Please vote for the OS which you feel very good.

Where is the 'All of the above' option?

Looks like nobody likes the old fashion Mac. Linux is my choice because if I chose linux instead of xp when I first got my computer, I would have had double the amount of ram that I have now because Windoze just can't handle so much ram (8GB). So Linux 4eva. And my version of linux is called Ubuntu.

I use Windows XP simply because it's the most compatible OS around. I'd go to Linux if I could find drivers that would work with all of my hardware.

Neither Fedora nor Ubuntu work correctly on 64-bit computers; I mean the os itself is ok but they have problems with sound and playing movies. Vista works great right out of the box with no tweaking needed. So my vote is for Windows. Never used a MAC so don't know about it.

I use Windows vista, because my laptop was defaulted with that, and I think it is quite handy for me!

Okaaaaay. That rant made no sense what so ever. Given that - by looking at rather vague computer specs listed in profile - is not that old a system; meaning that so long as your mobo actually supports more than 4GB of RAM, am left wondering why on earth didn't you go XP Pro x64, which support far more than a mere 8GB RAM??

And what on earth would you want 8GB of RAM for in Ubuntu?? That kind or RAM suggests either HD Gaming on max resolution, or rendering/transcoding of HD video; or of course creating/editing/rendering large or complex 3D models or animations - none of which Ubuntu is any use for!

So the entire basis for you rant was.....??


NB: Using Win7 x64. Handles everything I throw at it, and flies through tasks, even when under serious workload (on only 2GB RAM - although soon upgrading to 4GB).

I don't like the 64-bit windows at all because it is compleately incompatible with nearly every piece of software I have where as at least Ubuntu has it's equivelant software for free + wine and virtualbox emulator. Also why I use so much ram? I'll put it this way, I do a lot of things at once like copying music to the computer while browsing the internet with 20 tabs while waiting for a 3d model to render while using the tv tuner with automated tasks such as email checking 3 accounts every 5-10 minutes. So my computer goes through a lot. In fact, I lost 512MB of my ram because it overloaded.
And also I've found all of the Ubuntu equivelents except for the TV viewer. So truely linux would be better for this job. Linux even allows you to have multiple desktops running at the same time. Now that's handy. Hope that explains it.

Also if google did introduce the netbook and I had one, I would probably crash their mainframe computer calculating pi.

Okaaay - that's a little more than the average duck

A couple of things to note:

Is highly likely the RAM which came with your system is little more than bare-bones, and certainly not up to what you are doing. Being that you are here in Brissy, have a look on Megabuy for the best compatible RAM for you sys - G.Skill and Kingston's HyperX series. Can also use shobot.com.au to shop around.

x64 Windows - never used XP x64, but recent move to Win7 x64 have really only had a couple of things which wouldn't run, the only real pain being Creative's software stack for the Zen (although they did provide driver through WinUpdate, so can at least use Zen Explorer) - but that's highly typical of Creative really A couple of drivers had to be "signed" this end using a free utility. The emulation layer built into x64 Windows should allow just about any x86 app to run (with the exception of AV's and the like). Only limitation is those old 16-bit apps, which got dropped with Vista from memory.

Also, you have to consider a couple of limitations in Ubuntu (this is not a crack at Ubuntu by the way - despite my feeling toward that flavour of *nix) :

• Ubuntu was simply never intended for that kind of loading - it lacks the hardware optimisations/accelerations which you really need for that type of loading.
• Most open-source/reverse-engineered drivers tend not to be full-featured, again giving a performance hit. SUSE 11 might get you closer, but again with limitations.
• Running apps through WINE usually means reverting to older builds of key apps, meaning lacking any more recent performance optimisations.

On the other hand, hardware accelerations intro'd in Vista have been massively refined in Win7. Given that both nVidia and AMD both pushing Win7 as next gaming platform, might at least be worth giving a crack? Not being a fanboy here - absolutely HATED XP, which damn-near sent me to SUSE. My concern is that if are throwing such a heft load at Ubuntu - to the point of crashing RAM - it might be worth looking elsewhere.

BTW - for those wondering why OS X not mentioned... yes I know Leopard and Snow Leopard also contain hardware optimisation, but cwarn23 is on a PC and can hardly suggest the "hackintosh" methods here

Currently using Ubuntu-64 bit for most of my needs and everything just works perfectly. I also use XP 32 bit for my gaming needs. Tried Vista-64 for awhile and it sucked, I'll be giving Windows 7 64 bit a good run to see how that works out.

No problems with sound or playing movies in Ubuntu 64, at least not on my system so that's definitely not a general statement that could be made about the OS.