What is your all time favorite operating system and what makes it the best in your opinion?
Throughout the past few decades there have been several different computer operating systems built for specific purposes. From MacOS, Windows, and Linux to iOS, Android and everything in between.
If you're like me some of these stick out above all others and one will be, in your opinion, the best operating system of its time or maybe even of all time. Let's talk about your first time seeing it and what you used it for.
Top comments (59)
Tricky question because for Mac / Windows / Android desktop is integrated part of the operating system, which is not the case for Linux.
All time favorite system? MacOS Snow Leopard. Unfortunately from this point macOS got dumber and dumber with every release. I really do not like iPad-ish look of current version, lack of Vulkan support, FreeBSD directory mess under the hood and poor configurability. But back then Snow Leopard was pinnacle of power-user friendly desktop.
All time favorite system under the hood? Vanilla Arch Linux. I was long time Slackware, then Gentoo user. So fiddling with manual builds is my game and i love Arch documentation and simplicity. My current setup is Arch + KDE.
All time favorite workhorse system? Alpine Linux. My choice for Docker base and absolute king of low footprint and processing performance.
Interesting answer.
You remind me of something that happened around 2005-2009 to big software companies. Management got replaced from passionate computer savvy 'nerds' to Harvard graduates with a business degree. Good for the stakeholders. Not so good for the customers. That was a time we had to buy a new computer every 2 years or we were hopelessly behind.
Because. Software giants began making backdoor deals with hardware manufacturers. A tit for a tat. And suddenly, the end-user experience became second to profit.
Maybe, just maybe, the exponential growth of the smartphone market helped us out. In this sense, my Acer laptop is 6 years old and still does a fantastic job running the necessary programming software. Even heavy duty software as PHPStorm.
The open-source community came to the rescue as well. Think Linux. Of course. And many many others.
Development should be about passion and taking pride in being part of something bigger.
On a separate note, as for people who decide to go to college congrats you guys but I don't think it's at all necessary to learn and build aspiring products. Now I'm not knocking people for going to college, any way you choose to learn and better yourself is great. Just along the way don't forget why you got interested in development in the first place.
I have 2 years under my belt with no degree. I felt it was more important to stop and focus solely on what interested me. There are several alternative methods to educate yourself.
Thank you for sharing!
Indeed, Alpine is great for devices, too. Arch is especially useful for leading edge development. They have very current packages, and they build them with few patches, so it is a place to go to test and develop against the latest upstreams the way various packages were originally intended to be.
I remember Snow Leopard and I agree with you that it was a very good if not the best Apple delivered OS. I myself have only read about Vanilla bur haven't had the chance to fiddle with it yet but Arch is doing some wonderful things for the Linux community.
Thank you for sharing!
Vanilla = plain. Just stock Arch installed and configured from scratch.
Definitely Linux. Started with Slackware, when you used floppy disks to install. Moved on to Debian in the late 90s, then Ubuntu in 2005. For the last twelve years, I've used Fedora. I use Gnome on my desktop, and XFCE on my netbook which only has 4 GB of RAM.
A diverse experience in different distros and desktops is important when finding that one that fits just right. You could make a perfect operating system but it not be perfect for the next person's needs.
Customization is definitely important, a user should see themselves in something they spend all their time with. XFCE has always been one of my favorite DE's for this reason and it's lightweight work load.
Thank you for sharing! Happy venturing 🙂
I bought Slackware 1.0 on CD-ROM from a computer fair! And then shortly after I tried upgrading from a.out to ELF binaries and completely destroyed my install.
So much experience in that one comment🙂 thank you for sharing!
A classic, Ubuntu 16.04 and 22.04
I'm an Avid Ubuntu user myself but that's mostly because it's what my OS is based on, so I need to stay current on it for that reason. Have you ever tried openSUSE?
Nope never
openSUSE is definitely worth checking out. It takes a little getting used to from Ubuntu but once you dive into it the usability is very similar and things seem smooth. It has a safe feeling about it though it has a smaller community so I'm not sure about it for things like gaming but as a daily driver for feeling like your data is safe.
I'll always have a warm spot in my heart for Commodore AmigaOS (favorite), and Apple ProDOS (second place favorite).
AmigaOS was brilliant!
Oh wow how did I miss this one?
I actually have never seen AmigaOS but just looked it up and I simply have to try it out.
Thank you for sharing!
Linux Mint Cinnamon with Cigarettes and Coffee
That's beautiful 😍
Ty bro...
TempleOS. The guy who wrote it is truly a genius, and he is often forgotten about. It would be really fun if someone deployed a server with TempleOS
This is another one I hadn't seen yet but I now can't wait to try out..
Thank you for sharing!
Oh it'll be fun. The funniest part is that OS was completely written from scratch, and it is not based on linux or windows or anything else. Just HolyC
I noticed that when I was looking it up. The ones we know are good because the amount of support they have but it's always fun to play around with something different and fresh
Win 10 gets the job done, but I hate it. I like Ubuntu 18+ followed by macOS of some kind. It can come with problems, but Linux of some flavour is highly recommended. The community is Linux & Mac OS tbh, with exceptions.
Windows 10 does get the job. Windows is more popular so has more support and more developers, which makes it convenient. I'd prefer a Linux desktop of almost any kind over Windows but I do use Windows a lot as well.
Not trying to advertise just sharing but I made a distro called RefreshOS that's based on Kubuntu 22.04 LTS and has a Windows-like GUI.
egotech.company/download_refreshos...
Nice I will take a look, thanks for the comment
Unix since it is for most types and covers all whether desktop or mobile, etc. Since Unix is a mixed OS it allows Linux based even, and just what I prefer since I used Android
While the OS have been constantly improving and providing additional features with every passing build, I am still stuck in my imagination of a cross bread of Windows XP's elegance and Windows Vista's beauty. Windows 7 was a close thing to this.
I use Mac for office work and there are a few things that I don't like about it.
I have used Ubuntu during my college when I have an old machine.
Now, for personal use, I am using Windows 11 and every time an update comes, I panic. :D
But yeah I now think that ease of use is more important than anything else.
I miss the Windows XP days so much..
Thank you for sharing!
Manjaro Linux
Manjaro news alone is one of the biggest players in educating the public about Arch Linux and is definitely a great asset to the Linux community.
We should not forget that the concept of an "OS" does not apply to all computers. First Personal computers like the PET2001 came out with just a basic interpreter and this did a good job this time.
Most controllers do not need an OS at all (though you can use one), they can just boot into the code you have uploaded. So, for some applications I really appreciate not to have any OS at all...
I like the concept of not even needing an OS and how beneficial that would be on microcontrollers. I think most of the world doesn't know that's even possible to do but we use this technology all the time.
Thank you for sharing! Happy venturing 🙂
Fedora :)
Linux distro OG
Thank you for sharing!
Arch Linux
Good choice 🙂
Thank you for sharing!
I think AL is the best. I've used Windows, macOS, Ubuntu, Manjaro, but I feel like AL vanilla is the best because it is so customizable.
Customization is very import
currently I am using arch and I have no complaints about it
I need more explanation with it myself. I'd like to one day try an Arch based build of RefreshOS.
Thank you for sharing!