One more thing: A terminal as a first class citizen. Definitely not on Windows, and while the OSX one is orders of magnitude better, I seem to recall it's still a bit lacking. What ruins OSX for me isn't the terminal, though, it's that X apps aren't first class.
Have you tried PowerShell? It provides many more features, and has been a default install since Windows 7. Microsoft has been pushing it by making it possible to use PowerShell to configure a lot of the server products - and sometimes requiring the use of PowerShell for some configuration tasks.
I've tried PowerShell a few times. The thing that puts me off every time is not being able to bind keys. I find it so painful not being able to use emacs shortcuts at the prompt.
Free, but at the cost of your time. Everytime I've tried to switch from Windows to any usable Linux Distro, never has it happened that i didn't have to get frustrated due to some driver issues, laptop hibernation issues or some other issues which forced me back to Windows and kept Linux to either servers or a guest OS running in a VM in my PC.
I think ReactOS is what are you waiting for. It suppose to offer you the freedom of any other free and open source OS while holding the benefits of Windows. But it also awaits contributions. Spread the word.
ReactOS is poorly supported, incomplete, and user-hostile. Very little actually works on it--the software support is mostly limited to fairly old software, the only development happening for it is OS development (which is fine, but that's not a lot of use for normal people, or even software developers who don't have a burning desire to reinvent the wheel), and its UX decisions are a noted step backwards from Windows itself.
I don't intend to be rude, but recommending ReactOS as a legitimate Windows alternative is reality-averse.
I use OSX at work with a Virtual Machine running Windows 7 for corporate tools (such as mail, instant messaging, etc.). I also use that OS on my laptop, mostly because I bought a macbook pro a couple years ago and still want to get the best of its hardware (battery life).
At home, I use Windows 7, simply because I don't want to reboot to switch back and forth from one OS to the other. I exclusively play Starcraft 2, and if it was possible to play it under Linux with excellent performances, I would switch and never go back again to Windows.
Freedom also carries a cost. At the end of the day, the best OS for any given individual is the one that gives them the largest net increase in utility, for their personal utility function. My experience suggests that a Free OS isn't worth it to me, but it's been about six years since I gave it a go full-time. The last time I gave Linux a good go round (as in using it as my primary OS for everything I did), I still h…
You would hope that on a site like Hacker News, there would be a good percentage of users who would get a lot of utility out of being able to tinker with their operating system in ways not sanctioned by the creator of said OS.
The issue is not that one would like to tinker, but that without a significant time investment tinkering, you can't get the basics working.
Nothing precludes the OS from being tinkerable but mostly working out of the box.
One more thing: A terminal as a first class citizen. Definitely not on Windows, and while the OSX one is orders of magnitude better, I seem to recall it's still a bit lacking. What ruins OSX for me isn't the terminal, though, it's that X apps aren't first class.
Have you tried PowerShell? It provides many more features, and has been a default install since Windows 7. Microsoft has been pushing it by making it possible to use PowerShell to configure a lot of the server products - and sometimes requiring the use of PowerShell for some configuration tasks.
PowerShell still uses the same terminal as cmd.exe; the one you can't resize horizontally without diving into its properties window.
I agree with you. That's certainly a 'pro' on the side of Linux. I stated that every OS has it's pros and cons, but my goal wasn't to list what those are. To say unilaterally that it's better for all people at all times in all use cases is, at the very least, an overstatement. While being free is a top concern for you and many others, for some (perhaps many) usability might be their top concern and they may be willin…
>usability might be their top concern and they may be willing to sacrifice freedom for usability While some argue that this is the current situation, I want to point out that's a false dichotomy. Freedom and usability aren't orthogonal concepts like some make them out to be. I fundamentally disagree with the idea that we need to lock everything down to make it "usable". Also, Freedom of software (and hardware) ultima…
For the virtues of locking everything down, I would switch from free v not to mac v windows. These are the two dominant operating systems, dislike it as I think we do. Apple locks down everything. Apple hardware, on the iphone Apple Software, Apple plugins and addons, everything, to the greatest extent possible, is controlled by Apple. This yields benefits. Driver installs giving you problems? Not with Apple. Screen display no working properly? Not with Apple. They control everything, and they make it all perfect. Windows makes a "something for everyone and everything" strategy. It gives you more options, but it also gives you more headaches. I don't think it is possible to increase options endlessly without costs.