If you weren't using Windows, what OS would you use?

[Mr. Analog]

So, with the recent release of Ubuntu 7.1 and Lazy's foray into MacOSX I've been thinking, if we weren't running Windows what would most of us choose?

There are a lot of challenges for me to get off of Windows on to something else and they are all practical, but I can't help feeling that other OSs are starting to gain ground on both features and implementation.

What say ye?

[Shayne]

Mac isnt an operating system

I actually posted a comment to this in another thread but I will make it more known here.  I purchased a MacBook almost exactly a year ago to date.  Its a 2.0ghz C1D with 2GB of RAM and a 60GB drive.  Its a fantastic workstation and my wife loves that little machine.  She uses it for all her facebooking, emailing, surfing, etc.  Its to the point that we would have a tough time without it.  That being said its just a laptop.  The best designed laptop ever made hands down (IMHO of course but I challenge you to find a better one).

What we have grown to really like is the Operating System and the upcoming 10.5 will make things even better (already preordered an should arrive on Friday).  Everything in the system "just works" and works to a higher and more thought out degree then any other operating system I have used.  Everything fits together and works together without overlap.  If I want to watch a movie it open Quicktime (though to be honest I did replace this with VLC).  If I plug in my camera iPhoto runs (the best photo manager by far).  If I put in a DVD; DVD Player starts.  Web browsing in Safari or Firefox work great.  The Dashboard works great with widgets that are actually useful and with polish unseen compared to that of Vista.

Now with VMWare Fusion or Parallels I can run windows natively along side OSX and get all the applications that I miss (mainly Office 2007).  With bootcamp I can boot directly into windows for some gaming if desired.

Its really the best of both worlds and no operating system can really match that kind of functionality.  Their might be more polish in the Windows GUI, their might be more expansiveness in Linux, but nothing has come close to what OSX is as a total package.  It really needs to be used for a couple weeks to understand what you gain and how little you lose.

I also use Ubuntu Server for our web/database servers.  Top notch.

[Cova]

I've switched to linux (gentoo specifically) on my desktop at work recently, and I love it.  After a short term running Vista I was really starting to get pissed off at the number of times I couldn't make the computer do what I wanted it to do - under gentoo it does exactly what I tell it.  I guess I'm far from a regular user though - it's not so much that I don't want it to "just work" - functional defaults are good and all - but I find Windows and MacOS are too limiting in that you have to do things the way MS/Apple wants you to do them.  It's nice having a computer again just does what I tell it, no more and no less.

I'm not a fan of the package-management system Ubuntu uses - but it does have a nice LiveCD.  I'd suggest trying it out for a bit, you've really got almost nothing to lose.  Burn a CD and boot it up, and you've got fully functional web-browser, e-mail, office suite, etc., no licensing issues, no spyware/virus problems, and no cost.  And if you decide you need to go back to windows, just take the CD outta the drive and reboot again (or if you want to make linux much faster, erase windows and run linux from HD instead of optical disk)

[Mr. Analog]

I'd switch to Ubuntu if certain Windows applications ran better under Wine...

[Cova]

I'd switch to Ubuntu if certain Windows applications ran better under Wine...

Mind mentioning which apps those are?  I might have a solution/alternate application you could try.  Or I might not - I know there's currently no way to run VirtualCenter on linux short of running it in a windows VM, but then thats how Mac users run their windows app's and VMWare Server is free and runs on linux, so I guess its always an option.

[Mr. Analog]

Photoshop is the big one, it eats a lot of resources and (I found) Wine didn't deal with it so good.

I tried Gimp but I really didn't like it, everything is in the wrong space. I'm actually thinking about purchasing a copy of Adobe Photoshop CS3. I haven't been so happy with software for a long while.

The other apps are all games, since pretty much everything I do at home is either games or photoshop.