Linux? BSD? Windows? MacOS? Slackware? FreeBSD? Solaris?

Linux? BSD? Windows? MacOS? Slackware? Debian? FreeBSD? OpenBSD? MacOS X? Mac OS 7? Solaris? AIX? Mandriva? SUSE? OpenSUSE? RedHat? Debian? Debian kFreeBSD? GNU HURD? PC-BSD? Windows 9X? Windows 7?

So many Operating Systems!

Linux alone, being only a Kernel, which is then taken, and stirred with a LOT of other Applications, most of which come from the FSF (Free Software Foundation) has more than a Hundred Different "Distributions". For the new comer; A Linux Distribution, is basically nothing more than a person, or group, who took the Linux Kernel, and then, went and found the Software THEY like, that runs on Linux, and put it all together for you, with some form of Boot up, and then an installer, and put it together in a manner that allowed you as a user, to download their "idea" of what Linux should look like.

There are hundreds of different Distributions of Linux out there. Just about all of them, are totally free to download. You can download any of them you like as an ISO, or maybe Disk Image, and then, install it on your Computer, and use it, all for free.

If you CHOSE to download an ISO image of Linux, and burn it to a CD, to create a Bootable CD, and thenn booted from it, and installed that particular Distribution of Linux, and you liked it, you may have made copies of the CD, and handed them out to friends, or maybe took them with you to school.

That's all legal too. Most of the members here on AntiOnline, are of course, wondering why I'm even talking about something so basic, and so entry level, but there are people in this World, who are figuring this out for their very first time.

And just think; Some years ago, the idea that you could download not only Software, without worrying about being busted for Piracy, but an ENTIRE Operating System, is amazing when you think about how things USED to be!

I'm not planning on making this some Linux fan boy thread; No, I don't need that. I have a sticky in this forum, which tells you about different Linux Distributions, and has my opinions on them, and, others joined in with THEIR opinions on them, and so on.

The vast majority of the BSD Operating Systems, allows the exact same thing as well.

So, what is the real point of this entire thread, before I start to ramble and you lose interest? This:

What made you choose the Operating System you're using?

Now, most of us here probably based our decision on more than just a couple things, but in all Honesty, I'm sure most would say that we all have a list of certain Applications that are on our "Must Have" List.

So, what are your absolute MUST HAVE Applications? What Applications do you use, that are important enough, that you've possibly even settled on an OS over them?

Now for me, I use multiple Operating Systems, and I have a list of Applications I like, be it games or tools, that I use a lot.

Windows -

DooM Series, Quake Series, Wolfenstein Series, Unreal Series, Unreal Tournament Series, Microsoft Works.

Unix based -

XMMS
LMMS
Kmail
Mutt
Zsh
Vi / Vim
Emacs / XEmacs / TeXMacs
Perl
Python
Ruby
Nmap
Hping
IPSorcery
Hydra
Opera
Galeon
Epiphany
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A lot of the Applications ARE Cross Platform. 7Zip, PeaZIP, TugZIP, Bzip2 and so on, are also high on my list, as I like messing with Compression and Archiving, and they too, are Cross Platform.

I can't really say anything about Macs in general, as I haven't ever owned one, or used OS X for more than a few minutes, so I really won't say much there.

Basically, I'll stop here, which will prevent me from going on and starting to Ramble too much, but I wanted to give examples of some things I really like to use.

Ideally, this thread will have others reply to it, and not only name the Operating Systems they use, but why.

It will also then have them stating which Applications they REALLY Love. Or, maybe the Applications they can't live without.

So, just out of curiosity, What Operating Systems are you using? Why did you pick them? What are those critical Applications that keep you from switching to something else? Are your choices the same no matter if you're setting up Servers or Desktops? If so, why? If not, why not?

Should be interesting, to say the least ;)

And before anyone pops in here and says it; NO, I'm not attempting some "My OS is better than YOUR OS" Thread. I know mine is better; If it wasn't, I'd use your's ;)

But in all seriousness, I'm really not looking to start up something like that, I really just thought it would be neat to see what everyone is running, and why.

Yo Gore, did you read this?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18419231

Hey man; Sorry I didn't have a chance to respond before, but I've been busy since I work literally every day lol. But anyway man, no, I hadn't seen that before, so once I opened it, I left it there so I can actually read it.

I'm currently being forced into looking at Doctor Who Tees by my Wife. But after that I can read it lol.

Dinowuff my man, it was actually a good read. Interesting to say the least.

Funny as I'm compiling Perl right now on a fresh FreeBSD installation.

I'm also watching True Blood again since the new Season premiered as well. But on topic, I'd love to hear about some of the Apps YOU use.

As a fellow Bastard, I'd like to hear about it ;) lol.

You know what my choice is :D

FreeBSD, for it's brilliant ports system and excellent stability (that includes API/ABI stability).

Must have applications?

Firefox - 'cause we need to troll forums
Pan - Still use usenet (Pr0n obviously)
Gimageview - we need to be able to watch
Mplayer - See above
Vim - because I need to edit a config file or two
tmux - terminal multiplexer, don't leave home without it
ezquake - to frag away the stress
blender - someday I'm going to understand it
tsclient - nice frontend for rdesktop
rxvt - we need something to type those commands in
transmission - nice P2P client, can run headless on a server

I'm sure I'm using more but this is just from the top of my head.

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Originally Posted by SirDice

You know what my choice is :D

FreeBSD, for it's brilliant ports system and excellent stability (that includes API/ABI stability).

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I do have to admit; FreeBSD has to be one of the most stable general purpose OSs ever made. I don't know of much that it can't handle. FreeBSD 4.0 is probably the most stable of anything I've ever used.

A fully patched FreeBSD 4.x machine, is something every sys admin in the Unix world, has Loved in some way. Also, FreeBSD 4.0, was the first time I used FreeBSD. I think you've heard my story on that; I was at Best Buy, and looking at the OSs Shelf, and I saw the "BSD Powerpak" and it came with The Complete FreeBSD 3rd Edition, FreeBSD 4.0 on 4 CD-ROMs, and then, also in this CD Set, was the 6 CD-ROM Toolkit, but it wasn't the normal CD-ROMs that you usually get, because I've purchased the FreeBSD CD-ROMs since then, and I got normal CD Cases with it, but these, in the PowerPak, they came with this weird material that was sort of like some type of high quality Paper that the CD Cases were made out of.

There were 10 of these like, oddly made Paper CD-ROM holders inside. I thought it was a neat material, and I haven't seen it since that. I think I still have them around here somewhere, and I still have the Box that says BSD PowerPak on it, the Book of course, and I have every CD it came with.

I think it's because of a few reasons; I rarely toss out paid for CDs like that. I can still use those CD-ROMs to pull out old Docs and tools to look at what was used back then, and I can check out what else they stored on the CDs, which is cool.

I kept everything basically. And at first, I admit, I was terrified to even TRY to install it. I read through The Complete FreeBSD book, and mind you, at the time, I was still VERY new to Computers, so I didn't know a whole lot.

I would sit there and read it, thinking "Man, this thing is intense!" I'd never really used a text based installer before, and BSD using Slices and all that, made it really hard to understand for someone like me, who, at the time, had not even really installed more than ONE distro of Linux before.

So that will give you an ideal of just how long ago this was; I had bought "Teach yourself Linux in 24 Hours" which came with Caldera Open Linux 2.2 or something like that, and I did install it, but I was so new to everything that I didn't know what to do.

At this time, I think I'd had a Computer less than 6 months total, and I know it was for a fact less than one year. So, without any real experience, and having almost no idea what I was doing, I one day decided I wanted to Tri-Boot my Computer...

Not the best idea for a newbie. Of course, I somehow managed to do it.... Which is weird to say the least, but I didn't understand that FreeBSD does NOT boot a ****ing GUI by default, or even have one by default, so I thought it didn't work like an idiot.

I was sooooooooo stupid. I didn't think "You know some OSs may not use a GUI, and some that do, just might not ****in have it there by default" and so I thought it didn't work, when in reality it somehow DID work, and I needed to install the rest.

So yea, after like a few more tries, I had it down to a Science, where I could easily just pop in the CD, install it, and then get it going. But yea, FreeBSD 4.0 is always going to be close to me, because it was not only one of the most Stable OSs ever done, it also happens to be the very first BSD I'd ever installed.

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Must have applications?

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Firefox - 'cause we need to troll forums

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Lol, yea. I'm still not a huge fan of Firefox, as I'm Biased as **** towards Opera, but I also do install like 20 other Browsers. The main ones I use are Opera, Seamonkey, and Galeon. I even still use Links, Lynx, and E-Links, and mainly, I use those when I'm either just looking up docs, or, reading BOFH lol.

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Pan - Still use usenet (Pr0n obviously)
Gimageview - we need to be able to watch
Mplayer - See above

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I personally LOVE Xine, but recently, I used Dragon Player for the first time, and I actually liked it.

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Vim - because I need to edit a config file or two

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I LOVE Vim. I do from time to time use Emacs, or XEmacs, because it does do the job as well, but, Honestly, it doesn't matter if it's a huge project, or a quickie "Need to edit this to make this work" I use Vim a lot more. I'm more comfortable with Vi in general, and it's much much faster, and GVim, is also awesome.

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tmux - terminal multiplexer, don't leave home without it
ezquake - to frag away the stress

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I too install games like that. FreeDooM is another one as well, and since I have the paid for version of the game, I was sitting around one day, and I decided to try copying over the WAD Files from the paid version, and I learned that using the Paid for copy, I could copy over the WAD file, and play the normal one that looks exactly like the Windows one after installing the one I got on CD-ROM.

Then I tried copying the DooM2 WAD file, and the Final DooM WAD Files, and I got them all working, and though I did have to specify, and sometimes change a few things around, I got it working where I could load up one of them, and play any one I wanted.

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rxvt - we need something to type those commands in

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You know, I LOVE RXVT. When I first started to use Linux and BSD seriously, I learned how you have options and that there's a bunch of different Terminals you can use, and if you don't like Xterm, you have RXVT, E-Term, Konsole, and Gnome Terminals, and now, the XFCE one seems to be popular too, and from there, you get to choose what type of Shell you use, which on BSD is Csh, or TCsh to be more accurate, and on Linux, Bash is the default.

I personally use both of those, but if I pick one out that I install on every OS I can, it would be Zsh.

I installed PDKsh, and Ksh93 last night, but the first thing I installed on my fresh FreeBSD 9.0 install was Zsh. I like it. It's nice, it works well, and it can do Scripting no matter what it was written for it seems. It seems to work with Korn Shell Scripts, Bash Shells, and more.

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transmission - nice P2P client, can run headless on a server

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I actually use this one too. I mean I do have more than one Bit Torrent Client installed on my boxes, but I seem to use this one the most.

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I'm sure I'm using more but this is just from the top of my head.

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Yea, if you think of more that you seem to use a lot, feel free to pop in again; I like seeing what everyone uses.

Do you have a favorite Email Client? I mean most of us use a bunch of them, and personally, I'll download new ones and try them out just to see how they look and work, but having Comcast as my ISP, does have some down sides; I can't use Mutt anymore... I was so ****ing pissed off when they changed their Policy on Mail Server Access, and made it so that I couldn't use it anymore, I called and complained all the time.

Mutt is my favorite Email Client PERIOD. And I can't use it anymore, because not only can I no longer check my mail with Fetchmail, I can't send it myself either, effectively making Mutt no longer usable.

Hmmmmm..............

Now July 7th. so this thread is getting a bit stale, perhaps my experiences might elicit a few more responses?

Basically, I use Windows; not because I like it, but because that is where the money is.:(

Not a single one of my customers uses Linux (I daren't mention Unix.... they would make the Salem witch hunt look like a vicarage tea party:eek:)

I was using OS/32, OS/34, OS/38 and Unix, long before PCs were readily available in commerce, finance, and industry..... let alone at home. I guess that there were work PCs when I was using OS/400.

Personally, I try all sorts............ your assistance is invaluable as always.

Hey, I even have leftie Cuban and Argentinian distros, because I am waiting for someone to take Microsoft down. I do not see MS surviving for the next 10 years on North American and European sales alone............ they have to expand?

Now, the leftie regimes hate the USA and will fund anything that would screw MS and thus attack Uncle Sam?

The Chinese stuff is crap..... basically just translations on top of existing distros, but watch out for the lefties, they are dangerous.

My oldest Linux would be 1998/9 Red Hat and S.u.S.E.

Those were the days! :D:drink:

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Originally Posted by nihil

My oldest Linux would be 1998/9 Red Hat and S.u.S.E.

Those were the days! :D:drink:

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LILO Boot disks? I bet all yours ended with start x (A true windows guy at heart)

Hmmmmm,

I saw some of those disks a while back; but what prompted me to comment is that I am sat in front of this tank of a 19" CRT monitor. It's German, so gore would approve :D

At the top there is a yellow and black smilie sticker, about the size of your old silver dollar.

Bottom left is another sticker that says "penguin power", "Linux", "LinuxMall.com"

I guess that puts this monitor about 1998 or so. Back then, we only had 33.6 or 56.6 dial-up modems. Our telephone service was not reliable for prolonged connections over private household lines, and the internet hadn't really started over here.

It was a lot more sensible to buy CDs from LinuxMall, than to try to download and be charged like 1.5c a minute for something that might not work anyways?

:)

Nihil; I approve ;)

I also approve of the 1600SW I think it is? It's an SGI Monitor, and is one of the best ever.