Ask HN: What is your favourite operating system? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What is your favourite operating system?

What OS do you really like and why?

MacOS. Works well for me from a usability standpoint. I work in software, and using iTerm2 with Zsh and a bunch of custom configuration increases my velocity for actual work and things I explore and learn on the side.

I think the UI is very elegant, and some of the software is fantastic. I use Omnigraffle and Omniflow for design work and tracking my agenda items. No complaints whatsoever.

I hook up an external monitor, and maybe the OS isn’t completely responsible for this, but I get buttery smooth 144hz. It’s joyful to work with.

Everything just works. I don’t have to solve 10 other problems to solve the problem I actually want to solve.

MacOS, once I learned how to use its particular flavor of terminal. Man, good, damn good. Too bad it's tied to the hardware and vice-versa.

Windows due to familiarity. Although I am less keen on the UI after XP and esp. Win 8/10 but I just want something that is out of the box. I’m sure Mac is the same but I don’t have much experience with that.

Linux. I have never been able to afford Macs (they are already expensive and command hefty premiums in my country), and Linux performs way better than Windows in almost every one of my use cases.

I enjoy the customization and don't mind the occasional hiccup that needs some searching and wiki-ing to navigate. Finally, I guess I'm lucky to have used devices with very good compatibility out of the box so I've never had to fiddle too much to get things to work. I don't really have any reason or incentive to look elsewhere at the moment.

I liked using VAX/VMS in the early to mid nineties because of the built-in file versioning and the completeness of documentation (the grey wall of manuals). And the soothing amber glow of the VT terminal.

Not to mention "evaluate polynomial double precision" in assembler... that was always amazing that it could be a single instruction.

Linux, hands down, I like to experiment with different distributions.

I like windows because I like portable applications. Since I'm forced to use it at work along with Office I like autohotkey and VBA because of the ability for automation. I wish there was something, maintained, like autohotkey for Linux. I know there's bash but with autohotkey I can automate most software I need to use day to day.

Isn't xdotool the equivalent of AHK for Linux?

ArchLinux

https://archlinux.org/

Something more esoteric: TempleOS (https://templeos.org/). I used it a few times years ago, very weird but with some interesting features (shell JIT'd all commands).

how is the arch gui?

Personally I use i3 --- there is not default UI though in ArchLinux, there are lots of options though available through the package repos.

Arch is a distro so they only package other people's GUIs? Which one are you referring to?

Linux. (Alpine on most things with Gentoo on my most powerful computer)

When something gets messed up I can read the source or just rip it out and replace it (or worst case, re implement it myself.) I almost never end up "negotiating" with my computer when I want it to do anything now.

https://archlinux.org/

I love the fact that I can customize absolutely everything. The AUR (Arch User Repository) is also amazing and has probably every installable package on earth.

Void Linux

https://voidlinux.org

Alpine Linux

https://www.alpinelinux.org

Mac for work. Linux for deployment. iOS for daily life.

My Ohio Scientific C2-4P (4K RAM) had a really great 6502 monitor in ROM that was fast and easy to use.

Linux - the experience is superior to Windows and Mac IMHO.

My favourite OS is the one that makes me the most money.

Downvoters: Care to comment as to why you disagree? Or do you like playing around with your OSes rather than making them work for you?

Just to disclose, I say this as a frequent 'user' of Ubuntu Linux if that makes you feel better.

(I may frequently use Ubuntu Linux, but it isn't the one that makes me the most money and is not my 'favourite' OS)

>but it isn't the one that makes me the most money and is not my 'favourite' OS

Is it your favourite OS because it makes you the most money, or does it make you the most money because it's your favourite OS?

My use case for frequently using Ubuntu Linux is for 'Testing' my GUI app on it. Given there is little to no significant amount of users using or paying for my app, it brings in absolutely nothing even when you exclude paying for other costs.

When I target the same software to the macOS crowd, (which I also frequently use); they seem to be willing to pay for the software. I'm certainly not going to bother with 'free support' to users who haven't paid.

So the one that makes me the most money in my use case is macOS with the added bonus of how easy it is to support and target 100% of all supported macOS users consistently. Everything 'just works' and there is no need to play around with system files for it to work well. For development experience, the top comment says it all [0].

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28206816

You just said the quiet part out loud, the greed makes the world go around.

Gotta learn to pretend to care about idk turtles, people, parents, kids, other such things.

I didn't downvote but could be because you didn't specify which OS makes most money for you and how.

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