What is your favourite OS ?

[Lefteous]

• user friendliness
OS X

• performance/speed
Difficult to say. Old Windows version need less resources to run very fast. But that doesn't make Windows 3.1 the most performant OS on the planet.

• pleasant visual design
OS X

• technical capabilities (i.e. what can / can't I do with this OS?)
I don't think there are major differences that really matter to me

• hardware support
Depends on the hardware, probably it's Windows XP for older hardware and Windows 7 for newer hardware, well as long your hardware runs...

• communication with mobile devices
Windows or OS X

• stability (system crashes/hang ups)
OS X or Linux

• total range of available software compatible with the OS
Windows 7 or Windows XP, not really important as long the required software runs on the OS...

• available freeware
Quantity certainly Windows, in many cases the quality on OS X is better

• do your favourite software applications (e.g. Total Commander) run on this OS?
Total Commander only runs natively on Windows but that isn't the only important software. It's certainly missing on OS X.

• open source?
I don't really care

• friends have the same OS
I don't really care

[roentgen]

2karlchen

Ok, so currently I am the only one preferring Linux (all flavours)

That's a nice surprise. AFAIK you always talk about some W2003 and W2008 servers.

Anyway, I also voted for Linux (Archlinux x64). I manage to do work with it, I find it pleasant at home.

The only downside with it is that when I see that awful cmd.exe from Windows it makes me puke

[karlchen]

Hi, roentgen.

AFAIK you always talk about some W2003 and W2008 servers.

Correct. After all Total Commander is a Windows application. And our office IT landscape is dominated by Microsoft products. This explains why.

Karl

[chrizoo]

5% Amiga OS ... wow
who would have thought ?

[hansg]

The only reason I haven't switched on desktops completely to Linux is the missing TC+plug-ins support.

This is serious: I'm using various Linux distros since ages, but I'm still not as fast and productive as with TC.

The TC clones on Linux are not as fast, snappy and feature rich (thanks to the plug-ins) as TC, and it seems they will never be .

[Balderstrom]

Well favorite doesn't necessarily mean still in use. My favorite still is Win2K. It was the most stable, resource efficient non-server OS Microsoft has released to date.

[j7n]

By performance and stability I must favor any Windows NT 5, among which there are no significant differences. Windows XP wins in the categories of hardware support and number of available [freeware] application software purely because it was considered modern and up to date by developers for the longest time. XP might have a larger footprint out of the box compared to Windows 2000, but that difference goes away once other essential applications are added, such as device drivers and web browser, which are usually much less efficient (bloаted). Older OS remains small only on retro builds or systems built to serve another narrowly defined function. Particularly, I don't see a point in starting with and older core and transplanting components from XP, especially graphics like icons and font rendering.

Windows Server 2003 is objectively the pinnacle of NT5. It has almost everything the other versions did, plus certain features like PAE memory that is not disabled. But more "friends" are familiar with XP, and therefore I should pick the later to satisfy one more criterion.

Visual design is quite subjective. I find the colors, icons and fonts of the Windows classic theme (Me/2000) neutral and fitting more applications, whether at work or at play. Most GUI elements are usually drawn to pixel accuracy and are readable at a glance (no longer true in XP-era even if classic theme is selected).

Windows NT 6 might have more capable applications included with it. However, I do not consider those to be essential in an OS, which should only implement a layer between hardware and user's software. Applications like explorer, media player or web browser grow obsolete much more quickly than the OS does, and updating those parts usually affects the OS is multitude of ways, often decreasing stability and adding bloat. With Microsoft Windows updating apps eventually involves installing a new system by design.

I like how it was in win9x days when a computer needed about a dozen 3rd party software products added, before it became remotely usable. The good thing about this approach was that most of those tools remained usable later under XP and Seven without needing replacement or learning.

I'm not sure what communication with mobile devices includes. Availability of drivers falls under hardware support.

[Gracjan]

Tested many Linux distros last few years...
2 years on OpenSuse, 2 years on Mint 16.

Now Linux Mint 18 64bit Cinnamon and I'm glad I can work with TC 9.0 using Wine .

It works great.
Hope someday TC will be released as a dedicated Linux app .

• user friendliness
Linux Mint 18 64bit

• performance/speed
Excellent.

• pleasant visual design
Cinnamon

• technical capabilities (i.e. what can / can't I do with this OS?)
I can't run Xara Designer even using Wine so I have to run Virtual Box with Windows 10 sometimes do do something I can't do on Linux

• hardware support
New Kernel have great hardware support so no problems at all.

• communication with mobile devices
Windows or OS X // less Linux

• stability (system crashes/hang ups)
Linux

• total range of available software compatible with the OS
There is huge amount of available software out there. And free!

• available freeware
YES!

• do your favourite software applications (e.g. Total Commander) run on this OS?
TC 9.0 runs on my Linux using Wine without any problems.

• open source?
YES

• friends have the same OS
NO

[magz]

Amiga, naturally.
Only Amiga makes it possible.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_m6jqymC1D0

[bakkoi]

Gotta be linux, arch being my preference. Nothing like having full, unadulterated control over your system.

[Brumm]

• user friendliness

macOS.

• performance/speed

Plan 9/9front.

• pleasant visual design

macOS.

• technical capabilities (i.e. what can / can't I do with this OS?)

9front, NetBSD.

• hardware support

Windows.

• communication with mobile devices

They are all awful. macOS is the least awful though.

• stability (system crashes/hang ups)

OpenBSD.

• total range of available software compatible with the OS

Windows, then all systems which support pkgsrc.

• available freeware

Not relevant to me.

• do your favourite software applications (e.g. Total Commander) run on this OS?

Windows, again.

• open source?
• friends have the same OS

*shrug*