The OS Thread

[Blitzzoshi]

Because this forum doesn't have enough computer science. The abbreviation OS actually refers to multiple things, so this topic is about operating systems, not necessarily open source. Also, because some OSes (especially the Unices) can handle many different environments (graphical or not), that material is also open for discussion.

Right now my favorite is Arch Linux with the latest KDE SC release as my desktop environment. The KDE project has progressed very nicely through the 4 series, and each new release has continuously refined the experience. RC1 of KDE SC 4.5 is coming out in two days. Woo.

Desktop right now looks like this. It cycles through 88 different wallpapers. You can see a bit more in that folder digging I did for screenshot purposes. But what I really need are good video drivers, so I'm sorta looking into getting nVidia for my next system.

So... what kinds of environments are other people using?

[Fluory]

Windows Vista. Feel free to criticize.

[Rainbow Yoshi]

Hey, I use Windows Vista too. It's pretty good, I think. I've never had a problem with it or anything.

My parents' computer has Windows 7 on it, and I don't like it that much.

[Misphinxterator]

64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium
64-bit Arch Linux
Windows Vista Home Premium
And I think I have OpenBSD on one of the computers.

Yeah.

gnome-shell is awesome by the way. You've got to try it out, Blitzzo.

[emvee]

Windows XP SP2
OSX Tiger 10.4.11

Would also have Xubuntu, but I like being able to play my Steam games, and my video card isn't Linux friendly.

[Misphinxterator]

Steam is going to Linux soon, so that may change in the future.

I forgot to mention, I do have an OpenBSD machine. I set one up for my parents.

[Moot]

Vista SP2, and I've had essentially no problems with it. I've tried using various flavours of Lunix, but it always felt an extremely long way away from being a proper desktop replacement. Then again, the last time I seriously used it was back on Fedora 5, so things have probably changed by now. I keep threatening to burn some LiveCDs but I never end up getting around to it.

[Enrique]

I use Windows 7 for my main computer functioning these days. I used to use various versions of Ubuntu Linux with my old laptop because I didn't want anything to do with Vista at the time. When I got this computer, I decided to keep Windows so I can use MS Office again - OpenOffice is good enough but there are still compatibility problems with .doc files that are annoying - and maybe even the occasional game that I can happily chug my quad-core processor with.

I've also been experimenting with Red-Hat based Linux distros in virtual machines because eventually I'm going to need this machine to run models and whatnot that run primarily, if not only, on Linux.

[Zyph]

Currently Used:
Windows 7 64-bit Ultimate Edition
Windows 7 32-bit Ultimate Edition
Windows Vista SP2 64-bit Ultimate Edition
Windows Vista SP2 32-bit Ultimate Edition
Windows X.P SP3 Professional Edition

Mac OS X 10.5.8

Ubuntu 10.04 Desktop Edition
Kubuntu 10.04 Desktop Edition

Past Used:
Windows 95
Windows 98
Windows 2000
Windows ME (Millennium Edition)

Mac OS X 10.4.11

Ubuntu from 4.10 to 9.10
Kubuntu from 7.04 to 9.10
Red Hat
openSUSE
PC Linux OS

Solaris

I have a lot of computers, many of them having more than one OS installed in them.

[Pyruvate]

I am using Windows 7 right now. I've used Linux for some time.

[Matoking]

I still have Windows Vista Home Premium at the moment, should probably update to Windows 7.

[Misphinxterator]

Jun 24, 2010 16:00:37 GMT -5 Zyph said:

Currently Used:
Windows 7 64-bit Ultimate Edition
Windows 7 32-bit Ultimate Edition
Windows Vista SP2 64-bit Ultimate Edition
Windows Vista SP2 32-bit Ultimate Edition
Windows X.P SP3 Professional Edition

Mac OS X 10.5.8

Ubuntu 10.04 Desktop Edition
Kubuntu 10.04 Desktop Edition

Past Used:
Windows 95
Windows 98
Windows 2000
Windows ME (Millennium Edition)

Mac OS X 10.4.11

Ubuntu from 4.10 to 9.10
Kubuntu from 7.04 to 9.10
Red Hat
openSUSE
PC Linux OS

Solaris

I have a lot of computers, many of them having more than one OS installed in them.

Have you ever tried Arch Linux, Zyph? Or FreeBSD?

[Teal]

My computers use...
Laptop: Windows Vista Business
Netbook: Windows (LEVEL UP ! !) Enterprise

(Erm...for some reason LEVEL UP ! ! appears when I type "LEVEL UP ! !")

[Misphinxterator]

It's the word filter.

LEVEL UP ! ! TRIPLE BONUS MULTIPLIER ! !

[Elemental Ninja]

I use windows LEVEL UP ! !
no complaints here
(other than being slow)

[Matoking]

Uhh, the LEVEL UP ! ! gets replaced by a word filter?

Really, what's the point, sure, profanity is an other thing but things like these are plain useless, annoying if anything.

[afroomdoom]

OSX (mac) 13 in, windows 7 installed.
and a normal windows 7.

[Moot]

Jul 17, 2010 15:47:56 GMT -5 Matoking said:

Uhh, the LEVEL UP ! ! gets replaced by a word filter?

Really, what's the point, sure, profanity is an other thing but things like these are plain useless, annoying if anything.

You haven't seen some of the more interesting ones.

[PinkFloydYoshi]

On the main box, Windows 7 Ultimate (Yes I forked out for an Ultimate licence)
On the Mac Mini, OS X Snow Leopard
On a spare server, openSuSE 11.3

On the physical servers...
On server 1 & 2, Citrix XenServer 5.5 (Pool config for Hot Migration)
On server 3, OpenFiler (Storage for Citrix XenServer hosts)
On server 4, Microsoft HyperV.

The virtual servers on the XenServer hosts are primarily a custom spin of Arch Linux, but also use Windows Server 2008 R2 and openSuSE 11.2 and host my own internal Arch Linux mirror so I can approve and reject updates as and when tested (For the reason behind rejecting an update, a recent one defaulted my MySQL configuration and had to restore from a backup which was lovely because this broke the syslog daemon (I replace the default syslog daemon with RSyslog as one of the first things I do to enable logging to MySQL) too. Also, one broke PHP 5 too.).

[Blitzzoshi]

Alright, pretty much set up camp on my new system. It dual-boots between Arch Linux (with KDEmod, for KDE SC 4.4 as the desktop environment, and 4.5 is coming out soon, and being on Arch Linux, I'll get to upgrade to that pretty quickly) and Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit.

nVidia's Linux drivers are amazing. While they aren't perfect (a few bugs here and there), they outdo just about any other video driver on Linux, as they implement most of the stuff they actually advertise for their cards, and do it well, and the drivers simply "work".

Jojora, I might try Gnome 3.0 at some point, but their current user model and technology are such a huge turn-off for me that I doubt I'll be able to commit to their desktop environment anytime soon. I have seen a few shots of Gnome 3.0 in action. Gnome Shell does not impress. However, I do like that they switched to the same style of settings manager that KDE SC 4 and OS X use (something Windows still hasn't done - yet all they need to do is take the "All Control Panel Items" view and divide it into categories so that I can actually find the stuff I want). It is, however, another question entirely as to whether they have fixed all (or any) of the annoyances that plagued Gnome/GTK 2, such as the horrible file open/save dialog, and lack of system integration and component reuse; KDE has the KPart system which is amazing - reuse the same text editor component in, say, a programming IDE, or use Plasma - yes, the technology driving the KDE SC 4 desktop shell - for a dashboard in PIM suites... and Gnome only has libbonobo, which was only used for inserting objects inside of documents and has been "deprecated" for some unknown reason.