Reminds me why I hate Windows....

[BADGER.BRAD]

Linux is the way forward ,I use Lubuntu on all my PC's most are really old but this keeps them upto modern speeds. I needed to scrap Windows on my other halfs notebook as the thing was seriously slow taking 15 mins to boot now takes less than a minute and can actually be used. I've been a Linux only user for at least 10 years now.The best part is it's free free free !

 

[Leaway2]

Another vote for Linux here. Give it a try, you have nothing to lose, it is free. The next Ununtu long term support version is out soon (if not already) version 14.04.

 

[Andrew_Culture]

Having professionally supported M$ for twentyfive years, I can confirm you are not not doing it right

Apple devices have their place and they certainly have an understandable appeal to the general public. but you really cant tweak the o/s to get stuff running like you can with windows. once you get rid of the bloatware and unnecessary services Windows is actually really nice. I even liked Millennium after a few changes..
Linux is just black magic. you can do amazing things with it.. but you will be burnt as a witch.

I had an odd affection for ME too. Horrendous name though!

 

[Kevoffthetee]

Macs all the way for me, iPhones, iPads and MacBook Pro, appleTV and airplay controlled home theatre

I pi$hed around with windows for too many years because it was better priced and couldn't understand why apple products were so expensive. It's because everything is designed properly using high end components and they work bloody well. I'll never go back

 

[SimonJKH]

I thought Mint is where all the cool kids are now?

 

[Rouge79]

Macs all the way for me, iPhones, iPads and MacBook Pro, appleTV and airplay controlled home theatre

I pi$hed around with windows for too many years because it was better priced and couldn't understand why apple products were so expensive. It's because everything is designed properly using high end components and they work bloody well. I'll never go back

not to mention the endless "update virus definitions" that came up every other day

 

[yello]

I've got Mint Cinnamon on my desktop at the moment. Cinnamon is neat but a little slow and I might switch back to xfce.

I switched from Ubuntu several years back because imo it's become bloatware.

I like the bare bones of xfce tbh and have CrunchBang on my netbook and Xubuntu on another laptop.

Btw, I have a laptop running Win2k! That exists purely for the now very rare occasion that I need Windows.

 

[GrasB]

Having professionally supported windows, linux (RHEL, Debian & Ubuntu) & OS X for many. The way forwards is most definitely windows unless you need a proper unix environment then OS X edges through over linux on support for things like MS office.
Per installation the number of support calls we field to windows users is far lower than linux & OS X.
Proprietary application support is light years ahead on windows, they may have crib sheets for OS X but thats about it & all bets are off with linux (if the software even exists for linux)
Linux is the easiest to trouble shoot on, followed closely by windows & OS X a mile behind.
Linux & Windows can be set to simply blindly follow what they've been told to do. Linux often is easier to setup but windows isn't far behind. OS X doesn't allow you to turn it's intelligence off & often gets VERY confused - try getting OS X to output 21:9 1080p (eg. 2520x1080) on screen thats 2560x1080 or 1920x1080 on a screen which can display 1920x1200 (that up/downscales everything to 1920x1080)... according to apple OS X doesn't do the right thing & they won't fix as it's a 'known feature'. I shall I start on systematic USB issues & networking issues we've documented & been told are known 'features' of OS X?...

 

[redcard]

Just waiting on the next Iphone, and it that beats my current Galaxy Note 3, then we'll pretty much be an IOS / OSX household.

 

[TVC]

I pretty much only use my Android tablet these days and Lu has a chrome book. We both have laptops running windows, but only turn them on when we really have to.

 

[Vapin' Joe]

I had an odd affection for ME too. Horrendous name though!

I never had a problem with it either. Many times better than the Win 98 that preceded it.

 

[jayonabike]

iMac, iPad, iPhone household here. Had my iMac since 2007, brought it bang up to date recently for the total cost of £27. Never had a problem with it.

 

[marknotgeorge]

I'm firmly in the Windows camp. I don't want to spend the time to invest in Linux, or the money to invest in Apple. Both would prevent me doing other stuff I'd like to do.

So my laptop's running 8.1, my phones are Nokias, and if I could afford one, I'd get a Surface. Microsoft's development tools are top-class. I'm happy.

 

[craigwend]

Computer wo/men speak with fork-tongues

 

[BrynCP]

Linux is great for the server end. I also used it as a desktop for years (Slackware desktop, Debian server) but for most people I imagine it's just too painful to do basic things; who wants to compile a program because the package maintainers for your distribution made bad decisions, if there is even a package to begin with. For me it's the other way around, being able to make it how I want/need and just dump config files to screen is great rather than trawl through tabs upon tabs of GUIs.

Windows is great to use, but you'll never find Linux sending you into a installing updates, configurating updates, restarting loop - meaning by the time it finishes booting you forgot why you turned it on. Similarly it's very rare for Linux to need you to restart to pick up any new program/config, but Windows wants you to restart for most.

Regarding security, if I was an attacker, would I attack Linux or Mac OS with a small market share, or Windows with the most people to exploit? The OpenSSL Heartbleed proves that Linux isn't immune to nasty holes and attacks towards android are increasing for the same reason.