The best OS ever without a doubt

people have a hard time taking a joke.

Flamebait.

Now how about windows as an OS. Best ever without a doubt.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/default.aspx

there was a device called a microcomputer of which many were made and they used many operating systems, each hardware manufacture had their own software and only their software would run on their computer. Then the giant of the day, the mighty IBM developed a microcomputer of their own and called it the Personal Computer and it used the architecture ISA, which they made available for anyone to use for a royalty of US$1 per unit made.

They then sought a wise sage to develop an operating system for it. being unable to find such a sage they listened to salesman Bill who said I can do that, Bill then went and paid some people a pittance for their operating system, he filed off the seriel numbers, cleaned it up a bit and added a few things and licenced it to the giant IBM as PC-DOS. Bill then also sold copies to others as MS-DOS.

Meanwhile cottage workers availled themselves of the IBM royalty and started making microcomputers using the ISA architecture - these were called IBM clones - and sold for about a fifth of the price of all the other microcomputers. After a few years everyone called both the genuine and cloned IBM microcomputers PCs, and this eventually became the industry term for all microcomputers.

With the advent of the cheap IBM clones and the only software available to run on it being the IBM software or that from Bill, whose prices were cheapest by far, everyone started bying IBM clones with Bill's software - thus the birth of the great serpent Microsoft was due to the efforts of the giant IBM creating the environment by which the serpent could grow and flourish.

Like the fairy tale - sadly that is the whole truth of the matter, the home computer owes its existence to IBM allowing everyone to use their mutli-million dollar research at US$1 per unit thus cutting the cost of hardware manufacture for others to a fraction of the cost. MS grew simplt because they had the first IBM software and were quicker to sell it generally than anyone else.

I know this might be a lttle off topic but while you guys are here. I would like a copy of mandriva linux cause i use to use mandrake and really like it, but I am unable to find a copy I can download that is for my 64 bit processor. Can you guys help me out?

I use the 7 CD Mandriva 2006.0 Powerpack version, not the free 3 CD version. But if I tell you why I pay for it, I'll have to kill you.

I want a copy and my slow dial up connection is such that I do not want to wait 4 months to download the ISO files; and none of the local shops carry the Linux mags with the discs that have the free copies - some of the very few disadvantages of rural living

One of the biggest advantages or rural living is that the locals think a drive by shooting is hunting rabbits from the back of a ute; they don't understand why someone would buy a rock as the paddocks are full of them; the only coke they know is a drink that comes in a red can; and the closest thing to police brutality is the local copper refusing to buy YOUR choccies for school fund raiser because he has already bought from half of your mates.

... and you know why? Firstly, your writing leaves room for improvement. Maybe you're tired, a bit restless and just want to steer the waters and get some attention (girls do often that - no harm intended). Secondly, line of reasoning and facts are obviously not important for you. It the process of making a point look credible that seem to be the carrot for you. in fact, you are not making a point, you are simply generally discussing back and forth, going back to a complacent "Windows is best because they are the biggest and I am used with them."
You are not adding any value to the discussion, because that is not your intention - you just want some good ol' chatting.
I use both Windows and OSX. I see good things with both. But OSX will probably gain ground due to the phase it is in: growth and expansion.
Remember this: your core competencies are your core weaknesses too. MS is too big and not creative enough to hold the barricades in the long run. It is slower to reacting and does not have the option to rehash from the bottom up the OS. That is why it steals from the best. MS is still very strong, but they have climbed the hill, and the slope is now downwards, albeit at a low angle.
OSX will gain ground because users know more what they want now, and what they value. Stability, ease of use, security, style, appearance, trend, quality (as unquantifiable as it is)are now more important than before. And these are the areas that MS is worst at.
Vista will be OK, but in the mean time, OSX has ample time to get much better. Hype matters, and Apple is good at hype.
Maybe totally wrong, but the choice of computers and OS is not restrictive anymore, for a private user. Just a matter of time for people to jump on this band wagon. Open source is great! And almost anything is better (and healthier) that cocacola

Windows heralded in the 3D games generation on home computers. The games industry now being one of the largest in the world.

You don't get many games for Linix or Mac. So a general PC / OS buyer who wants downtime options would go for the MS offering.

Don't think I would be using XP (at home) otherwise....

Ok you can buy consoles - but they are in on that now as well....

Not all people are techies. Most users out there are non-technical AND live on a budget. MS offers a median solution. It's cheaper and easier for the majority of people to buy a Windows box and use it than it is to buy a Mac (easier but more expensive) or to use Linux (cheaper but more difficult to learn how to use). Most of you need to step outside and get some air, then realize that not everyone has their head burried in the computer culture. They want to buy something, take it home, set it up, and know how to use it without a lifetime of study. Without Windows 95, computers would not be nearly so widespread as they are, and the information driven world as we know it would not exist except to the 'nerds'.

I've hardly used MAC at all. People who use it thinks it's great. I'm not sure why a basic Macintosh PC's is so expensive compared to other basic PC's.

The thing that really puzzles me about MAC has to do with the fact that they put so many in the schools. I thought that that was a brilliant move by Macintosh. Get the young kids using them and they would be future users. I really don't know why it never quite turned out that way.

Maybe Bill Gates was just a super salesman. That seems to be the most likely possibility for Windows success in dominating the market for so long.

Windows had nothing to do with the introduction of 3D games (in fact it got in the way more than anything) and the reason most games are written to run on PCs is down to simple numbers... more hardware = more potential sales.
The 3D games explosion is down to the fact that hardware can now do the maths involved and blit the required images... and other than MS pushing new tech in DirectX for vertex and pixel shading etc.. is still nothing to do with windows.
If (and this is a big if) more developers used something like sdl to develop games (open and cross platform) then there would be more games available (hardware permitting of course) on other platforms. Loki did a brave job of porting several games to Linux.. but with so many games moving from using OpenGL to DirectX it made it considerably more difficult to do (many earlier PC games using the quake engine, for example, and using OpenGL could be realtively simply ported).. add to that lack of support for OpenGL hardware on Linux and you have a large problem (I could also mention that X is a client server windowing system so to get decent performance you need to bypass X and talk directly to the hardware via an abstracted layer.... that OpenGL now lags behind some of the DirectX technologies because everything has to be agreed by committee.. blah blah!)
Earliest 3D game I played... Driller.. on an Amstrad CPC.. using Incentives Freescape(TM) system in the late 80s

hi there, while the MS OS is the most functional and used within the computer industry I wouldn't say it was the best nor did Mr Gates invent it, as he and two buddies of his reversed engineered source code which became windows, if I remember correctly. The best ever was the Amiga OS and commodore in general was better I even had a 386 board that ran faster than a 386 PC at the time :) Also in tipical fashion the commodore was bought out by a European PC company to try and get the rights on the hardware as when you put a floppy or cd in the machine it doesn't come to a halt while reading the data unlike what PC's still do today (even at 4ghz cpu) put a floppy in and the whole system stops until the data has been read. Long live the Amiga in its EMU state

The fact that Windows is a pale copy of Mac is a truth that you seem to forget.

And the fact that Mac OS is a breeze to use by the end user is also a strong advantage.
Windows did not invent the usage of the mouse it is MAC that first embedded it into its OS.

Now the issues is not that Windows allows you to feel that at the end of your life you should feel you accomplish something that user of Linux did not. You forget that admin.'s activities are now at kid's reach and depend only in the wall build for admin by M$oft to limit user to admin their own account. Past is the time where you have to type your command, so to know your business before you can undertake any action on a server. Now you can just click here and there and you look GOOD. Well you do not impress any of us whom trace the path for you.

Also do not forget that it is not the Windows itself that frustrate everyone, is the arrogance of M$ that do not reveal the code for other companies to offer product as preferment as M$ one because they do not have the same knowledge of the source code. By seeing how the succeed I understand that M$ is scared as hell to revealed it as they are forced to do so in EU.

If it was a fair world I am sure that Windows will not be so hacked. That is why I now run a server using Linux-Apache and I feel that everyday I did accomplish something because the bug on it do not affect me, I am less worry of being hack and can be closer to my clients. And at the end of my life that will be the difference.

By the way I also do not like Coke and do not dink it.

Most prolific does not constitute best. Marketing, price, and scratching the right itch normally determine "best selling", but rarely determine "best". Take a look at Beta vs VHS. Beta was the best format for many reasons, but did not win the VCR wars because of poor decision-making at Sony. Wal-Mart is top dog because they sell cheap products, not because they sell the best.

Windows IS the best for some things (i.e. ease of installation, availability of software, general usability, etc.), but to say it is the "best OS ever" is like saying the hammer is the "best tool ever". Realistically, a hammer is great for pounding nails, but sucks when it comes to cutting wood. So, the BEST depends on what you need.

MACs can't be beat for clean, simple power and ability to handle graphics and colors properly. Now that their OS is Linux and processor Intel, I suspect the best is yet to come. (I am eyeing a powerbook as my next purchase...) Atari (remember them?) still does a great job handling digital video media, while a light version of Linux runs great on an old 486 with just 16 MB of RAM as a firewall.

Windows has some of the best-featured office productivity tools (this includes WordPerfect et al as well as MS Office) and is by far the easiest to use wrt install, upgrade, etc. Even though I find Outlook lacking wrt customer relationship management features, Linux has yet to come up with a viable competitor to Outlook for handling mail, contacts, to-do lists, and calendar. Once they do, I may never need to spend money on Windows again.

Although not always true, Linux is rarely at the forefront in the design of new products, more often Linux software is just something ported or copied from another OS. Yet in some ways, it is lightyears ahead. Linux allows unheard of customization of your system (as long as you take the time to learn how to use it), but the plethora of options and possibilities (not to mention the various distributions) is what keeps Linux out of mainstream. Many boards I have surfed about Linux have all the code monkeys saying they don't want to dumb down Linux. That's fine, but if that is the case, it will never be mainstream, and Windows will always be the dominant choice, since the average user can easily jump onto a Windows machine and do many things in a much more simple manner, making it appealing to them. Even for a veteran Linux guru, double-clicking an executable on a windows box is significantly easier than trying to install software on a Linux.

So, best is relative.

Strange, but IBM still sells more mainframes than anyone else. Those people must just be dumb as rocks ... or maybe they've got a need.

One could legitimately argue that z/OS is the best OS ever.

Get some perspective, or learn to be more specific.

See, I told you as it was - in the previous post i wrote. Now, stop going on about not having enough money to buy a mac. You don't have to buy the best and most powerfull - iBooks are great too. There are choices. The worst scenario is saying that something is best (knowing it is not true) simply because that is what I have. understandable, yet sad.
I know, we all do it and that is why we should be reminded of it

I walked into a newsagent today and had a look at their computer magazines. One XP Mag,1 Mac Mag, 3 General Computer Mags and 6 Pure Linux Mags and that is what sells in that place.

Maybe I'm missing something but I doubt it very much that there are [b]Computer Nerds[/b] hanging out at this newsagent buying all the Linux mags.

Yes I do agree with you that 95 did make PC's more palatable way back then but now I see far too many people complaining about the shortcomings of Windows and wanting something else to use.

They are sick and tied of software that doesn't perform as it should and is riddled with [b]Undocumented Features[/b], has no security to speak of at all and even worse they don't actually own what they have paid for.

Can you tell me of one other product that after you pay for you don't actually own it and can have the makers come in at any time demand its return without compensation and demand that you remove their software from your system?

From most of the MS Certified Partners meetings that I've gone to I've seen lots of pimply faced youngsters in suits telling each other just how much money they have made and how they have ripped off their customers. This type of practice [b]can not last![/b]

They are unconcerned that they have a very bad business reputation and I've seen plenty of them shut up shop over night and remove all the customers products that they are holding and just disappear of the face of the planet. Then open a shop 3 weeks latter under a different name and proceed to do it all again.

You may be happy to work like this but I for one am sick and tied of cleaning up the mess that they fools create and then what makes it even worse is that everyone in Commercial IT are considered as [b]Rip Offs who are out to get everything possible and are unconcerned for their customers.[/b]

I like repeat business and I treat my customers as a valuable asset not a disposable trash heap once I've got as much money as possible out of them.

Col ]:)

by making so many obsolete as they will not run on their latest version of Windows. i have dozens of games that I like but only the last 5 I have bought can be used as they are Win XP compatible and the games for the earlier M$ Windows versions will not run properly in XP regardless of how I try to tweak the compatibility mode.

Funnily I can load almost any recent version of Linux, instal Cedega and they all run perfectly. According to Bill Gates what i am seeing is some sort of illusion. Illusion or not they play great, even the latest games play better in Cedega than on XP.

This fella has to be a troll, but just in case anyone is gullible enough to believe him:

Insecure, unstable, unreliable, bloated, expensive. Windows summed up in 5 words.

Insecure: I regularly have to run anti-virus and anti-spyware programs in Windows or suffer the consequences. My wife's Windows XP PC needed a nuke and reinstall because of malware finally overcoming it (despite all attempts to save the thing). My Linux laptop hasn't caused me any of that grief or wasted time, oddly enough.

Unstable: I have to reboot my work PC (Windows XP) every night before I leave, otherwise it loses the plot entirely after a few days uptime. My Linux laptop has seen heavy usage and uptimes measured in weeks without going soft in the head. The Linux server I administer at work currently shows 64 days uptime (that's longer than any install of Windows 98/ME I ever owned lasted before needing a reinstall, by the way). I've had my home server running Linux with uptimes of > 6 months.

Unreliable: I freshly installed Linux on my laptop in February 2004, almost 2 years ago. I haven't had to reinstall since. Even Windows 2000, which is a reasonably good product IMO, never lasted that long without forcing me to nuke and reinstall (and no, I don't go hacking around in the registry - my linux box takes much more low-level abuse and sucks it up without fuss).

Bloated: C:\WINDOWS\ on my XP box in work takes up around 2.5GB all by itself. I have a fully functional Linux-based server at home which doesn't even have that much total disk space. I'd love to see a Windows-based server run in that much space and still have room to spare.

Expensive: this one's self-explanatory. Don't believe everything MS try to tell you about TCO - do your own research tailored to your own situation. And if you really think Windows has universally low TCO, kindly don't complain when you have to ditch your current hardware and replace it with high-end, high-cost stuff to be able to run Windows Vista in any meaningful way.

There are bugs in every system, and yes, they get fixed. The open source development model makes this a whole lot more efficient, anyone can submit a code patch to the developers, who in turn actually care about the code they work on.

You say Windows is the "wheel which we use to drive our PCs". Sadly, the wheel on your PC is wobbly and has a flat tire. And Microsoft reserve the right to replace it with a square one without notice. Or take it away entirely and leave your PC on axle-stands, unable to operate.

Don't get me wrong, there's some things that windows does quite well, like Plug & Play hardware (thanks to hardware manufacturers for drivers and not to windows). Even then, not all. Try installing an Iomega parallel port zip drive without manually downloading a driver. Linux recognizes it right away. Networking in windows, however, is excellent and easier than Windows.

I have used Microsoft's OSes since early versions of DOS through Windows 3.1, 3.11, Win95, 98, 98SE, 2000, XP Home and XP Pro SP2. I can't count the amount of frustating hours trying to get stuff working right, from CD Writers in Win98, Zip drives and anti-virus programs. I've spent thousands of dollars on Windows software. If Linux, as it has developed in the past couple of years, was available when Win95 came out, I would have gladly paid twice the amount just to avoid the frustrations of Windows.

With the exception of a few problems, Linux is fantastic. I compile my own kernels to get the functionality I need. I have 10 kernels to choose from on boot-up. I compile programs from source when necessary. I can't remember the last time I had to reboot after installing a program or changing a configuration. There are only a couple of programs that I require that do not have a Linux version. Some will run quite well using Wine and only two require Win4Lin, which allows me to run Win98 in an X-Window. Guess what, Win98SE runs like a scalded cat in a Linux window, boots in 15 seconds and never BSDs. Vulnerability to viruses is there but will never affect the Linux OS underneath. A tarred backup of the windows OS restores things to pristine conditions in a few seconds if something goes wrong. And, I can run several Linux programs while Windows is running.

DVD and CD burning is built-in and virtually fool-proof. 500 CD-Rs without a single dud. Media players, like MPlayer leave WMP in the dust. Rip CDs? Built-in. Word processing, spreadsheets, image viewers are at least as good as anything available for windows. I can create pdf files without Adobe Acrobat. Wget is probably the best downloader and web-site replicator available. Period. Command line (bash) is fantastic, nothing like it built-in in Windows. Writing bash scripts is fun (and Im not a geek). Far easier to run a program from the command line than from the GUI. I've got 2910 programs / utilities available, not including built-in bash commands. I can see the last 100,000 commands used. Web browsers: Konquerer, Opera, Firefox and two text-based web-browsers (Links and Lynx) which are lightning-fast to load pages. Many choices of mail clients but Evolution knocks the socks off Outlook. Gimp is at least as good as Photoshop. I have opened a 80 Mb image file in Gimp without problems. Try that in Photoshop. Or ACDSee if you want to reboot your PC.

Don't like the GUI interface? I have a choice of 4 to boot into.

Yes, there are frustrations, like setting-up printers or winmodems (what a ripoff). But, if you stick to HP LaserJet and external modems, works just fine.

Re-install the OS once a year like you have to do for Windows when it slows to a crawl? I've got a notebook running Mandrake 9 for 3 years now and it boots just as fast as when it was installed and also a PC with Redhat 7.2 for 5 years now with no problems. It's been running continuously, with shutdowns once every 3 or 4 months.

BTW, the Internet has nothing to do with Windows OS. Try Unix for the backbone of the Internet. Even Microsoft uses Unix and Linux for servers. Apache web servers running under Linux are used by far more web sites than Microsoft servers. Our company used to use a Win2000/Novell server as a proxy server. Switched to Linux/Apache and got rid of the problems.

But, for people who can't or won't utilize a bit of the gray matter between their ears and are willing to waste time, Window is really their only choice. Both are terrible things to waste.

www.transgaming.com

Lol, posted this before I read the above reply by DE. Oh well. Here's the site none-the-less. :)

BTW, DE, what distro do you use?

The latest that I've found is 10.1 on Planet Mirror.

But if you are willing to splash out and pay the grand total of 5.00 Euros you can download the 32 & 64 Bit versions direct from Mandriva Store at

http://store.mandriva.com/product_info.php?cPath=117&products_id=285&osCsid=caa50b00585572a166765093ed5fa190

A more through search of the European sites may reveal a download site but honestly for 5 Euros I wouldn't bother.

Col

Actually, Grant, you err in your statement about heralding 3D
games. One of the first 3D games available on the home
computing market was "Arctic Fox" for the Apple ][ desktop
computer before Windows was even a dream.

I won't deny that the Windows platform still supports the
majority of desktop games, but I will also say that each new
version of Windows tended to orphan whatever games the user
already owned either until updates were made available, or, in
most cases, a new version was released, forcing you to purchase
the replacement.

Granted, this is true for most platforms, but at least one game
console and at least one computer OS have at least attempted to
maintain some form of backwards compatiblity to their
predecessors. Whether that continues or not is to be seen, but
until then, I will stick with what I use. Yes, I use Windows... for
gaming; because the games I want aren't, yet, ported to the Mac.
But then, I don't necessarily play the same games you do.

I'll bet you've faithfully paid M$ every few
years to keep your MCP current and bought every
version of Windows starting with Win95. Heck,
I'll bet you even were one of the people who
waited in line for it when it first showed up in
stores.

I was sort of like you once, too. Then, in 2003,
I bought a copy of SuSE 8.2 and installed it. My
first reaction was "Wow!" Basically, I put the
disk in, watched the installation work, rebooted
the system when it was done, and then had a
complete system with an office program
(OpenOffice), several e-mail clients (both
graphical and shell-based), three web browsers,
and just about anything else I would need -- all
done in a little over two hours. So, for $90
U.S., I got a complete system that would have
cost up to $1,000 had I stuck with Microsoft
products. SuSE has been my primary OS ever
since.

Have you tried buying SuSE 10.0 online? If not,
the installation via FTP isn't that hard.
Download the boot ISO image from SuSE, boot from
the CD, and follow the installation "wizard"
along. The only difference is that you'll have
to change your software source installation
location in YaST (the set-up tool) to their FTP
locations instead of the CD-ROM drive. Other
than that, it works the same.

Recently I had a chance to visit a company that's
involved in e-commerce transaction processing.
This company is ALL LINUX & UNIX except for the
desktop. Why? It's because they can't afford
downtime, high costs, security holes, and having
bloat (needless GUIs mainly) sucking up valuable
system resources. If Windows truly was the best
OS, you would think it would be used universally,
but it isn't.

And as for the Mac having sub-standard
functionality, take a look at the Aqua interface
and the Mach kernel. Oh, and did I mention that
you can pretty much run most all Unix programs on
it? This includes running it as a mail server
using Sendmail and a database server using MySQL.
You may now explain to us how your copy of WinXP
can do those things -- including serving over two
concurrent users.

I must say, the level of ignorance demonstrated
by your post is profound. I would hope that, if
you work in IT and hope to advance in your
career, that you develop some knowledge of other
operating systems because sooner or later you
will encounter them -- either at your employer or
by way of an organization that does business with
your employer. Obviously it would not help if
you dumbfounded at the sight of one of these
other OS's.

http://wwwnew.mandriva.com/en/downloads/mirrors/2006iso

the mirror list for the latest version free download, in both x86 [ ia32 ] and 64 bit

Alan Kay, Research Fellow at Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) lead the development of a new concept in man-to-machine interface, which then spawned the acronym - GUI. Until then, all computers used a video interface confined to the ASCII character set.

Kay theorized that if the paradigm for user interaction could be shifted from "process" orientation (command line step-wise instructions) to that of an "object" orientation (generalized graphical icon representing the objective), then it would enable untrained users to "discover" their way to using the machine productively and more powerfully than yet imagined. In the early 80's that was other-worldly, especially because the compute horsepower necessary to support a GUI was mini-computer class. He did it anyway on the Xerox Alto and Star workstations.

Xerox did invite the leading PC manufacturers (not software vendors like Microsoft) in to see their invention, ostensibly to effect manufacturing economies of scale to the hardware so that the concept could proliferate in the market. Xerox was rather altruistic in those days.

Among companies invited were DEC, HP and Apple. DEC said they'd already done this with their software product known as All-In-One, an early office automation/groupware suite but had difficulty getting their mini-computer users to step up to the very expensive graphical terminals that were required. HP glibly pronounced the stuff irrelavent to business because they felt that real business computers were transaction oriented and a CUI (character user interface) was optimal for constraining creative adventurism by users. That may have been the very first stupid decision HP ever made.

Steve Jobs, however, kept his own counsel and took the concept back to the hive. He was still ruminating over the failed Apple III and was looking for the next big thing. Xerox's GUI was a paradigm shift completely consistent with his philosophy in personal computers. Sure, computers were proven transaction systems, but he was more interested in changing the world. He secretly opened his own skunk works off the Apple campus, hoisted the skull and crossed bones and eventually delivered the Lisa. The machine freaked the PC world but was too slow penetrating becuase it was just too expensive at $12,500/ea.

In the meantime, IBM finally figured out why the Apple II was encroaching on their installed base of glass houses at the Big 5 accounting firms and announced the IBM 5150 aka IBM PC (Personal Computer) in December 1981. That day instantly legitimized all PCs, but especially wintel spec machines, as legitimate business tools. THAT was the birth of mindlessness in PC platform choices.

Then in January 1984, Jobs finally got the unit price of the Lisa below $800. He called it Macintosh and the GUI got traction. And Jobs later got Kay to become his Research Fellow living on some mountain top in Santa Cruz. Wherefor art thou now, Alan Kay?

Gates&Balmer stole the GUI technology from Apple during their technology exchange on the original MS-Word project (which first shipped with the new Lisa) and cut their engineering teeth on it while they were under contract with IBM to co-develop OS/2. What they didn't get tuned for years was the same problem that Kay had already worked out at PARC but that AT&T comletely missed in their own version (7300 PC) and Linux is stumbling around with now - orthoginality.

But that's another story...

Son, you are confused...or ignorant. What constitutes "best" to you is obviously the product of a constipated analysis. Perhaps it would be helpful to learn something about other operating systems before dismissing them.

Our industry is littered with superlitive products taht are dead and gone because somebody made bad marketing decisions. Just because MS-Windows controls most of the oxygen we all breath, doesn't mean it's good to live that way. Duh.

Hal 9000,

You're correct that Xerox invented and first made use of the desktop GUI and also the mouse.

However, in the early days Steve Jobs farmed out much of the code-writing for the early Apple OS to Microsoft. Later, Microsoft and Apple split ways when Gates suggested improvements to the Apple GUI (according to his vision) which Steve Jobs would not accept.

If you can find a copy of Triumph of the Nerds (a three-part video series about the early days of personal computing by Robert X. Cringely, the 12th employee at Apple Computer, < http://www.pbs.org/cringely/ >) it will help fill in some of the details.

Why is it then that people that still have a computer that is old, and can run a free distro of Linux CHOOSE to go and buy a new computer with the latest version of Windows on it? As more and more younger people get educated on PC's and the various operating systems earlier in life, there may be a push towards using more Linux in the future, however, it was still Windows that brought the computer home for an overwhelming majority of the users that we have today. Without the evil Bill Gates, we wouldn't be where we are today. Was the Model T the greatest car of all time? No, but with out it and what it brought to the table, the automobile would have remained a toy strictly for the wealthy for a much longer period.

wasn't it Einstein who said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?

these Windows vs Linux "discussions" are insane (on this site anyway). it's the same sh** over and over again. unless there is something positively helpful to those who want to learn something from either platform, improve their business, etc..SHUUUUTT UUUUUPP!!!!

certain experienced post-ers offer very good insight on both sides which I can appreciate, the others need to relax and get back to work.

Perhaps you could clarify what you mean by best? Most popular? Most technologically advanced? Easiest to use? Most features "borrowed" from other operating systems? Easiest target for script kiddie hackers?

As for Apple being sued by Microsoft? That shoe seems to have been on the other foot.

As for Linux and learning for life. Are you saying that there have been no new features in Windows since 1.0? You havent' had to learn anything new? Linux does have a steeper learning curve than Windows. OTOH, if you stop learning, they may as well put you to bed with a shovel.

Answer - Sun Solaris 10 /Staroffice -
Solaris - Running Virus free for 20+ years!

I doubt you can buy it for a dollar (not legally anyhow).

I have to concede this point in your argument. I do keep coming back to windows. I play with Linux alot, use it for a few things, andreallylike some of the community philosophy behind it. But when it comes down to it, when I need to just get things done, and quickly. I always wind up back on my Windows Box.So you may have a bit of a point there.

Oi! Cedega will port games to both Linux AND Mac. Lol. I've not tested the Mac version, but I know of at least 2 people here that use Cedega to port games to Linux. They are also working on porting games to the PS2 and Xbox.

*Now if I remember correctly Apple got their GUI to the market
first and were the PC to own for the illiterate computer user and
were there long before Windows hit the market with Windows.*

and beyond the history lesson: I have to tweak Windows down to
a nub at 50% higher clock rate and equal memory to get to
around 80% of the performance of my Mac OUT OF THE BOX. I
have ne'er had to dick around with OSX; 9 was somewhat like
Windowz in this regard, but most of those issues are resolved.
What actual operational arguments for 'the best OS ever' have
been presented here?
Comic Book Man sez, "Worst Operating system EVER"

your arguments is based on a sales model: more people
theoretically voted for GW Bush in ought four, so he MUST BE THE
GREATEST US PRESIDENT EVER. This is 100% analogous to your
'argument'.
What straight facts? have you ever even audited a course in basic
logic?

that's the alpha and the omega of this discussion. I am outta here.

in the progression of OS's. From CP/M to DOS to Windows to ???

As soon as somebody comes up with a better solution that's "friendly" to the masses of users AND programmers, everybody will shift. Until then, many people will complain, moan, groan and try to push something, anything on us for various reasons.

If IBM would open-source OS/2 and give it away like Linux, that would be an improvement. If SUN would modify their OS to run efficiently on PCs that would rock! But SUN makes their money selling their hardware at high prices. They can't do that and stay in business using their current business model. If they modified their business model to be a software only product, they could own the OS business in 10 years. But lose money the first five. They can't do it.

So, until another better option becomes available, we're stuck with windows.

Paul

Currently I have Fedora Core 4 and Mandrake 10 on different machines and am waiting to get a hold of Mandrake Core 5 as neither of the above work well on my new 64 bit system, mind you the 64 bit windows does not work well on it either. When I get FC 5 I will probably put it on them all.

I suspected from the top of the thread that you were here merely
to stir it up; your 'contentions' are too stupid and ill-conceived
not for this to be the case. Here's another, donno if it's a
'cleaver', or even a beaver cleaver word or not: your arguments
fail to argue; they are but instigatorial, in a childish mein.
Does that cleav yer beaver?
You'd have to work on your grammar, your spelling and your
punctuation, and then some: Noto Bene, Exemplo Gratio: 'it is',
singular, does not match the plural 'contentions'. We learn that
in about the second grade of grammar school.
Windows is absolutely for the common man if you are the
exemplar of 'common man', this must be true.

Marketing and distribution obviously.

As for your earlier point I was in IT before windows and none of it was home computing. You might have to thank Bill, for your career, neither I nor HAL9000, nor many many others have to. So you seem to be promoting windows out of self interest, I don't have a problem with that at all. Just don't expect my self interest to coincide with yours. I've probaly forgotten a lot over time, certainly I've forgotten which version of windows wasn't chock full of faults.

Oh, you are just so young! Microsoft did not "invent" Windows. A very much younger Bill Gates and his buddy, Steve Jobs, together developed the first commercial version of DOS upon which (and forever after apparently) all future MS 'operating systems' would depend in one form or another. Mr. Gates made this the foundation of the company he named "MicroSoft". Eventually, he and Mr. Jobs parted business ways, and Jobs developed the Apple OS, based on an entirely different CPU architecture and intended from day 1 to be accessed and used via a Graphical User Interface (no command line, like DOS, ever). The Apple OS always was a more stable, efficient, and solid graphics-based OS than DOS, and as such drew the attention of a large number of neophyte PC users (which describes pretty much ALL PC users at that time). The Apple market share posed a serious threat to the DOS PC market share then, so Mr. Gates did what it seems all serious business people do when threatened by products superior to their own: make a cheap knock-off rather than a better product. Thus Mr. Gates' programmers were tasked to design and code a GUI to run on top of DOS (which it still does to this day) AND make it look like the Apple GUI. He called it "Windows". Thus the war began.
Microsoft did not 'invent' Windows any more than a photographer invents the scenery in a landscape photograph.

I did love GEMS it was the window's manager on the old 16 bit Atari systems running on top of TOS. I loved being able to tack together multiple systems. Or just being able to draw a circle without resorting to turtle graphics.

This is the statement he was debunking. Windows/microsoft in no way made the PC market. They just managed to get a competitive edge over several other competitors which eventually turned into a monopoly.

Bill

Heh...heres what all you "professionals" are forgetting...overlooking, whatever you want to call it.
Wether you like it or not, Windows IS the number 1 OS. Its very simple as to why. The average user, can sit down with and do WHATEVER it is they want to do with it. With very little book time. Surf the internet, read/write emails, play games, etc.

The average user CANNOT do this with linux....at least not yet. If you want linux to be the LEADING OS on the market, why dont all you high and mighty gurus, stop whining and slamming Gates, and make linux as user friendly as windows.
Hell, you can even charge people money for it!!!'
Ill buy it and install it myself.
Oh wait, thats against the whole Linux open source philosophy isnt it? Or maybe not, they do have some for sale....not exactly for your average user though is it.

Then of course you run the risk of all the leet hackers focusing on hacking Linux now instead of Windows. Whats yer excuse gonna be then?

Anyway, come out of your geek towers, and remember the actual majority of users, dont want to and arent going to spend the time to learn to use Linux. Wanna change the world? Step up and do it, quit whining that no one else has done it yet.

As a side note...during that anti-trust crap, which was BS by the way....cause lets face it, there were PLENTY of alternative browsers to use.
But hey, MS got to big and wasnt tossin any to the politicians, yet another big ol evil mean corporation that needed to be brought to its knees.
Gates shoulda took his cash and flipped a bird to everyone, as he closed the doors to MS. Just think, then you all coulda been in Linux heaven where everything is perfect. RIIIIIGHT.

Anywho...want a Linux world? Make it happen.
But for now, its the Windows world that Bill created. Like it or not.

I have a small business with 15 employees. I have tried setting up a linux server with a RedHAT subscription and that was a time consuming disaster. I don't have an IT Dept. All I wanted to do is set up a File server, web server, and an intranet. First, setting up Samba to work correctly with different groups, users and shares took part of my life away that I will never get back. Sticky Bit. What the heck is a sticky bit and why the heck do I even want to know what that is; I don't! I am not even going to get into setting up Apache and MYSQL. That was even worse. Needless to say, Linux humbled me and brought me to my knees. I Gave up and was saved by Microsoft Windows 2003 server. I am not exagerating when tell you I was able to set up the whole system the way I needed it in a few short hours. Microsoft is very intuitive and the books available are written well enough to get the job done easily. I never had to make a phone call. I have a domain controller, File server and an internal intranet. The Server has been up for almost a year now without rebooting. Great OS. Can't be beat. If you are a larger company you can use MS instead of Linux and probably get rid of half you IT staff becuase MS is so easy to administer.

Go Microsoft !!

There is only one reason I use Windows: the programs I need to run are written for Windows. A graphic interface may be more pleasing to idiot users, but truth is: you've got a digital mind trying to follow analog instructions--and that causes problems. Give a user a text-menu and they click "A" or "B." Give a user a graphic display and a mouse and they click "A 1/2" then the computer has to figure out if it should execute "A" or "B." It might decide the user said "B" when the user thought she said "A," or it might make a "thung-I-heard-you" noise and not do anything because it's so busy chewing the proverbial bubble gum it forgot to keep walking.

Engineers are taught the KISS principle: Keep It Simple, Stupid! Logic being, the fewer parts, the fewer things to break. What is every new version of Windows? More parts, more things to break/clash/crash. It's common knowledge that the more Windows get used the more unstable it gets. To me that's an inexcuseable fault. To MicroSoft's marketing department, that's the excuse to sell them Windows: Next.

Y'know, back in college we had to get our own copies of MatLab. Most of the class got the Windows version: a couple of us bought the DOS version. Certain files had to be saved to a particular directory on the network (I don't remenber which or why). The DOS versions figured out where to put it automatically. The teacher's "save" instructions for the Windows students?: Ask a DOS user to tell you the directory number their program is saving to.

I think windows get the biggest hammer throwen on it because they have the biggest % of customers there for 3 to 4 times more complants I bet if you account for all the sales of Microsoft compared to each of all the other os
you would see windows has the lions share & sure it's fare from perfect but it's a lot easyer then most of the others if not all it's just that when you get the lions share of the customers you get the lions share of the complants all the others ar'nt complant free & more food for thoght I don't see all the complaners going to the other os do you I think it's just a way of blowing off steam when your upset when it's over all is well but when it's fresh it's a bugger & hard to blow out ha ha ha take care stay healthy & be happy I did'nt buy my computer to be a grumbler all though I have my moments to thank's for the oppertunity
P.S.
may the lord overwhelm you with ample blessing to spreed around. & be happy

Hmm.. I'm not married to kUbuntu yet, but I found it funny that it's touted as a newbie distro... Obviously those guys never tried to install anything to watch DVDs!! Holy kittens! Broken dependancies, Ubuntu not offering the dependancies.... In a way, I don't really want an OS that "just works", but come on! LOL. (I'll be documenting Linux woes here: www.geeknoob.com as well as anything else (read: Novell)... If anyone has encountered an issue that has come up on there, please drop a comment!)

I still haven't gotten sound to work, but that's an issue for this weekend. (onboard sound... (I know, it was an x-mas present, I don't buy mobo's with onboard ANYthing!))

It's also a 64-bit system... I'll probably wind up dualbooting distros. I can look up when FC 5 is due to come out... but how are they with actually making the due date?

People bash windows because,

10:it is bloated,
9:it is slopy code
8:Microsoft has preditory busninss practices
7:everytime they are forced to upgrade their computer gets slower and harder to use.
6:they are forced to upgrade when their may be nothing more they need.
5:Windows does not play well with others
4:Features are removed to later become add on products for add on price. (
3:security was an afterthought, by design
2:networking was an afterthought
1:
and the number one reason people like Windows is
they don't know anything else

...

Well windows is out there but not the greatest it can stand to be totaly overhauled.
Bill Gates never wrote any of its software they stole it change it up and called it their own. Example windows 3.X was stolen from apple computer. Apple then re wrote their software where it is more user friendy with gui and drag n drop feature where as windows wasn't you gad to reload the cdrom drive every time you turn on windows, which force Bill Gate to write or steal another software and call it Windows 95.
What a fiasco it crashes every time you use it, second you had to buy a tune up disk to fix it and third it wasn't usb compatable till the second version came out. I ask the room take a look at norton or macaffe website and look at the virus warning and see which operation system it infected the most 9 times out of ten it is windows coincident I think not. If bill Gates hadn't gotten message by now he will never get it.

Are you out of your everloving mind. Microsoft was still farting
around with dos hell when Apple was given the GUI by Zerox.
Quote" Nothing will ever come of that" UnQuote.

EVERY FEATURE THAT IS IN WINDOWS WAS STOLEN FROM
MACINTOSH.

That dude is flat out fact.

Microsoft had weathered lawsuits out the wazoo to steal and
keep the inovations that were stolen from Mac.

Oh yea! If Mac is so crude, why did Bill Gates invest $150 million
in Apple several years back.

I have used Dos since the '60's and bought my first Mac in the
late '80's.

I service Mac and Windows customers in my business. If it wasn't
for Windows I would starve. I get a Mac related call about once
every 2 months. I usually can handle that over the phone.

No the bugs don't get fixed. They get reborn. Every patch that
microsoft does will cripple or damage some application or part
of their own system. Have you ever read the post that are
included with every patch.

Sub standard. Sheeze, Windows is as close to a carbon copy of
the Mac GUI as windows can get it without bring down the wrath
of the all mighty attorneys.

Every hosting isp offers windows, linux, and Macintosh based
servers.

There are programmers that code windows software using
Macintosh computers because they can stand the crashing that
goes on with Dos based machines.

Yea thats right, Dos based. Think it's not still there. Go to start
run and type cmd and see what comes up. I still have to drop to
dos to fix some of the crazy things that happen is windows.

Go in to almost any Elementary or Jr High School and see what is
in their computer labs.

If windows died right now Apple would pick up the slack and the
web would keep rignt on trucking, only just a little more stable.

You want to play a lot of games get windows. You want to do
some heavy graphics work without rebooting or waiting forever,
get a Macintosh. What do you think is in Industrial Light &
Magics workstations. It Dang shure ain't Windows.

Macintosh is porting to the Intel platform not because their
hardware is getting tired. But because the windows users can't
even begain to understand why a 2.5gig RISC processor will tear
up a 4gig Pentium.

Windows is a pox on mankind. If it is a wheel it has a flat spot.
The only reason I want it to stay around is it puts food on my
table from fixing all of the "undocumented features" that they
keep putting in their software. NOTE: that's technician slang for
BUGS!

Good luck in life. Ya gonna need it.

Lee
Micro Support Technologies
Computer Engineer since 1974

Come on, people. This discussion has already happened like about a million times now. MS vs. the Rest of the World.

Personally I'm tired of the propaganda from either camp. Seems like the fanatics on either side deem it necessary to try to force their opinions on everyone else.

If your OS does what you need it to do, great. If not, use a different OS. Move on and let it go.

I have an opinion about which OS I prefer, but sharing it here and then having ten fanatics argue with me about it is just a waste of time.

A bit of advice to both camps: correct grammar and spelling would greatly help your credibility.

Common dude! Like Windows has never told anybody a flat out
lie.

What do you think they are going to say on their site. Buy us and
get a screaming ulcer from trying to deal with it.

Lee

Actually the Amiga brought us the first 3d games (Elite and Core something or other).

Also, it is a myth that Mac and Linux don't have games. Mac has games ported to it and Linux either has a port so that the game will run native, or you can use Cedega (www.transgaming.com).

I play WoW just fine on my Fedora Core 4 box at home...and I have a Gentoo box that sometimes I fire up Tux racer or NWN on.

You need xine and libdvd_css. Try:
http://xinehq.de/

Who dropped this guy on his head? Microsoft didn't invent windows. I believe it was Apple. Maybe somebody before that. Oh, yes, a carpenter!
He doesn't go back far enough with Microsoft! I remember every Microsoft OS starting with MS DOS 3.1, Maybe before that, but I am old enought to not remember stuff an am entitled to do so.
Anyway, Microsoft has NEVER come out with an O/S that didn't have a LOT of bugs and that took a lot of skill to patch and / or workaround same.
Go talk to someone who knows something besides a mouse.
frankn@foggy.net

Yeah, eventually I got the DVD to play last night... Not sure how to actually install drivers for sound tho... that's a project for tonight...

Also, I had bought a MadDog Dominator (i think) FX5500 (based off ATI) - said dual monitor & Linux supported. (It also touted LCD monitor support... *scratches head over that one*) However, no Linux drivers on the CD, and there's only 1 physical monitor port on the card. I know in XP, theres something with a setting (never actually tried this though) where it looks like you can run 2 monitors with 1 vid card having 1 port... However I don't see that in Linux... Any ideas?

Windows can never be the best OS from a programmers' perspective. By programmer I mean the ones who programs the UI for himself, be it a shell script or whatever.
Just think the way the GUI works and how does it help a programmer when its shell (cmd or command) shell is so badly capable of scripting.
Also, as compared to Linux (bash or other xyz-sh shell) Windows is no where in picture. A programmer will always want more flexibility, more power onto control his/her UI.
Now, talking abt the GUI, KDE and gnome are doing far better and are improving very much for user-friendliness (for which generally "Microsoft" is known for) also the more easy error/info "sugar-coated" messages. So, Microsoft just has one-up w.r.t GUI but that won't last for long since better development in Linux GUI can rather beat or be at par-with-Microsoft.

So, I wud say that the so-called "BEST" depends on for who/whom it?s targeted for, and not overall.

Hope you didn't get hurt when you fell off the soapbox! Do us all a favor: 1. Do some research before you spout off - some of your comments are just not accurate, 2. Find a good spell-checker before you publish, and 3. Good grammar and punctuation are not dead - try using both for any chance of credibility. Nuff said!

IF you have scrolled down this far anyway.

Microsoft are a large corporate entity with many partners. Now, if Microsoft with all there money and power want to say that they created their product, Who am I to argue. That argument could bankrupt a company, so I stand no chance of telling them that they did not create Windows and that some-else did and look I have proof.

A few people seem to be complaining about the quality of my thread. Yes, it isn't up to a full glad high paid lawyers argument, sorry about that.

A few people seem to get picky and argue semantics of my thread.

A few have even called it a troll.

A few complained about logic.

I would like to think that if I was surfing the TR and I went into the Linux discussion area I would find a tread there called the Best OS ever without a doubt, because there seems to be a lot of support for Linux in the Windows Discussion area.

So how about this,
IF you like windows, then it has to be "the greatest OS ever without a doubt". IF you like something else then you don't like windows.

Just because it's mass-produced (Budweiser, Miller, Windoze) doesn't mean it's the best. A lot of microbrews and imports have a much better taste than those two beers; in parallel, certain *nix flavors can run rings around Windoze regarding security and performance. Let's not forget most *nix can run on more than one platform.
I would also like to add that you should seriously go back to school and retake some grammar and spelling classes.

Yes, MS was found guilty of unfair biz practices by Justice Jackson, but the litigation was so long, so convuluted, and so many of the complaints were thrown out, that in the end MS was allowed to remain intact. There was no AT&T solution (no baby Gates).

In the long run, the desktop will become less and less important. MSs profits on its cash cow (Windows Desktop Lic) will continue to decline. As more and more consumer apps are ported in internet appliances like the iPod, Play Station, Xbox, smart phones, etc... consumers will less and less reason to fire up thier Dells,IBMs, and HPs.

Most of the future growth in the electronics world will come from the consumer side. The biz world will come later, but already devices like hand held data collection terminals are finding a bigger and bigger market.

Fiveteen years from now, everyone will wonder what the big fuss was about. Competitors like Red Hat and Suse should take note. If they put all of thier eggs into a shrinking market (the Desktop OS Market), they will go the way of Digital, Wang, Wordstar, and Zenith.

I was dragged kicking and screaming into the clone world. When I finally crashed my Amiga 2000 (with a GVP-3001 in it) in 1995, I had clones and Macs to pick from. Macs were still fairly expensive so I got into the clone world. I could not fathom how people could use clones and their OSs and think they were great systems. I look at Windows as the survival of the mediocre, because its the best that 'people' can aspire to.

Thanks, I needed a good laugh. You do need to get out more often though.

at least you have an good answer.
everyone must use what solves their busninss problems.
If the windows monopoly is broken you will have more options

Put the crack pipe away and listen to reality:

HP-UX is the best operating system ever developed.

Why?

1. You hardly need to ever reboot the system.
2. The system is incredibly stable. There are HP-UX servers that have been up for over 10 years without a power down.
3. You can scale it almost indefinitely by adding hardware.
4. It does what a computer is supposed to do. It runs without unexpected results day in, day out.

If you speak against it, you probably haven't seen it.

This is why big companies that run 24x7 operations use it. NOT Windows. This OS properly built has more staying power than the energizer rabbit on viagra.

If you're talking about DESKTOPS, I think the best is still yet to come. I won't endorse an OS that you have to reboot whenever you change anything on the system or cannot control it's own processes.

Although I would love a cheaper OS and one that wasnt as resource hungry as windows has been and is now inreasing. Your right windows drives the market, the userbility, application support and overall ability makes it king. There is nothing we can do to change that fact, so why try to buck the system?

Please note:

- The PC was invented by IBM
- Microsoft started with MS-DOS on IBM PCs
- Apple had MacOS and it ran only on windows
- Apple created windows and the mouse
- Have you heard of Appletalk? Best n/w ever!
- Word processing was started by Wordperfect
- Spreadsheets by Lotus 1-2-3
- Presentation s/w by Harvard business graphics
and, yes, Power point (not a microsoft company)
- Desktop publishing by Pagemaker

Microsoft bought some of them, copied some of them and, by virtue of their DOS being shipped out with *every* PC, managed to corner the marketshare.

Now, please go do some research before posting such atrocious topics!

As I find it hard to get too involved in this entire argument. MS vs Nix, AMD vs Intel and any number of other different things that are used in the IT field. They are all the same and constantly creep up.

So I just try to laugh it off and throw in a bit of comedy. :D

Col ]:)

The automobile analogy is a very good one. Ford did not make the "best" car in many respects but it was affordable.

Apple lost because Jobs wanted to keep the whole pie. His system was proprietary. That made his product too expensive. (It still is!)

Bill Gates thankfully created a mass market for PC's by saying, "Hey, if it is PC based I don't care who makes the hardware" and proceded to drive the price of home computing down for the people who either did not have the money to buy an Apple or did not want to spend "that much money" to own a word processor. Don't forget, PC's did not really do that much when this struggle for dominance began.

If it were not for the marketing genius and "do what ever it takes" drive of Bill Gates to bring to the common man a personal computer we would not be enjoying the fruits of the highest growth in productivity in the history of mankind.

Remember, this opportunity was there for the other guys to take but they were hogs and wanted the whole pie, or they just did not have the vision, so they lost.

The reason so many people complain about Microsoft is because they strive to be all things to all people and that is a tough row to hoe.

It would be good to know how many of the whiners out there have any kind of certification in Microsoft products. I can do phenominal things in little time with Windows operating systems which give my clients stable, secure and valuable products for their investments. Perhaps some of the complainers should learn how to properly utilize the tools available to them with Windows.

Hey, it may not be perfect, but it is really good.

By the way, did you hear that WOOOOSH!
It was an intelligent thoutht, see if you can catch up to it. :-)
People bash windows because,

10:it is bloated,
9:it is slopy code
8:Microsoft has preditory busninss practices
7:everytime they are forced to upgrade their computer gets slower and harder to use.
6:they are forced to upgrade when their may be nothing more they need.
5:Windows does not play well with others
4:Features are removed to later become add on products for add on price. (
3:security was an afterthought, by design
2:networking was an afterthought
1:
and the number one reason people like Windows is
they don't know anything else