Some of them are most definitely better than others in some respects. Saying that they are all absolutely equal is like declaring every CPU ever designed completely equal.
It's true that most users will be well served by most OSes but that's more a statement about users than about OSes.
My main interests are system and games programming though so there might be a case of different points of views here.
I'm just imagining a situation where someone needs their OS to be realtime for example. They're not going to be swayed by the "All options are equal when seen from afar" argument.
Implementation details can make a difference in how nice a system is to use.
I thought it was the points you see, but this one has 4 points and [other] has 6 points (at time of writing), but [other] is below this one.
Is it based on absolute number of upvotes (without subtracting downvotes)?
I don't know first hand, but I'm guessing the scheduler would be largely different, as is the security methodology- heck I can't imagine much similar except 'code runs here, os makes sure code runs'
I remember my friend (a low level engineer at nokia) talking to be about windows 3.1 and how Microsoft put the GUI directly in the kernel because it was too slow otherwise, he went on to elude most of the security issues with windows were based on that.
also, when it comes to remote management and headless machines, the unix-like family rule the roost.
Maybe. I bet remote management of desktops with Group Policy, and a whole slew of Microsoft and 3rd party management services, is more common in Windows-land.
In headless server terms, you've been able to install and run headless Windows Server for years now. It won't be as common because it hasn't been around as long, but it's certainly possible now.
And in remote management on the server side, Server Manager shows other servers in your organization (by default?) in Windows Server 2012, and PowerShell was designed with remoting support since its inception.
And WMI and Remote Desktop for server administration both should count as well, having being in Windows for many many years.
The most popular 'remote management' thing missing from Windows is SSH, which seems a bit of a deliberately biased way to look at things. If you work in a Windows environment, there are plenty of ways to remotely manage your servers/services.
I don't doubt that such things are possible in windows land, I feel most programming these days is so far removed from the kernel and how it handles the hardware that it's much of a muchness to decide what you'll use.
the lack of licenses certainly help with linux things if you're not in need of support though.
There is zero information in your epiphany. You can say this about anything and it will have as little meaning. Cars are just cars. Movies are just movies. The only thing that has any value is the "different and not better" and that involves a subjective "better" which doesn't apply uniformly across people. Ultimately useful measures can be based on time and money, for example productivity, deploy speed, licensing expenses, etc.
Personally I hate the click and point everything UI in windows and prefer a sane bash like terminal with familiar unix tools, but that's entirely subjective.
I thought my meaning was clear. Maybe it's not to you, but it sounds like you did understand it, and just don't agree with how I presented it. And that's fine.
> Personally I hate the click and point everything UI in windows and prefer a sane bash like terminal with familiar unix tools, but that's entirely subjective.
I went from Windows to Linux for the WMs, and stayed for the CLI. Then I went to Mac OS X and stayed for the trackpad. Then I went to emacs and stayed for the keyboard. Now I'm using Windows 8 and am considering staying for the beauty.
Honestly, I don't put much stock even in my own subjective opinions anymore, since they change by the month.
Mine too. Weird how that works. Having a super strong opinion one day and experiencing a complete reversal sometime later.
For work, I feel most productive in Linux.
For home, I absolutely cannot stand using anything but Mac OS X.
If I worked for a company that used a Windows stack, I wouldn't have a problem working in Windows, but there's a huge difference in the end user experience depending on whether you're building a web stack or organizing a photo collection.
They're different operating systems, and they each have different strengths. I run both Windows and Linux servers, and there are some things that Windows handles better, and some that Linux does.