Windows vs Linux vs OSX

[KevinP]

I am already certain of what the outcome will be was this is a gaming community and only one of the operating systems listed are known for supporting pretty much every game, but I'm interested to see who prefers other operating systems...

 

[adster mc]

Android

 

[bobby]

Windows for gaming, leading in industry 

Linux for developers, open source, good customisability 

Mac OSX for a mixture of both, good optimisation of hardware IF on a apple machine (have to only optimise specific hardware compared to multiple brands)

 

[Tadworth]

You know I'm torn between Windows and OSX at the moment, never really dug my fingers into Linux personally.

I really enjoy using my OSX due to its superior (imo) GUI, I love the interface and as a designer it pleases me much more than Windows' does. The user experience on OSX is also much better as far as I have noticed. Updates to OSX come in a much better format and allow you to set when they will be done, when you want to download them etc and will even give you a notification telling you that the newest version is out, as far as I can tell my Windows machine has never done this for me. The best feature I have found however is the ability to use bootcamp and install any OS that you want, for example my mac has Windows and OSX on it, meaning I can do literally anything I would like.

However there are obviously drawbacks, my PC and most Windows laptops are much better for upgradeability than my Macbook. Also the obvious price point of Macs is massively higher than it would be if you custom built a laptop / bought the parts online, this coupled with the mass of options for custom built machines peeks me more towards Windows considering I don't like the idea of "Hackintosh's".

Overall I prefer Windows because it's much more versatile than OSX is, and it also has many more hardware options than a Mac does (atm), but with apple's market share falling and them making less and less profit, who knows what will happen in the next 10 - 20 years?

Phew.

 

[lionel]

Other : Anything But Mac OS  

actually going to expand on that, it was a bit of a misnomer, I will take any OS that is best suited to the task, have a bunch of servers around the house. But for me, the most versatile is windows, but waaay to power hungry and expensive for small mini servers.

 

[Ambers]

One thing that makes me laugh MAC PC users say Windows is expensive OS yet they paying pretty much £1000 pounds for MAC OS when you break down the cost of parts from self built PC to say a Mac Pro.

On side note the guy who made apple did a great job with marketing to get people to believe that a Mac is a Mac and a PC is a PC, They are both PC just one's that use different OS.

 

[Zeito]

On side note the guy who made apple did a great job with marketing to get people to believe that a Mac is a Mac and a PC is a PC, They are both PC just one's that use different OS.

They are now, but for a long time they were not x86 compatible. 

For me, it's Windows hands-down. Versatility and choice are important to me both as a consumer and IT professional. Linux has it's place, particularly in the server market but i dont think it'd be for me personally as a consumer OS. I just can't be assed with all the work it seemingly takes to get anything done on that OS family. I also resent it as here at work all our developers (despite being a windows-domain company) have started deciding they'd like to develop on linux machines, rather than VMs, and for whatever reason just *cant* develop java and web applications on windows. So we give them a computer and leave them to it. We. Dont. Support. Linux. They dont get that concept either.

MacOS, I like it as @CI Joseph Tadworthsaid, the whole human-computer interface of OSX and the design language is excellent. It just feels *nice* to use, but the price of a Mac is just unjustifiable unless you work in a niche creative industry that genuinely benefits from the software families/ethos of the OS X world.

But at the core, i'm all about Microsofts bottom line. Despite not paying for a windows OS since about 2004. DreamSpark was worth the uni fees.

 

[Unlucky George]

MacOS: Editing/Creative

Windows: Gaming/3d modelling

Linux: NAS server (actually FreeBSD).