Your opinion on OSs

[Dalamar]

Windows XP is my primary machine which is most unfortunate but it has all my software on it including games that are not available on anything but Windblows.  Besides, it makes me so happy when it tells me how I need to use it better with all it's helpful prompts and wizards.  I had no idea I was using  computers so incorrectly until XP came along and told me.   :-o

I use AmigaOS3.9 for whatever I can instead of using the "most helpful" XP.  I also use Gentoo Linux and Windows 2003 server for server side activities.  btw 2003 Server is also very helpful at identifying all the things I've been doing with servers incorrectly for all these years as well.   I like Gentoo because emerge is your friend and makes dependencies and such a snap.  Amiga is what I would call my "most fun" OS/computing platform and my true reason for loving computing.  If Microsoft was all I had, I'd be living in a hut on an island and would never touch the things.  

I believe I've stated that professionaly and personally Microsoft has removed all of the fun from computing for me.  This explains why I'm here.    :-D

I suppose I should add that I support Windows/Linux servers for a living. :oops:

[csirac_]

Does writing code count as artwork? :-)

If so then Debian GNU/Linux all the way!!

But seriously, although I never used it properly for any decent length of time - BeOS impressed me at the time almost as much as AmigaOS did.

I still wonder to this day what BeOS would have been like if it hadn't been smothered by Microsoft (although to be realistic: BeOS's future still may not have been certain even if Microsoft had played fair, business-strategy-wise).

Smooth running? That's BeOS. Good looking? BeOS did a fair job at that too. Technically brilliant, designed from the ground up as a multimedia OS.

I'm naming my small microcontroller OS after it: BeeOS :-) [it's small, like a bee ;-)]

AmigaOS of course will always be my favourite...

- Paul

[Blomberg]

Im>bE wrote:
hard one. Hmmmm...

Currently I use Workbench3.9, in lack of a better choise.
There just are no other operating system with support for the stuff I use for my music (recording, midi, multiformat playback, tracking, etc), except maybe Linux. Also, I play a few FPS, RTS, TBS, RPG, PFG, and other games that just don't exist on other inferior OSes.

 :roll:

[LorD]

Morphos.

:idea: ... ¡¡¡ MorphOS !!!

:pint:

[peterwiehe]

My personal opinion is AROS, Mac OS X, NextStep, BeOS (and of course AmigaOS). As many of You think.

I personally would disagree that the following run smooth und look good (and of course not easy to handle):
- Windows, Gnome and Unix Workstations in general
- any Os, provided with the right hardware
(Okay, mostly Windows and Workstations are easy to handle)

I still have to take a closer look at MorphOS.

About Windows for the latest and greatest games:
When it comes to the taste of many gamers, yes. But on the other side, there must be many gamers, too, that don't consider all this idea-less, ugly-looking game clones for many bucks the greatest games!

About Win and amiga fun: Yes, exactly my experience. I was doing system-programming (unsuccesfully) on Linux PC several years, when I remembered Amiga and thought "Oh, I forgot that computers don't have to be boring, buggy and ugly, and that they can make programming easy and not a nightmare."

I didn't mean code as artwork. (If we would count that in, I would consider free POSIX an art (but Debian not my cup of tea). It's no surprise, that the most advanced port of AROS is ontop of GNU/Linux.)

I will give a personal scala of elegance:

0% meaning totally clumsy, 100% meaning totally elegant:
AmigaOS classic 80%
Win32 70% (if You don't get the crash)
Linux/Solaris/etc with X 40-60% (depending how easy and stable the X and desktop is. But X is always unelegant except on Mac OS X)
BeOS 72%? (Not all around elegant)
Macintosh 85% (More than Amiga classic!? I probably will change my mind about that!)
Next Step 75% (I clicked around on it a few minutes on a computer fair, when it came out. Feeling like a Macintosh, not as multimedia-able and powerful as I expected)
Mac OS X 98%!? (consistent and easy user interfae, colour)

Kind regards
Peter Wiehe

[AccyD]

Dalamar wrote:
I believe I've stated that professionaly and personally Microsoft has removed all of the fun from computing for me.  This explains why I'm here.    :-D

True but I'm forced to use Win 2k at work, so it just aids work, when at home to use XP.

As mentioned on this site before, the new Amiga OS will have to offer something special to tempt people away from the OS they use most at present (usually MS) at work.

This will probably be the area OS4 falls down on, as most people don't want to use 2 different OS's at home & work however good that 2nd OS may be. :-(

[peterwiehe]

Here's a site that is half-ontopic when we talk elegant GUIs. It'is about some un-intuitive GUI designs:
"Interface Hall of Shame - Misplaced Metaphors -"
http://www.umlchina.com/GUI/Misplaced.htm

Probably mostly interesting for someone who is going to write a GUI. But sometimes the text is funny.

Kind regards
Peter wiehe

[Dalamar]

@AccyD

This is true.  Apps for an OS make it appealing.  Linux is just now coming around to become a more appealing client platform.  I support MS products for the most part, though recent events are making me find alternative OS's for work related solutions and I'm fortunate to be in a position to make those kinds of decisions.  For the standard office user, MS has the market, no question.  It stinks, but it's true.  This is also why my MS PC has most of my productivity apps.  My alternative solutions at work revolve around Linux at this point for lack of anything better to choose from.  End user training is the big hitch when it comes to changing out the client OS, and ease of deployment is the second major issue.   Because of both of these issues, it would be difficult for Amiga to get to that point (productivity application issue aside).   :-(   Right now I use my Amiga for fun and as a hobby because it has restored some of that passion that originally got me into all of this to begin with.

Who knows what the future will hold.

[HopperJF]

BeOS was a fantastic operating system but due to it tnot being developed for years it has kinda lost its ground.
I think the best OS I can use in 2004 has to be MacOS X (10.2 and upwards of course)

and dont forget good ole Workbench 3.1 and Mac System 6!
They were FAST!

[Cyberus]

Blomberg wrote:

Im>bE wrote:
hard one. Hmmmm...

Currently I use Workbench3.9, in lack of a better choise.
There just are no other operating system with support for the stuff I use for my music (recording, midi, multiformat playback, tracking, etc), except maybe Linux. Also, I play a few FPS, RTS, TBS, RPG, PFG, and other games that just don't exist on other inferior OSes.

 :roll:

Right,
FPS=First Person Shooter
RTS=Real Time Strategy
TBS=Turn Based Strategy
RPG=Role-Playing Game
PFG=Pasty Faced Geek? Pig-Faced Gorilla?  :-?

[PastAmigaOwner]

Mac OS X 10.2 and higher.  Excellent combination of hardware and software with all the apps most creative professionals and home users require.  

Apple is innovative, up-to-date, and makes cool stuff.

[Mike_Amiga]

I like my G4 Mac and OS X, works great.

[Blomberg]

Cyberus wrote:
Right,
FPS=First Person Shooter
RTS=Real Time Strategy
TBS=Turn Based Strategy
RPG=Role-Playing Game
PFG=Pasty Faced Geek? Pig-Faced Gorilla?  :-?

 :lol:
I was wondering about that one myself ..

[McNorris]

Though I use XP & Solaris at work and Mac OS9.2 at home I would have to say...

MAC OS 10.2 and above, hands down, but...

BeOS WAS the best and I would still run it if my wifes laptop was supported fully (though I might receive a beating).

I haven't been fortunate enough to be able to build (for a resonable price ) an Amiga capable of AOS 3.5/3.9 and I don't have access to Morph (and it's killin me)

Yeah (sighs)... BeOS (sighs again)

[Waccoon]

Windows2000 is pretty good, but ONLY if you have decent drivers.  Lots of companies have a hard time writing decent audio and video capture drivers for Windows, which is where all the infamouse cracking audio problems come from.  I've used three systems with Win2K, and only one of them had audio that worked properly (nForce2 chipset).  SB Audigy still seems to have problems.

It was dual booting with win98 on the same machine. It was just amazing how much better BEOS ran on the same hardware as WIn98. Once again superior technology was destroyed by M$

I don't want to get off topic, here, but I was not impressed with Be, and it's little surprise to me why Be got smashed in the market.  It was fast, but had no substance, the interface was insufficient, and the web browser was so bad it made me cry.  Be also no longer boots since I switched my IDE cables around.  Now that I can safely say I tried it, I think I'll ditch it and try Mandrake Linux.

I just installed Mandrake 9.0 Linux and man is it slow.

Well, I just tried Gentoo, and that was a bust.  :-)

I just want a platform to learn how to write GUI code.  I tried that under Windows, and the GUI toolkits over there are either too expensive, or simply horrible.

BeOS's future still may not have been certain even if Microsoft had played fair, business-strategy-wise

Be relied too heavily on Apple clones.  When those disappeared, they adapted poorly to the PC way of doing things.

"Interface Hall of Shame - Misplaced Metaphors -"
http://www.umlchina.com/GUI/Misplaced.htm

That's nothing!  If you want to even *start* understanding how horrible today's GUIs are, buy this book.  The "war stories" alone are worth the book price:

GUI Bloopers, by Jeff Johnson

I'm not a big fan of the Interface Hall of Shame, either.  They rarely offer any slack for artistic impression, and the fact that people can learn such quirks very quickly.  Functional doesn't mean you have to be boring.