News:

One Minute Game Review by The Happy Friar: https://ugetube.com/@OneMinteGameReviews
Also on Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/c-1115371

idTech 4 (aka Doom 3 tech) Discord Server! https://discord.gg/9wtCGHa

Main Menu

What OS are you guys using and what are your reasons ?

Started by oneofthe8devilz, May 27, 2016, 06:52:53 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

oneofthe8devilz

I'd like to know what OS everyone is using here and for what reasons...

I am currently using Windows 7 x64 Ultimate and plan on using it for quite a while longer (even after the free upgrade option period to Windows 10 will expire this summer).

Reasons:

IMO Win7 is the best OS suited for my needs. It has a nice Desktop and UI to look at (never could get warm with the minimalism styled UIs of Win 8, 8.1 and 10 looking way too boring to me. It almost felt like I was using Windows 3.1 again.

It runs stable for me, never crashes and unlike previous OSs I had to never re-install or recover this version running it since the first install (Original Install Date: 07.08.2009, 6:37:12 PM) almost 7 years ago. I remember having to recover system partitions on a daily basis up to 30 times a day with previous Windows versions when I would do experimental stuff braking the functionality of the OS in the process.

Not a fan of the windows 10 store. Also not as impressed by Directx12 as Microsoft would like me to be (and we still will be able to use Vulkan on Win7).

With most applications and games moving to an online-service business model nowadays I have the feeling that Windows 10 tries to pursue that same route which I am not supporting.

Also I was reading unconfirmed reports about software and games incompatibility issues and especially the ones about stereoscopic 3D Game rendering alarmed me the most. 
I got six little friends and they all run faster than you ;)


Check out our mods at
moddb or the SPS Homepage

vladdrak

Quote from: oneofthe8devilz on May 27, 2016, 06:52:53 AM
I'd like to know what what OS everyone is using here and for what reasons...

I am currently using Windows 7 x64 Ultimate and plan on using it for quite a while longer (even after the free upgrade option period to Windows 10 will expire this summer).

Reasons:

IMO Win7 is the best OS suited for my needs. It has a nice Desktop and UI to look at (never could get warm with the minimalism styled UIs of Win 8, 8.1 and 10 looking way too boring to me. It almost felt like I was using Windows 3.1 again.

It runs stable for me, never crashes and unlike previous OSs I had to never re-install or recover this version running it since the first install (Original Install Date: 07.08.2009, 6:37:12 PM) almost 7 years ago. I remember having to recover system partitions on a daily basis up to 30 times a day with previous Windows versions when I would do experimental stuff braking the functionality of the OS in the process.

Not a fan of the windows 10 store. Also not as impressed by Directx12 as Microsoft would like me to be (and we still will be able to use Vulkan on Win7).

With most applications and games moving to an online-service business model nowadays I have the feeling that Windows 10 tries to pursue that same route which I am not supporting.

Also I was reading unconfirmed reports about software and games incompatibility issues and especially the ones about stereoscopic 3D Game rendering alarmed me the most.

using win10 pro since day 1. never had any incompatibility issues. or any other for that matter that wasn't a problem in previous versions.
reason: windows tends to be faster with each iteration.
UI is fine, straightforward as always.

used various linux distros for old hardware as well (and educational purposes). arch's package-management, rolling release-nature and system-wide flexibility is legendary.

EoceneMiacid

I'm an unreasonably enthusiastic Linux user.

More accurately, I'm running a very stripped down Kubuntu (which is so stripped down there's hardly any *buntu left), but with a fully custom, self-developed desktop environment called SQEW (https://github.com/RalfVB/SQEW-OS).

It's the best of both worlds - I still get to enjoy the wide software support Debian offers, but I still have enough control to tweak every single aspect of my system the way I exactly want it.

This is probably not going to be a popular statement here, but I have huge problems anything to do with Microsoft, and Windows in particular. As somebody who has worked in systems management and software development since the mid-90's, I think I'm in a fairly qualified position to have a valid opinion about their products and policies, and the less I have to do with them, the happier I am.

All Linux variants have a splendid feature, called package management. It's something Windows will never properly have, due to the commercial, closed source nature of the platform. It makes developing, installing and upgrading software several orders of magnitude faster, easier and safer than on Windows. I simply cannot take an OS that doesn't have this seriously.

Then there's the command line. Having a pretty GUI is surely desirable (another area in which Linux utterly trounces Windows - it's fun to show them Compiz and watch them stare in disbelief), but the powerful command line interpreter is something that makes the computer several orders of magnitude faster to use.

And If I need to run Windows software, I can do it either through Wine (which is fucking amazing nowadays, and getting better all the time), or resort to a VM.

Linux is The Shit.

VGames

Win 7 64 because it's easy to use, everything I use works with it, I don't want to upgrade to win 10 unless I have too, and I could care less about customizing my OS to my liking. It's easy to use out of the box.
Get the latest on Perfected Doom 3 here - http://www.moddb.com/mods/perfected-doom-3-version-500

romulus_ut3

I am on Windows 10, Version 1511 (OS Build 10586.456)

It has been very stable thus far, and I am on Windows 10 for that slight gaming performance it adds, specially with the reduced driver overhead that can be seen in certain CPU heavy titles, nothing earth shattering, and if you are on Windows 8.1 there's absolutely no need for you to switch to Windows 10 unless you want to take advantage of DirectX 12. I do enjoy the boost it gets me on certain titles.

0x29a

I'm using my very own Arch Linux spinoff called Takoda Linux. It's not available for download yet, but it'll have a website soon. I'll update this post then, and for everyone interested - I can send mediafire download link with an iso file. (And yes, I made an installer for it :) )

Core features:

- Linux-CK kernel compiled directly for your CPU. With blazing fast BFS scheduler and BFQ IO-handler it makes Takoda Linux responsive under every kind of load. You can compile IdTech4 SDK in VM on one virtual desktop, download and install some huge application on the next, handle all your internet business on the other, and play DooM 3 on yet another one. No lag, no slowdowns. It boots up in 10 seconds and stays responsive from the beginning to an end.

- Bleeding edge software, unavailable on other platforms for at least next 5 years to come. And thanks to the rolling-release cycle it'll stay this way forever.

- AwesomeWM Window Manager, made custom for my distribution. At a first glance it looks kinda like dark OSX, but not be decieved. Its functionality is just mind blowing. It allows you to control your workspace via keyboard alone, via mouse alone, via combination of both, and you can configure your whole applications / clients / windows layout in a split second for a specific task at hand. And now it can record macros, too. And it's super-fast and lightweight, while not being far in terms of eye-candy and functionality behind big desktop environments. It uses your whole screen real estate, no wasted space at all.
And it's dark not because it's cyberpunkish or it want's to have this sad vibe, but because it's easier for the eyes to work in such a dark environment. 

- ZSH shell with thousands of plugins configured in a way that you accomplish incredibly complex tasks like organizing your stuff, cascading function calls, or whatever - you name it - just by mashing Tab button.

- Terminology terminal emulator - beautiful, fast and functional.

- NeoVim text editor configured in a way that it leaves other text editors ( and even big IDEs ) far, far behind. Think what you want - Eclipse, VS, Sublime, whatever... None of these gets even close to NeoVim functionality.

I'm using Linux because it's much easier to use than Windows.
And don't get me wrong - there's a learning curve to go, that's for sure. But less options always means less functionality. You get to the ceiling of what you can do with your system pretty damn fast on so called "user friendly platforms", while you'll never have this problem on Linux. You can make your system whatever you want it to be.
Gaming rig? - no problem. Programming workstation? - no problem.

There are few downsides, though:
Until WINE will get full DX11/12 support, Linux users won't be able to play many new AAA games.
And, if you're a proffesional artist and your work depends on Adobe products, no luck here either.

My best bet - install Windows on separate partition and use it for gaming/graphics, and install Linux side by side for EVERYTHING else.

Here are some screenshots of my distro/desktop (kinda old, fixed that border in weather forecast, lol):









And here's me launching Perfected DooM 3 RoE when beta testing. No speedup, that's just how you roll with Linux: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToL3alIlDgE

Yeah, game is fullscreen, dunno why it got recorded this way ;P

edit:
Quote
This is probably not going to be a popular statement here, but I have huge problems anything to do with Microsoft, and Windows in particular.
LOL, exactly the same thing here.

argoon

My main OS is windows 10 now (update from windows 7) the main reason is i'm just used to it plus all the software i use on my work is windows only or windows optimized (adobe suit for example), the majority of my games are windows only.

The first time i used LinuX it was on the day where you add to use the command console and install stuff by sudo apt get, it didn't installed drivers for all my hardware and i messed it so much, by being totally noob at it that i add to reinstall it again, i still play with it (ubuntu mostly) using virtual machines but that is it.

The Happy Friar

Currently on 10.  I never wanted to leave 2K but MS ending it's life also ended driver support so I had no choice.  I wasn't a fan of XP (upgraded to it in 2007), can't stand the UI of 7 (I found it slower in nearly everything vs 2k/XP too) so I skipped that.  I got 8.1 and loved it.  I got the 10 upgrade and have very few complaints.  The biggest two being they removed the feature to start in Metro desktop mode that was in 10 preview & you can no longer use multiple monitors & metro desktop spread across them (well, I haven't tried in several months, so it could be in there by now).

8.1 was sooooooo much faster then XP in every way and I love the Metro UI.  It basically gave two desktops to 8.x, one where I have nothing but programs & status updates & another where I can use the start menu if I wanted.  With 10 I don't use the start menu any more, I just start typing in the program name in the Cortona area and it lists it.  I can go from off to in my account in ~35 seconds or so. 

10 gives you multiple virtual desktops (which I liked in Linux from the getgo), which is pretty handy when working with a bunch of different programs (IE blender, gimp & D3edit all at once).  Keeps things less cluttered.  Another thing I like is that because we have multiple Win10 machines in the house I can log in to my account from either and it autosyncs my onedrive, calendar, etc.  I'm sure Linux can do the same thing too but I know my dad's mac laptop can't sync up with my mom's iPad.  MS seems to be working hard to get their various hardware's to communicate with eachother, Apple seems behind on that one.

Besides a crashing issue which seems related to my GPU drivers, I have no complaints.   I tried linux years ago but it was to frustrating to reboot to use all my programs that didn't support linux & reboot in to windows so I gave up. 

0x29a

Quote8.1 was sooooooo much faster then XP in every way and I love the Metro UI.

When I sit behind Windows rig I find it slow.
Very slow.
Always.
And that's the bottleneck that MS systems will never surpass due to its monolithic design, proprietary character, and requirement to work on all kinds of x86-based CPU models. Each of those tightly entangled with another, so yeah... It's the world where you can't make a decision between stability and speed because someone else already made this decision for you (and made it kinda half-assed, while we're at it). Same thing applies to big, "user-friendly" Linux distributions like Ubuntu. And while you still can tweak Ubuntu for your needs, which is pretty much impossible with Windows ( I'm talking about really fine-grained control, like maximizing RAM usage by preloading applications, selecting tasks scheduler, optimizing stuff for CPU architecture and moving files into an IO-optimized layout on HDDs ), what's the point? Good system is a system that one assembles for ones exact needs basically from scratch. Sure, it's hard work at first and it takes time, there's a learning curve involved, but when you finally got this friggin system working, it'll serve you for the years to come. (5 years now without reinstallation for me).

Quote
With 10 I don't use the start menu any more, I just start typing in the program name in the Cortona area and it lists it.

And it'll be configured in a way that's best for you and only you. Every other person on the planet would say: "Friar, you crazy bastard! How the hell can you even use this stuff?!"
And you'd be like: "Dude, I can't live without it! No other system allows me to launch DoomEdit just by pressing Ctrl+Esc!"
And dude would be like: "Whaaaaat?"
And you'd be like: "Yes, I'm really using it, and I'm using it very often."
And dude would be like: "WTF?! Why don't you just click on an icon?"
And you'd be like: "What's an icon? Aaaa, this thing... Nah, ditched it in favor of aliases like 5 years ago..."
And so on, and so on... ;)

Yeah, it's completely different world... You still can click on icons, sure, but why do it when you have CLI? And I'm talking about REAL command line (ZSH). This thing on Windows is... I don't know what it is, but it's unusable.

Real life examples of something that's pretty much impossible on Windows, and what I'm using all the time (requirement - operation can't take more than 2 seconds, and you must invoke it with a single keystroke):
- Download a lecture from youtube, copy it on portable multimedia player device, say it's done copying, sync the device and unmount it.     
- Compress pk4 file with some D3 content after editing, for example, script file, copy it over mod directory, launch the game with test_box map.
- Sort all the files in a directory according to their type (flac,avi,zip,iso, etc..), put them into respective directories (audio, video, archives, etc..), compress them and make a backup.   

Launching applications/scripts in cascading way is a must-have for me. The way I use my computer is writing billions of tiny-tiny applications that are invoked one after the other. And while my computer takes care of all the boring stuff, I can go make myself a coffee or take a walk, or play some DooM.
Yes, Linux is for lazy people. 

QuoteIt basically gave two desktops to 8.x, one where I have nothing but programs & status updates & another where I can use the start menu if I wanted. 

How about infinite number of desktops that are invoked when needed and are being disposed of when not in use? Never, ever you'd get into a mess of too many clients opened at once.
I always find stacking layout of clients on Windows very confusing. And this virtual desktop thing on version 10 is complete unusable garbage. And I believe that anyone who ever tried XFCE or Gnome or KDE or whatever would happily second that motion. Microsoft implementation of virtual desktops is sooo inferior to solutions that's been available on unix-like platforms for decades now...

Quote
I can go from off to in my account in ~35 seconds or so.

5 seconds tops in my case... 10 seconds with full reboot. And I own mediocre, 6 years old machine.

Quote
I tried linux years ago but it was to frustrating to reboot to use all my programs that didn't support linux & reboot in to windows so I gave up. 

Well... That's the world we live in... But after trying Linux you'll configure for yourself and only for yourself, I'm sure that you'd be frustrated by using the system someone else configured for you waaay more than this whole rebooting thing.

;)

Edit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AX83G7pNQUw

Check this out... Ingenuity of millions of brilliant people in action after continued +25 years of developement... That's old video of my desktop, lol :D Anyway, nothing can surpass this functionality... Why don't use it if it's available just like that? 

motorsep

I used Linux, a lot. As a matter of fact, Steel Storm was made entirely on Linux. As soon as I could get Win 7 Pro, I ditched Linux and never looked back. Only used it to update (compile) Linux binaries of Steel Storm.

There are a few nice features Ubuntu offers, like virtual desktop, screenshot capture app, grep, maybe a few small things. However, I don't see any additional benefit on using Linux in Windows world.

99% of new games are Windows only. All decent audio software is for Windows/OSX (Audacity is a very basic sound editing software, so no, Linux has no decent audio editing software), no video capture software ever worked for me - had to reboot to record any gameplay session or screencast session. I can go on...

There was a golden time when Linux was popular and could be cleverly used for PR, especially in game dev. Those days are long gone.

0x29a

Quote
There was a golden time when Linux was popular and could be cleverly used for PR, especially in game dev. Those days are long gone.

Well, I have to disagree here. *nix is the strongest developement platform out there, for everything. As long as it doesn't use DirectX11+, of course ;)

Quote
There are a few nice features Ubuntu offers, like virtual desktop, screenshot capture app, grep, maybe a few small things. However, I don't see any additional benefit on using Linux in Windows world.

I personally wouldn't look at fancy graphical effects, virtual desktops and alike. Sure, they're beautiful and functional, but it's not the case.

The main advantage of Linux/*nix is that everything is a file. A text file, to be precise. And thus, you can apply things you can do to text to everything in your system.
Ever used autocompletion feature in some IDE? Imagine that you'd have autocompletion for applications, opened windows names/titles, files, folders, commands, EVERYTHING ... EVERYWHERE.
Or search&replace function... There you go - search and replace for every single aspect of your system. Sounds weird, right? But it's the case... Or grepping you've mentioned... Imagine looking for every piece of code responsible for handling HellTime in RoE source... With recursive grep it takes about quarter of a second, without it... Without it there could be hours of hard, unfulfilling and tedious work...

It's very hard to explain, and I won't blame anyone if that sounds pretty damn nebulous from me... But it's a completely different mindset. With such a system design one can do tasks automation extremely easy, and Linux is all about tasks automation. It's about letting your computer do the boring stuff in the background, while you're doing fun things.

Without doing tasks automation, there's indeed no reason to use Linux over Windows. When one, however, tries to automate some stuff, even only once - then there's no reason to use Windows at all, except maybe for modern AAA games and graphics editing.


QuoteLinux has no decent audio editing software

https://www.ableton.com/ << works perfect under wine
http://www.bitwig.com/en/bitwig-studio.html << linux-native

Quoteno video capture software ever worked for me

Well... I'm using plain ffmpeg, but there are things like simplescreenrecorder that work out of the box... On the other hand, I had very hard time recording my D3 gameplay on windows10. FRAPS is not an option, and others I've tried were way too slow to get the job done.


@oneofthe8devilz
What've you done, man... I love such discussions :) And 'm very passionate about operating systems in general. 

eXistence

Windows for gaming and most professional and personal work (just switched from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10). Everything i need just works, driver issues are very rare and most users/customers are windows based anyway.
There are a few things that annoy me from time to time, but overall it still makes me more productive and i can focus on the stuff i want to get done.

Linux for servers and for some scientific projects (my university is mostly unix).

0x29a

QuoteThere are a few things that annoy me from time to time, but overall it still makes me more productive and i can focus on the stuff i want to get done.

Yes, learning curve is a strong issue when it comes to Linux productivity. It takes about two months of constant learning for an average person to become really proficient in using Linux as it really should be used (think command line + tiling WM, power usage).

On the other hand, that time really pays off, as after a while you save hours - and sometimes whole days or weeks - on stuff that would require your constant attention on Windows. Just let it run in a background, take care of everything...

But that's for so called "power users". If someone only needs to play video games (that's contemporary AAA) or do 3DMax or Photoshop, than indeed, no reason to use Linux.

There's also huge niche of "average" users, like my GFs mother. She doesn't know anything about programming, shell scripting and such stuff. She just wants to browse the internet, do some office work and some multimedia. And guess what... After I've installed Linux configured for her exact needs, she never turned back. Mainly because:

- No adware, no spyware, no viruses. Before she constantly had those problems because every second installer of Win32 software has some "Bing Awesome Bar" and "Super Ads" option to untick before proceeding further. On Linux she just opened up a software browser, synced with repository and boom - there's your application. And remember that's an older person - "Bing Awesome Bars" are a serious problem for such people.   

- Built-in desktop zoom. With poor eyesight it's a life saver. You go ctrl+mousewheel and you can read stuff easily. Also - dark color theme, easy-read plugins, google translator everywhere under right mouse button.

- And other aesthetic mechanics, custom icon theme, custom default window sizes, mouse gestures used for moving around the system...

Again, such a configuration would be either very hard, or even impossible to achieve on Windows because most system components are hidden from the user and, very often, are immutable. 

revelator

Main os Win10 1809, secondly ubuntu.
Previous main os was Win7 64 but my mainboard started having trouble with newer usb and sata drivers (asmedia) it would BSOD to no end even in safe mode.
I really like Win7 but not being able to use updated drivers kinda broke my enthusiasm.

ADV_MD5

Work pc is running Windows 7,
Home pc/development rig is running Windows 7 and also lubuntu. It is simple and just works. Easy to use package manager and has a benefit. I switched my parents over to lubuntu from windows a few years back, as a result any time they call I know exactly what program/thing for them to use. Also saves me from sshing into their pc all the time.

I have a surface I use for notes. It is running Windows 10. Havnt bothered messing with any dual booting because it does the job great with windows.

I use an iphone, so I have IOS.

I also have a kindle fire that is booting LineageOS (tablet was 30$ last prime day). Bought it and rooted the same day. Flashed a new OS as soon as possible.

I also have a chromebox that I purchased in 2013 or so. I liked the small size and I traveled a lot and would hook it up in hotel rooms to the tv. It was running slitaz then arch linux. All in all it was a pretty nice system, I had purchased the ASUS model due to the extra ram slot and then bought an 8 GB stick. As a result I had a pretty zippy 10gb ram system that cost me less than 250$. It worked great enough for me to run an ide and listen to music/browse the web. It currently just lives in my suitcase for if I ever travel.