QotD: OS Preference
Windows, Mac, Linux - What's your preference and why?
Submitted by ramblingsbymark.
To be honest I don't have a favourite operating system, but if pushed it would be something strange like VMS. For the day job we develop software for customers based around Windows so tend to use Windows (2000 and XP) to develop on.
Recently, when my home Windows 98 machine and Windows ME laptop were no longer being supported by Microsoft, and when I found out the cost to upgrade to XP, I decided to look at open source solutions. When I sat down and though about it there was nothing that I was using on Windows that could not run under Linux. I have to say that my main concern was working with documents, but Open Office 2 is more than usable, it is actually a pleasure to use.
In the end I had to bite the bullet and pay for XP for one machine as some of my pet projects require Windows, but the laptop is currently running Xubuntu, a small footprint version of Ubuntu Linux. I original played with Open Suse, Ubuntu, Edubuntu, and Fedora but that all struggled with only 128MB RAM. My favourites were Ubuntu and Open Suse.
It is early days, but Xubuntu is running well, better that ME in fact, and with Open Office and FireFox installed it has everything I need. The latest release (6.10) supports all the laptop hardware, including the modem, and is a pleasure to use. My only small gripe is that it is a hassle to access the Windows 2003 network in Xubuntu (unlike Unbuntu), but I can line with that for now as it is just a few more key strokes to do.