Which Operating system are you using? (poll)

[Don. Edwards]

Well I for one have tried a few versions of Linux and have come away with very cold feelings for it. I still feel the major flaw with Linux is ease of use. I know some of you will say it is easy to use but lets face the facts here.
#1. If I download a windoz app I can isnstall it it right off the bat. Now there are Linux programs like this for Linux as well but most everything has to be compiled for the various flavors of Linux and thats its major down-fall.
#2. Simplicity of interface. The GUI is just as fragmented as the builds. Know one wants to lock in on one interface as the defacto default and they still insist on using X-windows as a base. Come on Linux world someone somewhere has to build an entirely new graphics engine for Linux and dump this dinasaur. At this time there are 2 GUIs fighting for this posision in the Linux world. I know the whole idea is to make it the choice of the user but sometimes to much choice is a bad thing and can cause problems. I think this is the main reason Steve Jobs killed off the built in themes project for Mac OS 8.5 when he came back to Apple. He wanted a single user interface in one flavor to keep the product streamlined. I don't necessarily agree with that idea but its what happened.
#3. And what I feel is the biggest hurdle for Linux is software. Sure Linux has its own MS Office clones and it has GIMP. But all the other software out there including a huge games software library is for Windoz only. I can't see the software companies spending millions to port all that software over to a OS that has only maybe at best and the best cercumstances maybe 8% market share.
#4. And last but least is convincing use the comsumer to pay for a Linux version when there are free versions available. I know I wouldn't pay a dime for an operating system that didn't have at least a decent volume of software to go along with it. And that means software thats ready to go right from purchase or download and doesn't have to be compiled for one version or the next. Another great paralel to this was Mac OS X. Its adoption has sped up because now there is a nice size software library to go with it and there is the fallback of use Clasic mode for the older ones. At the present time Linux can't offer anything like like for a Windoz user unless they go to an emulator on the side for those windoz apps. And that getts into a whole other kettle of beans we won't go into.
So in all I think Linux has a lot of growing up to do. The one operating system that I think had a decent chance of success was BeOS. It had a great GUI. It was icredibly easy to install and use. It had a growing software library and downloaded apps for the most part didn't have to be compiled. Don't get me wrong there were a few apps that had to compiled but most did not. If Linux could be molded into a clone of BeOS and marketed right with maybe some built in ability to run windows software if you have a licenced copy of windows on antoher partition and the API calls could be passed back and forth between the OSs I think you would finaly see the posible fall of Windoz as the beast it has become.
I have no love of Microsoft and Windows but I use it because I want compatibility and ease use. As of this writting my favorite OS is still Mac OS X. But I will not play into Apples game of hardware premature obsolences anymore. So when I use Mac OS X I use it on an old PowerMac 9500 with a G3 upgrade. This of course means I can't use Celestia on it because there is no OpenGL support for my video card. My next favorite OS is the earlier mensioned BeOS. Though I no longer have it installed, I still think it was probably the most elegant operating system made for the PC alonside the Classic Mac OS. I would have to put Windows XP as my third choice. I may have to use it but I have totaly changed the interface to what I want it to look and feel like and how it behaves. If you saw my computer you would never know that its Windows XP. It looks like another OS completely.
When I can do these things and run a massive library of software thats been nativly ported to Linux thats the day I will jump on the Linux bandwagon and not a moment sooner. Just my opinion of course, but I feel its a realistic one in the long run and I feel many people feel the same way.

And to billybob884,
If you would have just said something along the line like Windows XP costs to much and I don't want to give Microsoft anymore of my hard earned cash I would have stood behind you 100%. But instead you complained about nonissues in Windows XP.
This is just my aditional 2 cents thrown in.
Don

[rickindy]

Since I started this with a regular post, I feel like I should contribute my two cents worth.
I am currently using XP after a complete reinstall. The reinstall became necessary after Photoshop wouldn't start and after several PS reinstalls and a couple of XP reinstalls.
The only real reason I was sticking with Windows was because of PS, so I thought I might as well install Mandrake on a dual boot and see how things went. I'm doing the Mandrake install tonight, so I'll let you know. Any Celestia/Mandrake tips would be appreciated.
BTW the XP reinstall went far better than I had ever hoped. It was about an hour and a half after I started that I had net access and a functional system. This included time to repartition and format the drive. I was impressed.
I have used Gimp, so I know what I'm in for as far as weaning myself off Photoshop is concerned.
On an unrelated note. We really should have an FAQ for those people like me who are going to be installing Celestia on Linux.

[krokus]

Well, I'm trying to build Celestia on a FreeBSD 4.7 machine.....just the time to learn more about this OS and I think it will be a joke. No problem with my GeForce 4200, due to the excellent FreeBSD driver provided by nVidia!
I have choosed FreeBSD just because with its centralized development, usually you don't need to compile everything, just pick the binaries and run....

[Sum0]

Certainly, there are things that you can do in Linux that are impossible, or really really hard, to do in Windows.
But the problem is - 1) It's hard to find out what you need to do in Linux to get something done, while in Windows everything is generally nicely laid out. and 2), as a user who surfs the web, plays games, and occasionally does graphics or types stuff, I don't really need to do any of the extra features Linux can offer. Perhaps for businesses Linux is a good idea, but not really useful for home users.
Maybe if they got rid of all the weird names (KCron? CUPS?XFce? CPAN?), put all the configuration in one place and understandable, and removed the heavy reliance on having the user learn about a hundred console commands to do anything, it might become more popular.

[bryanc]

I've been using computers since the late '60s and have
fairly extensive experience with a signficant variety of
OSs.

For the past couple of decades, I was using various
flavors of windows, and dual-booting into some version
of Linux when I wanted to hack. As much as I hoped
Linux would mature into a desktop system for everyone,
(and it may still do so), that hadn't happened by the time
OS X came out for the mac.

Now I have a mac, and an OS that is everything I ever
hoped Linux would be.

Cheers