Macintosh Vs Windows

[SlimPickins]

+1 for Linux! It's WAY better than it used to be for noobs, but that's still not the point. It's a free, stable system for anyone that knows what they're doing and will rape Vista or Seven in performance. These advantages, however, come at the cost of knowing what you're doing. It's an elite OS that isn't meant for the mainstream. Real Linux users don't care about that anyway.

Also, if you've had a bad experience with Linux and all you've tried is Ubuntu, then you need to try a "real" distro. All of the consequences of trying to mainstream a hacker OS are present in this distro, so I highly recommend trying pure Debian (the distro that Ubuntu is based on), Fedora, or Arch. Arch, especially... it will put your balls back in your own hands... for better or for worse....

 - Pickins

[Lurker]

+1 for Linux! It's WAY better than it used to be for noobs, but that's still not the point. It's a free, stable system for anyone that knows what they're doing and will rape Vista or Seven in performance. These advantages, however, come at the cost of knowing what you're doing. It's an elite OS that isn't meant for the mainstream. Real Linux users don't care about that anyway.

Also, if you've had a bad experience with Linux and all you've tried is Ubuntu, then you need to try a "real" distro. All of the consequences of trying to mainstream a hacker OS are present in this distro, so I highly recommend trying pure Debian (the distro that Ubuntu is based on), Fedora, or Arch. Arch, especially... it will put your balls back in your own hands... for better or for worse....

 - Pickins

Real linux users use LFS.

There is absolutely /nothing/ wrong with Ubuntu. It /is/ a real distro. If I wanted to, I could use just terminal to do things, coupled with Elinks for a browser and finch for IM. If I wanted to, I could manually delete synaptics, and the repository managers and just compile everything by hand. And what are you talking about with "Stable"? It's only stable if you have the right hardware. It's a lot better than it used to be, but if you still accidentally get the wrong hardware you are royally screwed. And who said "hacker OS"? And sure Ubuntu is the biggest, but then wouldn't you say Fedora/RedHat and openSUSE/SUSE have been trying to "mainstream? linux for years? =\

[SlimPickins]

Oh, I sure do love Linux battles! I flame Ubuntu mainly because of the WAY non-vanila packages. Being a "real" distro is subjective, especially when you consider they steal Debian unstable code every 6 months and start from there. If there was no Debian, there would be no Ubuntu. The same can't be said for Red Hat or Suse. From a desktop user's standpoint, the "out of the box" installation is bloated with a bunch of crap I don't understand. I'm more of a server guy, so I don't understand the following: Running UrT in Ubuntu has major FPS lag as the SAME kernel version and SAME nvidia drivers as an Fedora or even pure Debian (which Ubuntu is based on). I haven't bothered wasting my time with figuring it out, as every other distro (that I've tried) runs it fine... so I just use something else.

Red Hat and Suse have surely been trying to mainstream Linux, but in the server market, not the desktop market. And, speaking from 6 years of experience supporting it in the IT world, they are both doing just fine with it. Regarding the "stable" comment, that's just from experience. Linux (and any Unix based OS for that matter) is way simpler to roll back changes from than, say, Windows Server. I can't count the number of times that a .NET upgrade has completely f'd up web apps in IIS in Windows, leaving me with complicated registry hacks and other overly-complicated things. In Linux, everything is a FILE. If I update a config file or install a new version of some lib and something dies, I just copy back (I make backups of course) the old files and everything is magically working again while I figure out the problem.

Again, my opinions are based on experience, both personal and professional. And I stress the word "opinions".

 - Pickins

[SnKCoffeeBlacks]

windows 7 ftw,

I'm a 22 year old, old man. I used to mess with my computer constantly. But, now all I want is for something to work, the easiest way possible. Not that I'm using system restore or anything like that ... yet.

[Lurker]

Oh, I sure do love Linux battles! I flame Ubuntu mainly because of the WAY non-vanila packages. Being a "real" distro is subjective, especially when you consider they steal Debian unstable code every 6 months and start from there. If there was no Debian, there would be no Ubuntu. The same can't be said for Red Hat or Suse. From a desktop user's standpoint, the "out of the box" installation is bloated with a bunch of crap I don't understand. I'm more of a server guy, so I don't understand the following: Running UrT in Ubuntu has major FPS lag as the SAME kernel version and SAME nvidia drivers as an Fedora or even pure Debian (which Ubuntu is based on). I haven't bothered wasting my time with figuring it out, as every other distro (that I've tried) runs it fine... so I just use something else.

Red Hat and Suse have surely been trying to mainstream Linux, but in the server market, not the desktop market. And, speaking from 6 years of experience supporting it in the IT world, they are both doing just fine with it. Regarding the "stable" comment, that's just from experience. Linux (and any Unix based OS for that matter) is way simpler to roll back changes from than, say, Windows Server. I can't count the number of times that a .NET upgrade has completely f'd up web apps in IIS in Windows, leaving me with complicated registry hacks and other overly-complicated things. In Linux, everything is a FILE. If I update a config file or install a new version of some lib and something dies, I just copy back (I make backups of course) the old files and everything is magically working again while I figure out the problem.

Again, my opinions are based on experience, both personal and professional. And I stress the word "opinions".

 - Pickins

Meh. I stick to Ubuntu rather than Debian because I'd use stable and I heard that anything that makes stable for Debian takes a really long time and Ubuntu release cycles seem shorter. But you know, we can just say "if there was no UNIX there would be no OS". So why don't we all go back and use BSD?

And yeah I noticed the Urban Terror+Ubuntu performance. I've been thinking of picking another one. I couldn't get sourcemage up and running. Couldn't figure out my wireless card.

[Pyrite[1up]]

+1 for Linux! It's WAY better than it used to be for noobs, but that's still not the point. It's a free, stable system for anyone that knows what they're doing and will rape Vista or Seven in performance. These advantages, however, come at the cost of knowing what you're doing. It's an elite OS that isn't meant for the mainstream. Real Linux users don't care about that anyway.

Also, if you've had a bad experience with Linux and all you've tried is Ubuntu, then you need to try a "real" distro. All of the consequences of trying to mainstream a hacker OS are present in this distro, so I highly recommend trying pure Debian (the distro that Ubuntu is based on), Fedora, or Arch. Arch, especially... it will put your balls back in your own hands... for better or for worse....

 - Pickins

heh, I recently, after 14 years of using Slackware, switched one of my servers to Arch.

[ojacker]

I am a multiuser I love windows for its compatibility, mac for its being user friendly, and linux for its ability to go back to basics. I love video editing so for that, mac. as a gamer, windows. as the kid of an exprogramer/exhacker/webdesigner, linux. all I can say is like all software, it depends on the use. as allways. peace (-<)

[KD197]

I'll throw my 2 cents in here...
Windows - good if you play a lot of games or if you wanna/have to buy prebuilt. Needs antivirus etc.
Mac - design is nice, I've heard good things about customer service, immensely overpriced.
Linux - it's free, viruses in theory should never do much damage as unless you're in single-user mode, stuff can't run as root.

Best option for me is custom build + Arch Linux. Too much bloatware around these days with fancy desktop cubes, wobbly windows and other absolute junk that slows your system down and does nothing for productivity. Even graphical login managers... Logging in from a tty and tiling window managers FTW.

And yes, Linux is way better than it used to be for noobs. Problem is, Ubuntu further lowers that bar and you get the blind leading the dumb. IE: "rm -rf is the powerful command to remove files" which you see in every "This year is the year of the Linux desktop" article that some self-proclaimed tech guru has written when they "discover" Linux, or usually Ubuntu in particular.
Also, I'm on Pickin's side in terms of Ubuntu not being a "real" distro, because of the same reasons - Debian base.
And Lurker, don't use Ubuntu due to shorter release cycles - all that's happening is Canonical set themselves up for failures every 6 months. The time between Debian releases is longer for a reason. I used to use Ubuntu and I've never had a version change go smoothly. They should release when it's ready, especially as a lot of their users are inexperienced with Linux.
And as for manually deleting stuff on Ubuntu... kinda pointless. You can't remove anything major without it wanting to remove the core system. Dependencies in Ubuntu are insane. You might as well use Arch if that's the kind of thing you're after.

tl;dr use what you like, use what you can afford. It Works For Me™


... the difference being while all you Windows, Mac, and fake distro users are still watching your loading bars scroll by I'm already in UrT  (sorry, couldn't resist  )

[Lurker]

Mac is good for prebuilt too. It's not immensely overpriced, just a few hundred dollars for same hardware. Also needs antivirus.

Linux has no known viruses in the wild.

If you're concerned about bloatware, then just change your DE. Ubuntu+Xmonad works fine. Even better yet, do a minimum install of Ubuntu. If you want to use Ubuntu and have it work 100% of the time, take their release date, and add four months to it before you start using it. By then, they should have fixed all the errors they weren't aware of.

Most of what you said is really opinionated.

Hell, if you want true lightweight go for LFS. 'Nuff said.

[KD197]

Oh yeah sorry the Mac thing I just kinda assumed would apply to prebuilt too.
A couple of hundred dollars is a lotta money to some people! Maybe "immensely" is a bit strong tho
You're a tiling wm user? Internet high five!
Hmm seems like what I said came off wrong, I didn't mean to appear to be slagging off Ubuntu or anything, I just think it's slightly irresponsible to set release dates in stone when dealing with something like GNU/Linux which overall is developed by tens of thousands of people independently; there's gonna be big issues arising at somepoint and you can't just ignore them to meet a deadline. The fact that you say to take Ubuntu's release cycle and add 4 months is proof that the strict 6-month cycle isn't exactly beneficial.

On a side note, they've done a very good job on boot speeds with the latest release; I checked with bootchart on identical hardware to my 14s arch machine, and Ubuntu 10.04 posted just a fraction under 17s. It *is* using readahead and upstart (which my arch box isn't) but the sheer number of services and daemons they get up and running in that time is incredible.

[Lurker]

Immensely over priced is way too strong. A couple hundred dollars is not a lot of money for people who afford the kind of hardware Macs have--even if you buy the Non-Mac counterpart. Someone who only has enough money to buy a $300 dollar laptop is not going to get the same performance as someone who just bought a Macbook Pro, or a similar Non-Mac counterpart.

And here's the thing about deadlines:

Deadlines encourage productivity. Without a deadline, people could be trying to revamp a feature but find something else more interesting. Then, they might work on adding a new feature instead of fixing an old one. I believe GNOME is also on a 6 month release cycle. Yet, GNOME is still one of the most widely used desktop environments today. Of course, the downside to deadlines is unfinished and unrefined products. However, Ubuntu does not force you to keep a 6 month upgrade cycle. If you disapprove of the 6 month release cycle, you could always stick to the *.10 releases. Or, better yet you could use only LTS releases, because they make darn sure LTS releases are stable.

[LolKitty]

Windows win suck it =)

[Lurker]

Windows win suck it =)

Naw, I would never use a Windows server. EVER