Poll: What is your primary desktop OS?

#1

Post by AhtiK » Sat, May 25, 2013, 6:28 PM UTC

I'm moving away from Windows and torn between OS X and Linux. I've been using Linux for quite a few years but for the last 3 years had to use Windows because of a customer contracting work.

I understand that it all depends but curious to see where most of the HN community gets their stuff done.

Re: Poll: What is your primary desktop OS?

#2

Post by [deleted] » Sat, May 25, 2013, 6:46 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Poll: What is your primary desktop OS?

#3

Post by mehrzad » Sat, May 25, 2013, 6:47 PM UTC

OS X planning to jump to Windows and Ubuntu.

Re: Poll: What is your primary desktop OS?

#4

Post by AhtiK » Sat, May 25, 2013, 6:50 PM UTC

mehrzad wrote: post #3

OS X planning to jump to Windows and Ubuntu.

Interesting. Why the jump?

Re: Poll: What is your primary desktop OS?

#5

Post by Spittie » Sat, May 25, 2013, 6:50 PM UTC

Gnu/Linux with KDE, I've been using it for a while and I find that it fit my needs perfectly. Currently using it under Chakra Linux, but I'm liking OpenSuse lately.

Re: Poll: What is your primary desktop OS?

#6

Post by GalacticDomin8r » Sat, May 25, 2013, 6:50 PM UTC

FreeBSD...has been my primary desktop OS for about 7 years now. Overall very stable with occasional problems.

Re: Poll: What is your primary desktop OS?

#7

Post by ekr » Sat, May 25, 2013, 6:50 PM UTC

For the last 5 years, the wonderful Arch Linux. Currently with XFCE.

Re: Poll: What is your primary desktop OS?

#8

Post by stack0v3erfl0w » Sat, May 25, 2013, 6:52 PM UTC

Dual booting Windows 8 and OS X

Re: Poll: What is your primary desktop OS?

#9

Post by bradhe » Sat, May 25, 2013, 6:52 PM UTC

I find OSX is a very powerful Unix with a very usable window manager. I spend almost all my time in iTerm anyway.

Plus the machines themselves are the best damn laptops I've ever used.

Re: Poll: What is your primary desktop OS?

#10

Post by christopheraden » Sat, May 25, 2013, 6:52 PM UTC

It depends a lot on what you do for work, I bet. I'm in sort of a similar situation as you--Windows at work, Linux at home, but I also have a mac. I run a pretty bare-bones setup on my Linux desktop (#!: an OS for those who got frustrated trying to learn Arch and still like APT). The lack of extra stuff makes me less prone to messing around, so it's great as a GSD system and when I want to dedicate my CPU and memory to the primary task instead of to the overhead of a bulky GUI and other features. Having a CUDA-capable GPU is nice, too, instead of having to use an emulator. If you do technical or scientific computing, Linux may be a good bet. The vagueness of my advice is because I'm only involved in a small subset of the technical computing world, but a lot of the statistical programmers in the FOSS world use Macs or Linux boxes (Debian-derivatives are very popular in the R community).

OS X probably has a bigger advantage for front-end and mobile dev, though.

If your decision is based purely on aesthetics, given enough time, I'm sure you can find a GUI for Linux that you like more than OSX. While OSX gives you a GUI with no fuss, the customizability of a lot of desktop environments for Linux means you can tune it to exactly what you want, whether you want more graphical flare, or less (for the OpenBox folks out there--represent!).