Very simple, take the poll... beware, your vote will be linked to your username. BeOS/Haiku Fedora (Linux) FreeDOS Mac OS 9 or earlier Mac OS X Leopard or earlier Mac OS X Snow Leopard MS-DOS openSUSE (Linux) OS/2 Solaris/OpenSolaris Ubuntu/Linux Mint (Linux) Windows 3.11 or earlier Windows 95, 98, 98SE, or Me (Millenium Edition) Windows NT 4 or 2000 Windows XP Windows Server 2003/2008 Windows Vista Windows 7 Other Linux/Unix Just thought I'd ambush all you 56k users.
Although I do love me some Fedora and OS X, right now my heart is with Windows 7. Maybe if I had more time with Snow Leopard I might vote that but I haven't tried it yet.
I believe Haiku's first alpha just came out... It's BeOS revived. Yep, check it out! I'll be virtualizing this baby pretty soon.
Yea so far my only problem is a sleep problem, sometimes when I try to wake it back up the screen turns on but it's black. Buttt I know it's a common problem with the RC and it'll be fine with the final release. And Haiku looks pretty badass.
I don't really think there is an absolute best because there's no absolute set of requirements as to what your OS needs to do. If your OS needs to play back a lot of multimedia on really low-end hardware with UI responsiveness a top-priority, you probably can't beat BeOS. (After playing with the Haiku alpha I'm really excited to see where they take that project!) If you need a super-secure operating system for a paranoiac UNIX guy working at the Pentagon, you probably want OpenBSD. And if you just want a dirt-cheap, tolerably-secure fire-and-forget AMP server the standard answer is usually some kind of Linux distribution running with iptables enabled. It's all about the right tool for the right job. They have different strengths and weaknesses.
Probably Leopard for me. I haven't tried Snow Leopard yet and I'm probably not going to get around to pirating it until they've made a few point releases. And I was just answering the poll question : "Which operating system do you consider to be the absolute best at this point?"
XP is still damn solid and fast, using it on my home server since I never took the time to learn Linux. I voted for Windows 7 but if you could pick two it would be 7 and XP. Haven't had a chance to use Leopard or Snow Leopard yet, still haven't got around to installing Snow on my PC.
I love linux, so I voted for ubuntu. It has its share of problems, but at least they are the users fault and not the OS. sometimes installing proper drivers and such can be a pain, but It is definitely worth it for me. The only way I would switch back to windows would be if i had a badass gaming rig, as linux doesnt have the proprietary drivers like direct x to run games.
i don't see why people upgrade their computers. it works so much better when you get really good at what you know.
There's a number of reasons. For one, the software moves on. If you want to use the latest software- which you will at some point, if you're going to be using software for something serious, because people will be expecting you to use that software's file format- you'll want to upgrade. Microsoft's been making a killing doing that for years. "Oh, sorry, I couldn't read that .doc you sent me, it was created using Office 2007 and I only have Office 2003." But then the software itself bloats so you need to go get a hardware upgrade because the system requirements suddenly ballooned. Well, then you take your new hardware home and find out that it isn't supported by your current operating system, so you have to go get Windows Whatever, too. Then if you're a business, you'll want to stay on top of security updates. Software developers only have so much time and can only produce security updates so many releases in the past, so at some point if you want to stay on top of security updates you need to upgrade your software. Or the next release has some new feature you've been wanting, or it fixes some bugs that were bothering you. Basically, the whole computer industry is rigged to keep you coming back because the only way they can continue to make money is if at some point you come back and buy something else from them. Where would the money be in an industry that made it easy for your average user to buy one machine and one operating system and continue to use it for 20 years straight?
honestly windows 95 is great. i miss dos though... at least there are libraries with floppy drives. anyone ever hack a library computer while were on the subject?
i'm just gonna b a dick and say: RISC OS. and why!? windows api compatable, open source. wtf more do you want? go help em out getting it outta alpha though.