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What is your main OS (operating system) at home?

What is your main OS (operating system) at home?


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    523

jhaider

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The short answer for me is the original G4 (“Titanium”) PowerBook. It was everything pc laptops were not - elegant, sleek, satisfying to touch, and just…impressive.


Then OSX came out and by Tiger was so much more reliable than any windows iteration. (I still suffer through windows at work)

I started in smartphones with Palm - an original PalmOS model then a Pre with what Is now LG’s TV OS. Unfortunately I had a detour with Android because Palm had no apps and my sweetheart deal phone plan (Sprint for a time opened up their employee plan to anyone, which was $30/mo and included a biannual phone purchase subsidy) wasn’t ready for modern phones. There was little I liked about that phone (HTC One i think). When Sprint got iPhone the switch was a no brainer. Just so much better.
 
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killdozzer

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WIN10 and I hate it. If you have any suggestions, I'm open to hear them. My NAS is Linux and I'm starting to consider that OS as my main. But I go berserk about compatibility issues so I don't know should I.
 

Ralph_Cramden

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Chrome OS / Linux on the ChromeBox, Raspberry Pi OS and TinyCore OS on the Pi's.
 

q3cpma

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I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're referring to as Linux,
is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux.
Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component
of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell
utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.

Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day,
without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU
which is widely used today is often called "Linux", and many of its users are
not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project.

There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a
part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system
that allocates the machine's resources to the other programs that you run.
The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself;
it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is
normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system
is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called "Linux"
distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux.
 

Berwhale

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Main OS (as in it's installed on the PC I am typing this on) is Windows 11.

Other OSes in the house are:

Windows 10 (other desktops and laptops)
Windows Server 2019 (server)
Android 11.00 (phones)
Android 10.0 (phones)
Android 9.0 (tablets and Nvidia Shields)
Synology DSM 7.0 (NAS)
Synology DSM 6.2 (virtual NASes)
Chrome OS (Chromebooks)
Linux (various VMs and RaspberryPi)

That's it without going into things like Tizen and WebOS running on TVs or specialized OSes running on Xbox, Switch, Wii, etc.
 

Beershaun

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My house is a heterogeneous environment and more like a fabric of devices and operating systems that interoperate depending on the uses. For the purposes of this poll I'm using my main personal computer that acts as the house media server, backup system, and home network controller. It's a 2010 Mac pro which was a hand me down from my wife who is a graphic designer. And Mac is her preferred os.
 

Budgeter

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I use Windows at work but Linux at home. Simply because Linux is moneyarily free and use less resource. My laptop performance increases about 20% after switching to Ubuntu (currently 21.10), even in games.

Admittedly, its compatibility up till now is still sort of PITA, but acceptable.
 

pozz

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Gaming and utilities that were developed for Windows got me started.

I had a Mac in the 90s, which was nice, but also the only computer that crashed and forced restart when I bumped my table.
 

Tom C

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Do most surfing and forum posting vis iOS on iPad
Wife uses and seems to like macOS on desktop. Don’t think she cares much either way.
Used Win7 specifically because it was deprecated and no longer had to suffer updates. Mother board died, and BIOS on replacement refused to recognize or load Win7. Forced into Win10, found online how to disable updates, so now not as unhappy with it. I find Windows functionality terribly frustrating, but I know it better than the alternatives. And ASIO drivers are usually available for my DAC’s. Sometimes I have trouble running DAC’s from iOS, and I have one that refuses to run at all on iOS, but is fine on ASIO in Windows.
Also use Raspbian on RPi. I think all the competing systems helps keep any particular one from getting out of control and taking over the world.
 

shal

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I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're referring to as Linux,
is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux.
Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component
of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell
utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.

Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day,
without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU
which is widely used today is often called "Linux", and many of its users are
not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project.

There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a
part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system
that allocates the machine's resources to the other programs that you run.
The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself;
it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is
normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system
is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called "Linux"
distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux.

As linux user since 1998 I am totally disagree :p
This position(GNU/Linux) is a ideologist position :
 

Killingbeans

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I've used Ubuntu and Linux Mint for a number of years, but now I'm back to Windows.

I did toy around a bit with virtual machines and dual-booting to circumvent the most pesky compatibility issues, but threw in the towel in the end.

Now that Windows tells me I can't update to 11, because my CPU is "outdated", I'd might try Linux again. The fact that I apparently should be able to install Windows 11 from scratch without problems is enough to give my middle finger an urge to stand out in the crowd.
 

MRC01

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I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux.
... All the so-called "Linux" distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux.
You sound like Richard Stallman :) (of course what you say is true)
I've been running Linux (a mix of Ubuntu & CentOS) for the past 10 years or so on all my machines, both at home and at work.
I am surprised to see such a big % of Linux users here at ASR. Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised; it illustrates the sample bias of a bunch of engineers.
BTW, if you're running Linux on a laptop, make sure to install TLP. It typically increases battery life by 2x or more. And is easily customizable so you can define your own balance of battery life and performance.
 
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antcollinet

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I was after a windows ultrabook in 2013. I was flying for work through Manchester airport and went into the the airport currys (or dixons or similar) to ask about them.

He told me that wasn't what I wanted - and showed me a macbook air. He demonstrated it starting up in about 20seconds. Then selected all the applications and opened them all at once. They all opened in about about 10 seconds, and then he shut them all down using CMD-Q in about another 10s.

I was sold. (But then bought it 6 months later direct from Apple)

I've used macos ever since, currently on a tricked out hackintosh - though I still have the 2013 air - and it still runs as smoothly as it ever did.
 

bluefuzz

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I run MacOS, iPadOS, iOS and tvOS for most daily computering and entertainment coz' they (mostly) just work. But I have a couple of machines running Windows 10 and 11 and an old ThinkPad running Manjaro Linux (yes Linux not GNU/Linux - only Richard Stallman fanbois and pedants insist on calling it GNU/Linux) plus an assortment of headless devices running various other flavours of Linux. I'm equally comfortable on pretty much any OS but I prefer to stay away from anything running Android if possible and Windows rarely gets a lot of use, although Windows 11 does actually look relatively promising.
 
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