DEV Community

Jordan-Tyler Burchett
Jordan-Tyler Burchett

Posted on

What is your favorite operating system?

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)

Collapse
 
bbkr profile image
Paweł bbkr Pabian • Edited

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.

Collapse
 
dimitrim profile image
Dimitri Mostrey • Edited

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.

Collapse
 
jordantylerburchett profile image
Jordan-Tyler Burchett

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!

Collapse
 
dyfet profile image
David Sugar

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.

Collapse
 
jordantylerburchett profile image
Jordan-Tyler Burchett

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!

Collapse
 
bbkr profile image
Paweł bbkr Pabian

Vanilla = plain. Just stock Arch installed and configured from scratch.

Collapse
 
simongreennet profile image
Simon Green

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.

Collapse
 
jordantylerburchett profile image
Jordan-Tyler Burchett

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 🙂

Collapse
 
neilb_92 profile image
Neil B

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.

Collapse
 
jordantylerburchett profile image
Jordan-Tyler Burchett

So much experience in that one comment🙂 thank you for sharing!

Collapse
 
thomasbnt profile image
Thomas Bnt

A classic, Ubuntu 16.04 and 22.04

Collapse
 
jordantylerburchett profile image
Jordan-Tyler Burchett

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?

Collapse
 
thomasbnt profile image
Thomas Bnt

Nope never

Thread Thread
 
jordantylerburchett profile image
Jordan-Tyler Burchett

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.

Collapse
 
eljayadobe profile image
Eljay-Adobe

I'll always have a warm spot in my heart for Commodore AmigaOS (favorite), and Apple ProDOS (second place favorite).

Collapse
 
cezarytomczyk profile image
Cezary Tomczyk

AmigaOS was brilliant!

Collapse
 
jordantylerburchett profile image
Jordan-Tyler Burchett

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!

Collapse
 
darkterminal profile image
Imam Ali Mustofa • Edited

Linux Mint Cinnamon with Cigarettes and Coffee

asdjaksdka

Collapse
 
jordantylerburchett profile image
Jordan-Tyler Burchett

That's beautiful 😍

Collapse
 
darkterminal profile image
Imam Ali Mustofa

Ty bro...

Collapse
 
alice58 profile image
Alice 🌈

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

Collapse
 
jordantylerburchett profile image
Jordan-Tyler Burchett

This is another one I hadn't seen yet but I now can't wait to try out..

Thank you for sharing!

Collapse
 
alice58 profile image
Alice 🌈

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

Thread Thread
 
jordantylerburchett profile image
Jordan-Tyler Burchett

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

Collapse
 
yournewempire profile image
Archie Smyth

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.

Collapse
 
jordantylerburchett profile image
Jordan-Tyler Burchett

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...

Collapse
 
yournewempire profile image
Archie Smyth

Nice I will take a look, thanks for the comment

Collapse
 
mskelleygvt profile image
Felicia

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

Collapse
 
joelbonetr profile image
JoelBonetR 🥇 • Edited
  • Best Linux distro I used: Elementary OS though I no longer use Linux for anything that's not a server, in which case I usually go for Debian.
  • Best MacOSX version: This one is a bit convoluted, as I'm used to Mac for work (coding and so) I don't care much tbh, current version is better than the one before that's for sure.
  • Best Windows version: Windows 11, is the one I use for gaming
  • Best smartphone OS: Android 14 without any doubt, it's way more usability focused and I can do what I need to do much faster than with iOS and customize it for my needs way more.
Collapse
 
bsknath profile image
Basu

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.

Collapse
 
jordantylerburchett profile image
Jordan-Tyler Burchett

I miss the Windows XP days so much..

Thank you for sharing!