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Poll: What OS do you use everyday, or most often?

news.ycombinator.com

61–70 of 131 posts

Re: Poll: What OS do you use everyday, or most often?

#62
post #57

I assume this type of poll is self-selecting and that Windows is greatly underrepresented. In a 2005 article, PG states that the ycombinator visitor OS breakdown is as follows: Windows 66.4%, Macintosh 18.8%, Linux 11.4%, and FreeBSD 1.5% I would love to see the current OS breakdown from ycombinator logs to compare. Anyone?

It wouldn't help much: I imagine people are mostly on HN when they aren't working, and so are possibly on a secondary computer that doesn't necessarily run their preferred/default OS.

Re: Poll: What OS do you use everyday, or most often?

#63
post #57

I assume this type of poll is self-selecting and that Windows is greatly underrepresented. In a 2005 article, PG states that the ycombinator visitor OS breakdown is as follows: Windows 66.4%, Macintosh 18.8%, Linux 11.4%, and FreeBSD 1.5% I would love to see the current OS breakdown from ycombinator logs to compare. Anyone?

A lot of people have to use Windows at work, and i think that's why Windows scores that high in the visitor OS breakdown.

Re: Poll: What OS do you use everyday, or most often?

#65
post #58
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you make a poll?

http://news.ycombinator.com/newpoll , if you have over the karma threshold

I seem to have the karma.

I'm thinking my first poll should be, "Should James make a poll?"

Re: Poll: What OS do you use everyday, or most often?

#66
post #27

I've two laptops, one with Mac OS X and one with Linux. I use both for development but as a client I prefer Mac OS X that Just Works. It was fun years ago to hack on config files and even to write my own device drivers when it was needed, it was a game with the benefit of learning a lot of stuff, but seriously, I expected Linux to be mature enough after a few years... instead it's the same problems again and again. A…

I have a Mac mini and Linux laptop, and use both for development, but prefer Linux Kubuntu that Just Works.

Not sure what your specific issues are, but I've been finding development on Linux to be much more accommodating for me.

Re: Poll: What OS do you use everyday, or most often?

#67
Mac was recommended by many of my friends, so I'll say it's good. However I tried linux (mandriva) one time and I'll never get BACK to any linux version (although I like the servers os), wonder how you work with them. Linux is fast, but not comfortable to work with

Re: Poll: What OS do you use everyday, or most often?

#68
post #57

I assume this type of poll is self-selecting and that Windows is greatly underrepresented. In a 2005 article, PG states that the ycombinator visitor OS breakdown is as follows: Windows 66.4%, Macintosh 18.8%, Linux 11.4%, and FreeBSD 1.5% I would love to see the current OS breakdown from ycombinator logs to compare. Anyone?

Here's a breakdown based on referrals from YC to a short essay I wrote about a month ago comparing Bing Travel and Kayak. There were 2382 uniques from YC over two days to that page:

  45.5% Windows
  37.6% Mac
  15.1% Linux
Comparing that with an e-commerce site I work with which has a less geek-centric audience, during the same two days:

  84.94% Windows
  12.46% Mac
  1.55% Linux

Re: Poll: What OS do you use everyday, or most often?

#70
post #30

Question for Mac/Windows users: I develop on Linux, but occasionally on Mac or Windows. To be honest I'm pretty happy with a text editor and a few terminals on any platform, but one thing I miss is fast window management. Specifically: * Focus follows mouse * Alt+LMB drag to move whole window * Alt+MMB drag to move nearest corner (ie resize) The default Mac interface in particular I find difficult, as there's just on…

I do things differently.

In 1986, I used QNX with primitive window managers -- I still miss a scroll button with a large usable trackball to scroll through code, and the focus followed pointer. I started using Macs about 1987, and the interface felt awkward at first, but I liked it's overlapping windows as opposed to apps that filled the screen, or only ran at a specific resolutions.

I remember Microsoft Excel for DOS which was ported from Macintosh. Since it was DOS, they built an entire Window Manager for Excel. I think that this is why Windows inherited the application windows within windows (Multiple Document Interface) that some applications still have, and some people still love MDI in apps like Opera. I think that because of this Excel port, Windows inherited function names from the original Mac API. I don't like the gymnastics of using my pinky finger to hold down the Control key in Windows, I'd prefer using my thumb on the Command key in Mac OS, but thankfully Microsoft put out a little hack to reverse those keys.

To me, Linux inherits X Windows, features from older Unix window managers, and a bias from Windows because that's what a lot of people have used. But Linux brings lots of choices and possibilities, and lots of configuring if that's what your into.

Since the advent of USB mice, the Mac now has more than one mouse button. I remember seeing a mouse at a CAD/CAM show that probably had about nine buttons on the mouse.

Don't flip the bozo bit.

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