I am at the moment a user of openSuse. I think that openSuse is a great operating system, and I think that it is equal or better than Windows. So...

What operating system you know? Why you use it?

I am looking for a new operating system, because I think that may exist a better but I need to know some experiences...

bye |

I use various OS's:-

At work I use Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and HP-UX (I don't use this much though).

At home for general use I use Apples OS X Tiger/Leopard.
I find it's nice when I get home from work and I just want to use my computer and not mess around with settings and drivers.

At home for messing around and development I use BeOS Haiku and various Linux distributions such as Gentoo and Mint (Ubuntu). Though my preferred is Fedora, probably because my first distribution was Red Hat 9).

At university I use Sun Solaris.

atlacatl

I am looking for a new operating system, because I think that may exist a better but I need to know some experiences...

It really depends on what you want to use your computer for and what OS/window manager you get along with best. I don't believe there is any one best OS, just different ones that are better at certain tasks.

Maybe THIS Wikipedia page might help.

This reminds me I need to get a copy of FreeBSD sometime.

The Windows line of operating systems is the only ones I've used. The macs at our school are installed with Windows (which to me seems retarded). It's the one I've been using for a long time (first Windows I used was 95) so I'm pretty familiar with their functions, even though new things get added and a few get changed, the windows OS remains somewhat unchanged. I think windows give you the most options in terms of compatibility and what programs you can run on it. Most programs are made to run on Windows, especially games, and then a while later they may or may not release a version to be run on Windows. Viruses seem to like Windows more, but if you know how to avoid them and if you get antivirus and antispyware (and lots of them) you should be fine.

My friend hates Windows Vista right now. I run it on my laptop, and so far, most of it seems fine. It's expected that when a new OS comes out most people aren't going to like it because of the new looks, features, and many programs and hardware may not be compatible. I remember that being the case back when Windows XP was released. I'm going to keep using windows XP on my PC and vista on my laptop, but either one I like it and I can't find a reason so far to hate Vista as much as many other people do.

Running MacOSX and Windows XP Pro. I used to run ubuntu too, but I didn't really use it that often anymore so I formatted it.

It really depends what you use your computer for, if you game a lot than you are best of with a Windows comp. For my work I program a fair lot in Visual Studio's so I am pretty much bound to windows.

MacOSX is great for every day use and if you don't game that much, it is easy to use and less of a hassle than windows.

Unix and Linux are more for the powerusers imo, those that want to get more out of their OS. The learning curve is a bit steeper than the Windows and MacOSX but you can get way more out of a unix based system than the other two.

Currently running Windows XP and Ubuntu Linux. I'm more of an Ubuntu user but the only reason why I use Windows XP is because of work. I'm not much of a PC gamer nowadays now that I've joined the console bunch (I got a PS3).

I don't see Windows declining anytime soon. Its still got a powerful userbase and the most plentiful applications for many programs to run on especially games.

Longbow

I think windows give you the most options in terms of compatibility and what programs you can run on it. Most programs are made to run on Windows, especially games,

There is a lot of software for unix and other systems out there, though for games, most are likely for Windows. I've never really found other OS's lacking as far as the software I use goes, though I'm not playing games.

Though as the op is using openSUSE at the moment it might be more of a problem going to Windows anyway as far as software goes.

Hardware wise I'd have though Windows would be less compatible than other OS's like Linux which can run on a greater number of system architectures. Though for off the shelf components which are currently being sold Windows probably has a bit of a lead over other OS's.

Huarru

Unix and Linux are more for the powerusers imo, those that want to get more out of their OS. The learning curve is a bit steeper than the Windows and MacOSX but you can get way more out of a unix based system than the other two.

OS X is a member of the Unix family of OS's ( LINK), try running the Terminal (Applications > Utilities).

I'm running Windows Vista at home, but the computers on campus uses Windows XP. Although back the days, when I was in middle school, all the computers were those huge Macs. But anyway, I don't think there is one best OS. It just depends on what the user wants and likes. People like different things, so that's why there are different OS. I'm used to running Windows and I don't think I'll be switching to another OS.

Sure right now, people are saying that there are a lot of program incompability with Vista but that doesn't affect me because I don't use my computer that much nowadays. Right now, the programs I need on Vista such as Photoshop, Flash, PSP besides Office all work fine. And I found GOMPlayer to replace Media Player Classic. So people just need to adapt a bit and find their way around things with Vista.

My main PC runs Windows Vista Ultimate x64 which I love.
I have another PC that still runs Windows XP and my oldest PC runs a variety of OSes whenever I feel up to testing out a new Linux distro or a new RC of Server 2008.
My Laptop runs Ubuntu 7.10 64-bit which I also love.

To me no OS is really "better" then another. I look at it for what I plan on using the PC for and pick what OS I will use by that. I'm still a gamer thus why I run Vista x64. My laptop does a lot of VMware work so 64-bit Linux does exactly what I need. In fact my laptop does VMware so well a few friends are converting over to Linux for that same reason.

-S1

The only OS that I've been using to any extent would be the Windows line. I started using the computer with Windows 98 (When I was 8) on the then top-of-the-line Compaq laptop. Since then, I've used Windows 2000, Windows ME, Windows XP and now I use Windows Vista.

The Macs at my school has Mac OS X Tiger installed, but since I'm a big anti-Apple person I only use it because I have to.

My primary OS is XP Pro (32-bit), simply because it does everything I want better than any other OS does.

I have OS X Leopard installed on a partition and boot into it sometimes, but the mouse acceleration drives me absolutely crazy. It's so bad that I can't stand to use the OS for more than 10 or 15 minutes at a time.

Here's a slightly more descriptive post about some of the non-Microsoft OS's I've used. Though it's amusing that when the op says they're looking for a non-Microsoft OS and asks for peoples experiences some people just come and post about Windows...

BeOS Haiku
My experience is that it's interesting to use but not really ready for end users. There also isn't that much software available for the OS. They have VMWare images on their site so it's easy to try it out without having to install it, and it's quite a small download.

Linux Fedora
I use Fedora mostly because it's the first Linux distribution I used, well actually it was Fedora's predecessor Red Hat 9 that I first started with. The various Linux distributions tend to be fairly similar and Fedora is no exception, though Fedora tends to be a bit more bleeding edge than some other distributions and usually follows a 6 month release cycle, so this is not the right distribution for you if you don't want to upgrade your OS regularly. It's also a bit less friendly for new users, though my parents and sister who had no prior experience with Linux got on fine with Fedora, and used it as their computers main OS for several years.

Linux Gentoo
At the opposite end of the spectrum from Ubuntu and Fedora is Gentoo, at-least that's my experience, though I've only done a minimal command line installation of Gentoo. Though I added the Fluxbox window manager after installation. Doing a minimum installation of Gentoo is definitely not recommended for users who are new to Linux or for people who don't like the command line. Also it takes ages to compile everything. That said, Gentoo has to be one of my favourite messing around OS's and it has taught me quite a bit.

Linux Mint (Ubuntu)
Back to the Fedora end of Linux there is Mint, which is based on Ubuntu. Although very similar to Ubuntu it comes with some extra Mint software which is quite nice. If I wasn't so used to Fedora I would probably be using Mint or another flavour of Ubuntu as one of my main OS's.

Apple OS X
OS X has some major downsides for the op, firstly it costs money (if you want it legally) and secondly it only runs (legally, not going to get into the legal side of this) on Mac's which I assume the op doesn't have. With that aside I've found OS X to have very integrated programs and many nice features such as the Spotlight search, Timemachine backup, unix terminal and various others. The interface is generally consistent and the installation and removal of programs is one of the easiest (although for new users a little unintuitive). However if you want to fiddle a lot with the OS, a Linux distribution is the better bet as OS X is very locked down.

Solaris
As I've only used this one at university I can't really comment. I don't intend to fall into the trap of thinking Solaris is rubbish just because I've only used it on poorly maintained university machines. Just like how some people think the OS X is rubbish because they've only ever used OS X on public computers. Anyway it seems pretty reasonable and may be worth considering as it's a free download from Sun's website. I'm going to download a copy and play around with it in a virtual machine later along with a BSD based OS.


Over the years I've also used various other Linux distributions such as Ubuntu, Xubuntu, Kubuntu, 64 Studio, Mepis, Knoppix, SUSE, Familiar (for use on PDA's) and a couple of others. Though I haven't stuck with these for that long.

Anyway I need to replace my graphics card in my Mac as it's causing it to crash and the new ones just arrived.

Orchid

I have OS X Leopard installed on a partition and boot into it sometimes, but the mouse acceleration drives me absolutely crazy. It's so bad that I can't stand to use the OS for more than 10 or 15 minutes at a time.

You may want to consider trying out SteerMouse, USBOverdrive or the shareware MouseFix, though I haven't used any of these. This actually highlights another 'issue' with OS X, a lot of the software is not free even small utilities. With OS X expect to have to pay for software.

I've tried USBOverdrive and Mousefix. USBOverdrive didn't do crap. MouseFix lessened the problem, but it still wasn't really off. I'll give SteerMouse a try sometime. What bugs me is, if it's a big enough problem for all these fixes to be available (I tried about half a dozen), and there's quite a few threads on Apple's forums about it, why doesn't Apple do anything about it?

@Orchid

Personally I've never noticed it as a problem myself with any of my mice or with my tablet in mouse mode. What I mean by that is I do notice a difference going between say Linux and OS X but I personally don't mind it. Though it was really weird when I first started using OS X.

Most likely not enough people have moaned about it loudly enough to get Apple to do anything, reminds me of a bug with the Terminal while using a certain font which took Apple many years (and a few versions of the OS) to fix.

This talk of mice reminds me, my Apple Mighty Mouses scroll ball's got clogged again... thanks a lot Apple for creating a mouse that can't easily be cleaned (they glued it together)...

Apple appears to have been a bit stretched recently. They seem to have focused on the iPhone which led to Leopard having quite a few problems (as with most OS's it seems like a good idea to wait for a few updates before using it). There are a lot of people waiting for the next update which is due very soon. Also the update for the Apple TV, and the release of the iPhone SDK has been delayed as well.

Huarru

Unix and Linux are more for the powerusers imo, those that want to get more out of their OS. The learning curve is a bit steeper than the Windows and MacOSX but you can get way more out of a unix based system than the other two.

Your computer doesn't suddenly become more or less powerful by simply changing OS's. If you know one then you are going to be less productive changing to one you don't. You don't 'get more' out of your computer simply by using a Unix or Unix-like OS.

DeepDragoon

Solaris

Out of that whole list, Solaris is by far the most advanced if you sit down to learn Solaris. Personally I'd never use it as a desktop except for maybe at work if I didn't also use VMware's products.

0racle

Out of that whole list, Solaris is by far the most advanced if you sit down to learn Solaris. Personally I'd never use it as a desktop except for maybe at work if I didn't also use VMware's products.

I don't know too much about Solaris, in what ways is it the most advanced?

So far I've only had exposure to it on poorly maintained lab computers, and even then doing fairly basic tasks. Just installing Solaris 10 on a virtual machine now, should be interesting.