboring a crush on a particular actor or character, are perfectly capable of understanding that the fulfilment of the crush is never going to happen. On the other end are the girls who are said to be obsessive in their claims on a fictional character, even fighting with other fangirls over who ‘owns’ the character in question. Fangirl behavior can fall anywhere in this spectrum, but the closer someone is believed to be towards the obsessive end, the more derogatory the use of the term ‘fangirl’ to describe them is perceived to be. Fangirls of all persuasions are believed to be the largest contributors to fanfiction websites, sometimes disregarding the canon storyline of their fandom or altering it to fit either their own favored romantic pairings; or themselves into the continuity (termed self-insertions or Mary Sues).[citation needed]

By: Spasysheep

Spasysheep — Mon, 10 May 2010 22:29:08 +0000

My nVidia 9600GT runs just fine… Compiz and everything…

By: Spasysheep

Spasysheep — Mon, 10 May 2010 22:28:15 +0000

Yup. I use mainly Ubuntu and XP, but use OSX fairly regularly too. Had an old apple box set up as a music server at home until it died recently; making the 3 systems talk cordially over our ridiculous network setup was hell…

By: Daniel

Daniel — Mon, 10 May 2010 19:52:58 +0000

Yes, I have. Used them for a few years each. And for my likes, Mac OS is still the best. Linux is a very close second. Windows is hell.

By: bob

bob — Mon, 10 May 2010 17:39:29 +0000

I’d just like to ask: Has anyone here actualy used all three operating systems?

By: Timmeh

Timmeh — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 21:16:28 +0000

Yeah, well your FACE is moot & silly.

By: Rohn Thompson

Rohn Thompson — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 21:13:51 +0000

So what you’re saying is that if you go down deep enough and kill a critical process you’re going to have an error? How Novel! I bet I can cause any system Windows/Mac/Linux to “BSOD/Panic/Lock” within 10 seconds using that kind of ideology.

Your point is moot & silly.

By: Bob

Bob — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 23:35:09 +0000

They are too stable!
I mean, why don’t macs get BSODs? They get kernel panics, but once in a blue moon. And they never get viruses (even though there was that iWork virus going around… and some other one I forgot)
btw, anybody wanting to BSOD their computer, go to task manager then processes and kill csrss.exe and you have an instant BSOD. It’ll automatically restart if you don’t have the option turned off.

By: hahaha

hahaha — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 18:05:44 +0000

I agree but don’t get a boner jesus.

By: lolcake

lolcake — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 14:01:20 +0000

Im a gamer. I use a Pc. I don’t need anything more ^-^

By: mlg

mlg — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 03:49:32 +0000

Mac sucks. Windows is suckish. Linux RULES

By: Name (required)

Name (required) — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 03:08:57 +0000

Seriously right?

I lol’d.

By: AusMounty

AusMounty — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 16:32:16 +0000

Coming from one who has used all the systems indicated above, it is time to shed some light on the matter.

MS have used the tactic in sales to make the prospective buyer to believe they have to buy a system with Windows included. This is a fallacy! Whatever operating system you wish to have loaded is YOUR CHOICE!

I myself run Linux purely from the aspect that it is stable & secure, also that comparatively the cost of PC components is less expensive than that of Apple. Which is another point, OS-X is in fact a derivative of NetBSD. Yet another point of where open-source has made it’s way into the mainstream.

I surmise that most of the people who are making comments against Linux are gamers, am I correct? I have to inform you more & more of the software houses developing those games are in fact porting them to the Linux platform. Many of which that have to do less simply because they use many of the existing system libraries to run, and in many cases faster & more reliably than the MS platform.

Food for thought.

By: Matt

Matt — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 23:27:00 +0000

That’s nonsense, just because Microsoft made both systems doesn’t mean that the Xbox one is anything like windows. The codebase could be completely different

By: Spasysheep

Spasysheep — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 22:31:53 +0000

Actually, an OEM copy of XP can costs £30-£50. I’m not sure what that is in American money, but it’s certainly nowhere near $300.

By: Spasysheep

Spasysheep — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 22:17:22 +0000

http://www.linuxfromscratch.org

Linux wins at customisable

By: Spasysheep

Spasysheep — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 22:10:53 +0000

What games have you found running natively on linux that use anything near 12GB of RAM – the only ones I’ve found don’t come anywhere near using up my 4GB (+1GB On GFX card)

By: Spasysheep

Spasysheep — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 22:07:22 +0000

DERP DERP DERP
xbox runs windows – It runs it’s own version of windows that Microsoft made for xbox. If it doesn’t run windows then it runs a Microsoft-made operating system designed for xbox, which makes it windows in everything but name

By: Daniele

Daniele — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 18:12:07 +0000

Mac Pros are 8-core computers, with two separate 4-core processors. Mac OS can actually handle all those processing cores, unlike Windows.

By: Daniele

Daniele — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 18:04:58 +0000

You’re confusing “Macs” with “iPhones”, you know. And even then, that’s not the truth. *sighs* Ignorant people.

By: Spasysheep

Spasysheep — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 18:20:25 +0000

I know loads of people that use linux as desktop PCs – me, my dad, a couple of friends whose PCs i helped to set up, and a lot of people who I’ve met through various computer-related things. Linux has got a lot more user friendly recently, especially Ubuntu – the friends whose PCs I set up know next to nothing about computers and they use it just as easily as they would windows, and absolutely love the speed / simplicity of it. However, it is not good for games, as it does not natively run software designed for windows, and very few companies design commercial games for linux (there are ways to run windows software on linux, such as wine / cedega, but these very rarely work for running full 3d games)

By: David

David — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 22:03:16 +0000

Well, how many people do you know that use Linuxes as PC’s? I’ve never actually seen a Linux, probably because people don’t buy them for home use due to the fact that they are not the most user friendly. Don’t get me wrong, Linuxes are fine computers for businesses and all, but when you’re buying gaming software, they don’t even put on the specs for Linux.

I’m probably making a glaringly obvious mistake here that I don’t know about.

By: Borgus

Borgus — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 05:17:47 +0000

Flame wars!!!

By: Snow_Cat

Snow_Cat — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 01:29:24 +0000

Stable? Have you ever tried running network of Mac’s?

I’ve been IT for a decade now, and trust me when I say this:
they won’t do concurrency.

By: qwondre

qwondre — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 04:45:35 +0000

And nvidea cards………..

By: glorybe

glorybe — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 03:02:33 +0000

I have run Linux systems for about 13 years at this point. They tend to be so stable that it is beyond all reason to expect greater stability. There are major Linux computer systems that run for years without a reboot.

By: Hoagie

Hoagie — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 00:19:34 +0000

Nerd Alert!

By: corey

corey — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 23:12:44 +0000

There’s still that whole PE/ELF difference that you’re not accounting for…

By: Spasyshep

Spasyshep — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 22:52:14 +0000

*84 year old grandma

By: Spasyshep

Spasyshep — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 22:51:11 +0000

What linux are you using then? Cos Ubuntu 9.10 is simple enough that anyone with some basic computer experience should be able to find their way around it well enough to surf the web etc, and Linux Mint (Ubuntu derivative) is so simple that my 84 year old uses it more easily than she does Windows.

By: Spasyshep

Spasyshep — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 22:48:19 +0000

Ubuntu 9.10 – Stable, virus-free, very small disk impact, customized to the point that even seasoned ubuntards don’t always recognise it instantly. Set up took 2 hours max from inserting CD to finishing customization Used for everything except gaming, never needed anti virus / firewall etc. Looks pretty even customized, and runs on very low-spec hardware. Admittedly, a year ago this wasn’t the case, but that just shows that it’s improving at a far greater rate than windows or OSX

Windows XP – Relatively stable, medium disk impact (ignoring games), left as vanilla install because the only thing changeable is the theme and the default one is fine. Set up took a couple of days from inserting CD to firing up half-life, still have problems with buggy drivers etc occasionally. Used only for gaming, have anti virus, firewall etc and they’re needed even though I rarely start any program except games on it. Windows Vista makes me want to kill myself, but first impressions of windows 7 are good.

Mac OSX – Avoided wherever possible, because like all apple products, once you start using it, it’s very difficult to transfer anything across to competitors products (My dad once spent several weeks trying to get an old G3 to act as a music streaming / file server for our predominantly windows home network) Seems stable, but locks you into Mr. Jobs’ fascist regimen. Doesn’t seem very customizable, but seems perfect for someone who wants a computer that ‘Just Works’. Very little software available that isn’t apple-made.

I look forward to the day when game developers start to take linux seriously

By: Jack

Jack — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 18:45:54 +0000

Windows 7.

By: b

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 03:06:15 +0000

Only if you are using an inferior modem that relies on proprietary software that wasn’t designed with anything but Windows in mind… most people buy their computers with windows already installed, usually with a disk image specially made for that particular hardware. If you were to buy a computer with a good distribution of GNU/Linux already installed with all of the kinks worked out for you it would be a similar experience as with your first time using a mac or Windows machine. People always say that Linux is hard to install, and thats why it sucks…. but INSTALLING ANY operating system on a computer sucks. Most GNU/Linux installs go really painlessly, just as they do in Windows. But sometimes they really suck, just like they do with Windows.

By: Awesomeness

Awesomeness — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:17:18 +0000

Win!

By: Matt

Matt — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:16:19 +0000

Oh be quiet, Nazi

By: Awesomeness

Awesomeness — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:09:50 +0000

Kids these days, y’all crack me up. You’re so defensive of your respective operating systems.

Why are you threatened by the other OS that you consider inferior? Why must you defend it? If you truly believe you’re using the best OS, just shut your mouth and let the idiots enjoy their poor choice… you guys need to get laid more often or something.

…. patiently waiting for Godwin’s law to kick in.

By: Dan Dart

Dan Dart — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 20:56:23 +0000

Wrong way round. Macs aren’t as customisable, Windows isn’t user friendly and some Linuxes aren’t stable (oh god the kernel is really unstable)

Remember the definition of stable though – stays the same. Windows fits that. It stays the same for years and years.

By: Eric

Eric — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 18:35:55 +0000

no because if computers were ponies then they’d suck at graph making

By: deuce

deuce — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:52:00 +0000

Every OS is good for something different, my opinion is that all the Operating Systems are based on is which one you started learning on. Im willing to bet that most of the people who say Linux is hard to use, grew up on Mac or Windows, likewise for all the other people that say Windows or Mac is hard to use, started using Linux first. I say you swallow your pride, grow some balls, and admit that your OS may not be the best in the world. Thats just your opinion. I prefer windows because thats what i started learning on, that doesnt mean that Linux or Mac is worse, it just means thats what im more competent on.