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Poll

What is your OS? (operating system)

Windows PC/Surface/Phone
[ 8 ] (25%)
Mac/iThingy
[ 2 ] (6.3%)
*nix/BSD
[ 12 ] (37.5%)
Android/GoogleOS
[ 7 ] (21.9%)
Blackberry
[ 0 ] (0%)
Other
[ 3 ] (9.4%)

Total Members Voted: 17

Topic: What is your OS? (operating system) (Read 29327 times)

What is your OS? (operating system)

Just a tech poll. Vote and comment :D

Re: What is your OS? (operating system)

Reply #1 –
Ersi, you should've allowed users to change their vote. For one, I now use one computer primarily, the phones - let them don't count. But I've bought a tablet with Android, which is not in use yet.

Re: What is your OS? (operating system)

Reply #2 –
I thought about allowing to change the vote. On one hand, allowing to change vote would make this poll an ever-changing thing, instead of a proper accumulation of statistics, and I didn't like this. On the other hand, real life is changing and we are not that many to make drastic changes in the polling situation, so yes, maybe I should have allowed it. Anyway, the poll cannot be edited any more, at least this aspect cannot.

Less complaining, more voting!

Re: What is your OS? (operating system)

Reply #4 –
NetBSD on a whole lot of different hardware, some of it also has things like Solaris, IRIX, Android, Mac OS X or Haiku installed :right:

Re: What is your OS? (operating system)

Reply #5 –
Hmm! I'm a bit of a mixed bag as far as my computers are concerned.
Laptop running Vista, a sad and old desktop running Linux Mint and an Amiga 1200 running AmigaOS 3.1 which my Mrs still uses frequently, though I will admit to using it occasionally for a bit of nostalgic gaming.
The start and end to every story is the same. But what comes in between you have yourself to blame.

Re: What is your OS? (operating system)

Reply #6 –
Carbon based operative system.

For computing, windows XP.
A matter of attitude.

Re: What is your OS? (operating system)

Reply #7 –
Bel, it'll rather be some neurological term, huh? I had a thought about such an option too. Unfortunately Ersi, being unfriendly with our Lounge experience, wouldn't allow funny choices.;)

Re: What is your OS? (operating system)

Reply #8 –
I wasn't being funny, I was being futuristic and there's nothing funny about our future.
Drones and robots are being presented as entities that we have to accept in our lives as if they were persons. Silicon based operative systems instead of carbon.
A matter of attitude.

Re: What is your OS? (operating system)

Reply #9 –
I'm running Windows 8 these days. Last was XP, I skipped the Windows systems between those two.
What would happen if a large asteroid slammed into the Earth?
According to several tests involving a watermelon and a large hammer, it would be really bad!

Re: What is your OS? (operating system)

Reply #10 –
Quote from: mjmsprt40 on
I'm running Windows 8 these days. Last was XP, I skipped the Windows systems between those two.

For what I hear, you're wrong.
It seems that 7 is what Vista should had been and 8 a total failure.
So I keep with XP preparing to upgrade for 7.

The reason I didn't already is simple, I don't need to. Everything keeps on working.
Besides, I'm curious about the Linux worshipers.
A matter of attitude.

Re: What is your OS? (operating system)

Reply #11 –
I don't think my experience with 8 would be a total failure. It's not as good as XP, or as good as I hear that 7 is, but it's not the crashing nightmare that ME was. Hard to use-- yeah, it can be. 8 has some idiosyncrasies related to the touchscreen that I can do without, seems it wants to bring up stuff I didn't ask for but that touch thought I did-- and there's no way to turn off touch.

I still have my XP laptop, at this time there's some jobs it does better and no getting around it, at least with the older hardware I still have. It will get risky to use it online because criminals will write malware to attack XP and Microsoft isn't supporting it anymore, but for internal work here it still gets the job done, often better than the new laptop with 8 can do.
What would happen if a large asteroid slammed into the Earth?
According to several tests involving a watermelon and a large hammer, it would be really bad!

Re: What is your OS? (operating system)

Reply #12 –
You know what is the problem with 8 mjm?
Being an operative system deliberately made for turning people into idiots.
What those logos reminds you? the cubes children used to play at kindergarten. All the system structure is made to turn people into idiots.
React, don't use it.
A matter of attitude.

Re: What is your OS? (operating system)

Reply #13 –
Quote from: Belfrager on

You know what is the problem with 8 mjm?
Being an operative system deliberately made for turning people into idiots.
What those logos reminds you? the cubes children used to play at kindergarten. All the system structure is made to turn people into idiots.
React, don't use it.


Please say you're kidding. Because if you're not--- if you really believe that logos on the screen can turn you into an idiot-- then it may be already a little late.

By your reckoning, we've been slowly being turned into idiots ever since we left command-line in favor of GUIs.
What would happen if a large asteroid slammed into the Earth?
According to several tests involving a watermelon and a large hammer, it would be really bad!

Re: What is your OS? (operating system)

Reply #14 –
Quote from: mjmsprt40 on
By your reckoning, we've been slowly being turned into idiots ever since we left command-line in favor of GUIs.

Current research overwhelmingly shows that comics are good for children's reading skills, but opposition to pictures dates back a long, long time. Back in the 16th or 17th century at least one humanist was horribly offended that the publisher had dared to add a few illustrations to his work. (I do think an author should be consulted on such issues, mind you.) Some were of the opinion that any picture was bad, even though e.g. an anatomical diagram is immeasurably clearer than any written text could ever be.

Whether any of this has any bearing on Windows 8 I don't know.

Re: What is your OS? (operating system)

Reply #15 –
Quote from: mjmsprt40 on
Please say you're kidding. Because if you're not--- if you really believe that logos on the screen can turn you into an idiot-- then it may be already a little late.

I said system structure. Logos made of kindergarten cubes are just a matter of design coherency with the product.
It's symptomatic that they don't even tries to hide it.
A matter of attitude.

Re: What is your OS? (operating system)

Reply #16 –
Oops - just voted Windows because it is my main system, haven't tried to tick more then that - but to add: I am using on different Hardware (and Software: Virtual Machines) various systems.... and as most (Edit: of the current) ones beside Windows are more or less *nix based... So I add to my selected vote of Windows *nix :P (Sadly I haven't kept my old OS/2 Disks - if I still would have the Installer then at least one VM of mine would be running it... And then there still is MS-DOS and - oh wait, I still have a C64, C128 (Thanks McAllan) and an Amiga 2000 and all of them are used at least once in 24Months, so I think they count towards my systems)

Re: What is your OS? (operating system)

Reply #17 –
This week I had an encounter with a weird beast: Samsung Ativ Book 9 Lite laptop. The "Lite" in it is probably important, because Ativs are supposed to be proper equivalents of Macbook Air, so I have heard, but what I saw was far from it (not that I have seen a Macbook Air in real; I simply believe the hype). The only thing it did fast was boot up. From there it began coughing at merely opening the web browser - not browsing YT/FB yet, just opening the browser. Autostarting Skype and antivirus apparently made it choke even before the browser.

Instead of HDD it has an SSD, which some people say is a good thing, but I'm suspicious now after this encounter with an SSD machine. I am not smart enough to say if all the troubles of the machine are due to SSD or due to weak processor, whose specs did not seem weak to me (Quad-Core 1.4 GHz) but it surely behaved like it. The weakness can also be a combination of factors.

The size of the SSD is some 95 GB. Isn't this too small? Well, this is where things get weird. The laptop comes with HomeSync and SideSync features - entrust your files to the cloud. Also, by a similar token, a host of vital features in the available hardware, such as bluetooth drivers, memory card slot drivers, better graphics drivers,  security and recovery-related stuff, were available via Software Update module where you had to specifically add them, install and enable.

This cloud-your-files and install-for-your-life concept saves SSD space initially, it's true, but in a computer for dumbusers, how is it supposed to add up? How should people get all their connectivity and graphics to work in a laptop with Windows 8 where everybody expects everything to work out of the box? I think these are illegal questions. This is not supposed to make sense.

The whole thing felt like an odd step towards GoogleOS from Microsoft and Samsung. (Not that I have seen GoogleOS either; I simply believe the hype when it's loud enough - and stay away from it.) There's no single-option poll item here for this bastard.

Re: What is your OS? (operating system)

Reply #18 –
SDDs... that may sound of-topic, but I am just in the right mood for some flaming :/
I can see the benefits, but with all the optimizations which are reducing writes... and their short lifetime compared to HDDs - I can't see why someone wants them on their Desktop System. I remember a C't Article some decade ago where they compared (before SDDs time) the suitability of medias for archival purposes and HDDs in the usage of "write once or twice" and leave them just safe to be read just then when you need to recopy where then stated as you may well read 'em after a century, whereas CDs and such will degrade after a decade. In one of my systems I still have a 6GB IBM HDD which still serves well as a swap partition, so I am all in for HDDs - if it wouldn't be for the sad experiences of 30GB IBM HDDs which in my hands all died out (not the 20 and 40GB ones). Sometimes I just wish for a buyable (for affordable price) WORMs for Backup Purposes, but at the moment I am all in for classic HDDs - if only the manufactures would understand the need for users like me that want low sized (nowadays POV) Discs for the OS (around 120-250GB), really low sized discs for swap/temp (around 10-40GB/40-250GB), somewhat mid-range for the programms partition/disk (around 300-500GB) and the rest as work/archive disks/partition (1TB+ each)... I Like to have the few basics (Root(OS),Temp/Swap,Programms) on a HDD each and My_Documents/Home/Archive/Work/etc. on large HDDs (however partitioned or per Usage for single HDD) - and for the first I hate it nowadays that I may waste a 1TB HDD with a ~100GB OS Partition and then some whatsoever... as having swap/programms on the same HDD in just a different partition makes no sense - i want them on a different controller chain.

Oh wait, where do I started - sdds.... well, those would be small like I want them, but I am not in the mood to buy 'em just to waste 'em, as those small sized context I would like to have 'em in is write intensive and that is IMHO a nogo for sdds...

Re: What is your OS? (operating system)

Reply #19 –
Right, lots of rant. I should also mention that the laptop in question has no CD/DVD drive. Is it a multimedia device or not? Also its wired internet connection socket and HDMI sockets are of weird tiny format that I don't know if anyone has the jacks for. I don't. Either we are supposed to buy an external CD/DVD drive in addition to this expensive junk, or cloud our souls.

Re: What is your OS? (operating system)

Reply #20 –
Quote from: ersi on
what I saw was far from it (not that I have seen a Macbook Air in real; I simply believe the hype).

I've seen a Macbook Air. It's so thin it doesn't have an ethernet port. Speed is fairly decent afaik. Its competition consists of ultrabooks, which the Ultrabook Samsung ATIV Book 9 Plus is, but the Samsung Ativ Book 9 Lite is not.

Quote from: ersi on
Instead of HDD it has an SSD, which some people say is a good thing, but I'm suspicious now after this encounter with an SSD machine. I am not smart enough to say if all the troubles of the machine are due to SSD or due to weak processor, whose specs did not seem weak to me (Quad-Core 1.4 GHz) but it surely behaved like it. The weakness can also be a combination of factors.

The size of the SSD is some 95 GB. Isn't this too small? Well, this is where things get weird. The laptop comes with HomeSync and SideSync features - entrust your files to the cloud. Also, by a similar token, a host of vital features in the available hardware, such as bluetooth drivers, memory card slot drivers, better graphics drivers,  security and recovery-related stuff, were available via Software Update module where you had to specifically add them, install and enable.

Low-end SSDs are slow. However, this review actually claims the SSD has "peppy performance". It then goes on to say the AMD budget processor performs significantly worse than the Intel alternatives, although I have to say it doesn't seem like that should make it feel slow.

To clarify, my 2010 Atom netbook doesn't feel terribly slow to me unless I try to use something like the GIMP. In fact it usually feels surprisingly fast. But of course, I'm using Xubuntu. On a different, inferior netbook Xubuntu was still quite snappy, but Windows 7 Home Edition did indeed feel slow.

Is 95GB too small? Depends on your use case, really. For me it'd do on my portable device. But 95GB is a bit of an odd number afaik. Perhaps it's 120 or 128GB with a 25-30GB recovery partition?

Quote from: Shandra on
Oh wait, where do I started - sdds.... well, those would be small like I want them, but I am not in the mood to buy 'em just to waste 'em, as those small sized context I would like to have 'em in is write intensive and that is IMHO a nogo for sdds...

Your information is outdated. See e.g. an SSD review from last year here.

Quote
Despite having a far more limited lifespan compared to its 2bpc MLC brethren, the TLC NAND Samsung used in its 840 turned out to be quite reliable. Even our own aggressive estimates pegged typical client write endurance on the 840 at more than 11 years for the 128GB model.

Re: What is your OS? (operating system)

Reply #21 –
Quote from: Frenzie on
Your information is outdated. See e.g. an SSD review from last year here.


Sounds promising, but unless some tech review along prod-specs are explicitly naming such a device as built for swap/temp usage I would at least spare them from that purpose.

Re: What is your OS? (operating system)

Reply #22 –
Quote from: Frenzie on

To clarify, my 2010 Atom netbook doesn't feel terribly slow to me unless I try to use something like the GIMP. In fact it usually feels surprisingly fast. But of course, I'm using Xubuntu. On a different, inferior netbook Xubuntu was still quite snappy, but Windows 7 Home Edition did indeed feel slow.

I have the exact same impression with Atom CPU: With the rightly chosen system on it, it does just fine. Should be the case with any CPU really.

Quote from: Frenzie on
Is 95GB too small? Depends on your use case, really. For me it'd do on my portable device. But 95GB is a bit of an odd number afaik. Perhaps it's 120 or 128GB with a 25-30GB recovery partition?

Now, I did some deeper investigation in the bowels of the machine and indeed, it's a 119.24 GB SSD with 98.59 GB committed to the system. The numbers as reported by GParted.

I don't know how to detect this data properly in Windows, so I booted from USB to a Linux distro to have another look at the hardware. GParted says that in addition to the partition committed to the usable system, there are no less than 4 (four!) different recovery partitions, all flagged as hidden, altogether 7 (!) primary (!) partitions. The purpose of the partitions that are not for recovery remains obscure to me.


The BIOS design on this Ativ Lite thingy is another horror I don't want to get into right now. Lucky I didn't screw anything up there.

Re: What is your OS? (operating system)

Reply #23 –
Quote from: Shandra on
Sounds promising, but unless some tech review along prod-specs are explicitly naming such a device as built for swap/temp usage I would at least spare them from that purpose.

If you have trouble with low RAM, buy more RAM, but making I/O nice and fast is kind of the purpose. What would be the point of an SSD if you're going to stick everything it'd speed up on an HDD? That being said, I have a swap partition on my SSD. It seldom sees any use. I mount /tmp in RAM (tmpfs).

See some sample (older) lifespan stats here.

Perhaps an SSD is not the thing for you; I don't know what you do with your computer. But I'd say sticking your OS on an SSD is the single most significant performance upgrade available today.

Quote from: ersi on
I don't know how to detect this data properly in Windows

Like this. :)

Re: What is your OS? (operating system)

Reply #24 –
Quote from: Frenzie on

Quote from: ersi on
I don't know how to detect this data properly in Windows

Like this. :)

Amazing. This thing can be found by the same series of steps in Win 8 too. Well hidden in the first place, and the initial interface in Win 8 is another hurdle. In the end, yes, it shows the same partitions :) at the same time I see how right it has been to ditch Win.