What is your primary operating system?

[zokudu]

Just curious Nothinman but are you self-employed? And if not how did you convince your employer to allow you to install Debian at work?

 

[Nothinman]

Just curious Nothinman but are you self-employed? And if not how did you convince your employer to allow you to install Debian at work?

I work for a medium sized IT consulting company in Pittsburgh so the rules are pretty flexible. As long as I can do my job, I can do pretty much whatever I want. And for me Linux, xfreerdp, vpnc, etc work better than the Windows components most of the time. I also have a Windows 7 laptop, which I'm sadly posting from right now, because I need things like MS SSMS.

 

[n7]

Win7, though i have one system running Vista since it has issues with 7.

 

[HAL9000]

Win7, though i have one system running Vista since it has issues with 7.

What issues did you have with Win 7 that Vista could fix?!

 

[Crusty]

I hate to call one a 'primary' because I happen to use it more often than another... in a perfect world I would run Linux for absolutely everything, but I can't... so I run Win7 on my home PC and my workstations(with Linux VMs for anything I might need to do that would be easier in that environment). My work laptop runs Ubuntu though...

Preference wise:
1) Ubuntu
2) Win7

Usage wise:
1) Win 7
2) Ubuntu

Install base:
1) Ubuntu
2) Win7

 

[lxskllr]

I hate to call one a 'primary' because I happen to use it more often than another... in a perfect world I would run Linux for absolutely everything, but I can't... so I run Win7 on my home PC and my workstations(with Linux VMs for anything I might need to do that would be easier in that environment). My work laptop runs Ubuntu though...

Preference wise:
1) Ubuntu
2) Win7

Usage wise:
1) Win 7
2) Ubuntu

Install base:
1) Ubuntu
2) Win7

That's my situation, but substitute Vista for Win7. Oh, and take away work :^/

 

[n7]

What issues did you have with Win 7 that Vista could fix?!

Ethernet is broken in Win7 on my P5E-VM HDMI.

If i do any kind of larger file transfer over the network with Win7, system locks up, every single time.
I thought it had to be a BIOS issue, but updating did not fix.
Fought with a few different drivers & other tweaks & then got tired of the system being useless to me & went back to Vista, where everything works flawlessly as always.

 

[mmntech]

Everyday stuff: Mac OS X 10.6 / iOS 4.2.1

Gaming/Media Encoding: Windows 7 Home

 

[phillyTIM]

WOW have things changed! Anyone else remember the days here when Linux was almost beating Windows for primary operating system on the desktop?!!!

 

[Emulex]

win7 (PHY) or server 2008 (VM), server 2003 (VM) - Just now getting on the R2(all x64 boat).

yes i remember the day - *nix has a place - just not paying my bills right now.

Nifty little thing (apachefriends) XAMPP has taken the windows beast and tamed it. That and a decent sql server (sorry sql 2008 R2 just rocks).

It was always a beast to manage unstable kernels and threading nightmares.

Still love the *Bsd (osx,freebsd) for meat n potatoes work - smtp/routing+firewall

 

[kamikazekyle]

Nowadays, it's about 40% Vista (work), 40% Windows 7 and 20% OSX 10.6 (home). About a year ago, it was more like 50% Solaris and 20% Vista (work), 30% Windows 7 (home). They're getting rid of the Sun workstations at work in favor of Windows clients and remote Solaris XDMCP servers managed by a different office, so that's flipped the work percentages around.

 

[Gooberlx2]

I'm gonna say Windows 7, since I assume we're talking about home computers. My main OS is Opensuse Linux at work.

 

[RebateMonger]

WOW have things changed! Anyone else remember the days here when Linux was almost beating Windows for primary operating system on the desktop?!!!

Have to remember that polls like this one on a technical forum don't represent "real life" very well. Participants in these Forums are typically significantly more "technical" and much more likely to have the "latest and greatest" OS installed.

For comparison with Gamers (again, not "typical" Users), there's Steam's latest survey:
http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey
Steam shows 45% Win7, 24% Vista, 25% XP, and 0.1% "other".

 

[Chaotic42]

Main system-Vista 64
Laptop-XP
Firewall-OpenBSD 4.7

I stopped using Linux as my main OS when XP came out. XP fixed most of my gripes about Windows. I don't know if I'm going to upgrade to Windows 7 or just wait until Windows 8. I'm one of the three people in the world who is happy with Vista.

 

[HAL9000]

I declare the most popular operating system: Windows 7....

 

[nemesismk2]

I have Windows 7 on my main computer and Windows XP on my backup computer. Which operating system do I like the most, that would have to be Windows XP

 

[mlhm5]

http://i56.tinypic.com/2ew3228.jpg - XP

 

[stevech]

Statistically invalid poll when done due to the atypical user population!

I use Win 7 at home just for grins. I like XP better.
But my more important PC at work shall be XP. Until 2012. Maybe. Me and 45,000 co-workers.

 

[C1]

All the public library machines here in San Diego use XP and so do 2/3 of the people here in the libraries using their laptops via wireless.

Most home users I encounter use XP and the few I know who have Vista expressed that they would convert to XP if they could or knew how.

 

[Nothinman]

Statistically invalid poll when done due to the atypical user population!

I use Win 7 at home just for grins. I like XP better.
But my more important PC at work shall be XP. Until 2012. Maybe. Me and 45,000 co-workers.

All polls are going to be biased unless you find a way to talk to every single person in the world in a reasonable amount of time. And that's pretty sad that you'll be using XP for another year or so, my condolences.

Most home users I encounter use XP and the few I know who have Vista expressed that they would convert to XP if they could or knew how.

Of course they did, change is scary. I'm sure they'd say the same thing even if Vista made their bed and gave them oral every morning.

 

[Muse]

All polls are going to be biased unless you find a way to talk to every single person in the world in a reasonable amount of time. And that's pretty sad that you'll be using XP for another year or so, my condolences.



Of course they did, change is scary. I'm sure they'd say the same thing even if Vista made their bed and gave them oral every morning.

I'm finding that many if not the great majority of the programs and utilities that I use are not working as well in Vista and especially Windows 7 64 bit Ultimate as they do under XP. I don't know why I'd want to continue using Windows 7 ATM. I'm going to try to find more workarounds but I may slide back to Vista 32 bit or even XP on this laptop. Why would I want to stay with Windows 7? What does it offer? Aero? Pfffft! The ramp up in security is a PITA. It might save me from a virus attack, but I haven't experienced a virus attack of any consequence for over 10 years if ever.

 

[Nothinman]

I'm finding that many if not the great majority of the programs and utilities that I use are not working as well in Vista and especially Windows 7 64 bit Ultimate as they do under XP. I don't know why I'd want to continue using Windows 7 ATM. I'm going to try to find more workarounds but I may slide back to Vista 32 bit or even XP. Why would I want to stay with Windows 7? What does it offer? Aero? Pfffft! The ramp up in security is a PITA. It might save me from a virus attack, but I haven't experienced a virus attack of any consequence for over 10 years if ever.

It might be because I use mostly MS stuff for work, but I don't think I've had any incompatibilities with 64-bit Win7 except maybe a print driver or two.

 

[Muse]

It might be because I use mostly MS stuff for work, but I don't think I've had any incompatibilities with 64-bit Win7 except maybe a print driver or two.

I don't think my HTPC with it's MyHD HDTV card would even work under Vista and it doesn't matter because the mobo in the system won't run vista.

My email filtering/spam-blocking utility (Mailwasher Free) is dodgy at best under Win7 64bit Ultimate. My desktop publishing program (Pagemaker 6.5) won't install, period, guess it's 16 bit. So far, Firefox is kind of nutty (won't remember passwords, have no idea why). I have a mind to downgrade to either the Vista 32 bit it came with (has the CoA, and I have a HD sitting around that has the original OS install, Vista 32 bit), or investigate putting XP on it somehow. Will see if I can get comfortable with Windows 7 workarounds.

 

[zCypher]

7 at home and XP at work. Both work great.

Edit: I dual booted Ubuntu with 7 for a while, but I lost interest and found myself using 7 all the time anyway.

 

[lord_emperor]

Windows 7 at home due to playing games.

Opensuse 11.3 takes a close 2nd as my primary OS at work, and CentOS 5.? in 3rd place as my server.