Poll: What is your primary operating system • Hacker News Board

Re: Poll: What is your primary operating system

#411

Post by SCdF » Tue, Apr 03, 2012, 1:20 AM UTC

dfc wrote: post #71

I am really surprised that people voted android/ios as your primary device. What type of work do you do?

At work I use Windows / linux, but about a week ago I switched from using a MBP as my primary computer at home to a Transformer Prime.

Impressions so far: it's awesome. Consuming is much better, which is most of what I do at home. Most producing I've done lately has been of the pure text nature (emails / blogs etc). The onscreen keyboard is mostly find for this, and if I need to bang a lot of text out I can attach the keyboard.

I'm a bit overwhelmed with work work atm, but when that calms down I'm keen to try AIDE[0], as well as look for a more light weight editor for python / html hackery that can connect via ftp/ssh or similar, and play with developing web apps that way.

[0] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aide.ui

Re: Poll: What is your primary operating system

#412

Post by goodcanadian » Tue, Apr 03, 2012, 1:22 AM UTC

slowpoke wrote: post #79

Osiris wrote: post #25

I've been using Windows pretty much since version 3.1 (though will some time on OS/2 as well) as my primary OS. I have, of course, used Linux, though mostly for servers and not a full-time primary OS. I also have a Chromebook running Chrome OS. Recently, I switched jobs and my team uses Macs so over the last few months my primary work OS is now Mac OS X, while I still use Windows at home. One thing I have discovered…

I would just like to add that there is a valid reason why Linux or the *BSDs are superior to Windows or OS X - they are Free. As in Speech. And I'm sad this doesn't even warrant a mention.

"Free - as in Beer" has always been the more important point to me. This is followed closely by the ability to screw around with anything I want which, I suppose, is close to the "Free - as in Speech" argument, but for me it has always been about pragmatism rather than ideology.

Re: Poll: What is your primary operating system

#413

Post by mattdawson » Tue, Apr 03, 2012, 1:32 AM UTC

I clicked into this thread specifically to see if someone had cheekily added emacs as an option. Color me disappointed. ;)

Re: Poll: What is your primary operating system

#414

Post by notatoad » Tue, Apr 03, 2012, 1:51 AM UTC

it doesn't matter. i use a web browser and a terminal. as long as i have those, i'm good.

i use mac os on my laptop, because mac laptops are the nicest. i use ubuntu on my desktop because it's the cheapest option. i honestly don't notice a difference switching between the two. all the linux kerfuffle about window managers and whether unity is better than gnome2, it doesn't matter. you can switch between windows. you can get work done.

Re: Poll: What is your primary operating system

#415

Post by stevejb » Tue, Apr 03, 2012, 2:09 AM UTC

Using linux since Caldera Desktop Preview 2. Things really picked up with RedHat 5.1 and 5.2. I currently am running the latest Ubuntu on my dev box and my laptop. My job is mostly C++ development of finance models, statistical analysis, and creating documents in LaTeX. I couldn't think of a better fit than Linux for this.

Re: Poll: What is your primary operating system

#416

Post by swah » Tue, Apr 03, 2012, 2:15 AM UTC

Maybe I'll return to Linux when I get a tablet and can consume media, read long articles and play little games there.

Re: Poll: What is your primary operating system

#417

Post by MrTibbles » Tue, Apr 03, 2012, 2:54 AM UTC

So most hacker news readers are significantly brain dead. OSX, really? wow guys, wow

Re: Poll: What is your primary operating system

#418

Post by ZephyrP » Tue, Apr 03, 2012, 3:18 AM UTC

tseabrooks wrote: post #208

slowpoke wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would just like to add that there is a valid reason why Linux or the *BSDs are superior to Windows or OS X - they are Free. As in Speech. And I'm sad this doesn't even warrant a mention.

Maybe I'm the only one... But as a professional developer working on everything from device drivers, embedded systems, up to your average LAMP stack and other web frameworks the "Freedom" of the operating system is worth exactly bupkis to me, ziltch, zero, nada. There are a whole host of reasons to use one OS over the other but this "Free as in Speech" is simply not a very good one. I'm far, FAR, more concerned about…

I love these kind of responses! Help support your local exploit developer and use a non-free operating systems and browsers!

Re: Poll: What is your primary operating system

#419

Post by jfmercer » Tue, Apr 03, 2012, 3:35 AM UTC

If we simplify this poll to "Unix vs. non-Unix," then Unix wins by an very strong majority.

Re: Poll: What is your primary operating system

#420

Post by Danieru » Tue, Apr 03, 2012, 3:44 AM UTC

RexRollman wrote: post #203

fingerprinter wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting that you say "crazy UI fantasy land". It wasn't until Ubuntu 11.10, and now 12.04 that I thought desktop Linux had a shot. Unity in 12.04 is quite awesome and makes me super productive. It gets out of your way and that is how I like it. Sure, I make some modifications (smaller icons, autohide the launcher, change icon set to Faenza), but that is about it. And, since being back in Linux land, I have never,…

It makes me happy to know that someone here likes Unity, because I think it is horrible. But then again, my preferred GUI for Linux is Ratpoison and some Xterms.

Back in 11.04 I absolutely hated unity, but now Stockholm syndrome is setting in. When I go back to 'regular' desktops I find that I have to make a conscious effort to manage my windows. I now get annoyed if I have to move windows around.

Unity appears to have altered my behaviour and I think the change is pretty nice.