Do you use the PC or Mac?
Which OS | Windows, Linux, Unix, Solaris, Mac OS (X)?
And a short paragraph explaining why if you want.

If you use both, put em down.

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I use a PC
OS: Windows XP Pro and Windows 2003 Server

PC WinXP pro.
No real reason. Win 95 came with my first PC (now thats marketing!) and I never took the time to 'learn' another OS.
I am curious how other OS's work and perform, but my time is limited.

Greetz,

i use pc.. but i see that i may also get a mac too sometime.

my main reason for PC is software available.

but i'm also getting into professional music production and for that i need a mac..

the software available on the mac and the fact the mac does it's job a lot better in that respect will force me to get 1 eventually..

in short i have found the pc to be excellent all round, but if ur seriously going into heavy, professional music editing and production or professional graphic design/cad work then you're better off with a mac. that's just my opinion tho..

@Work:
All IBM Compatible PCs
Windows 2003 Domain Controllers
Red Hat Linux Web Server
Windows 2000 Professional Clients

I list them because half my time is spent using them.

@Home
All IBM Compatible PCs
My PC (Dual boot):
Linux (I change distros like most people change socks)
Windows XP Pro SP2

My Wife's PC:
Windows XP Pro SP2 (I've just about got her talked into Linux)

My Testing machine:
Whatever i386 OS I need for the project I'm working on

My Laptop:
Windows 98SE (Because that's about the only thing it will run)

All in all, I like Microsoft's products when it comes to compatibility and ease of use. Linux is extremely powerful and I wouldn't dream of running a web/file/database server on anything else, but it still has a long ways to go before it is ready for the average person's desktop.

@ Work :

Administration
+ Novell, all Win2K

Atelier PAO & Cinema audio/Video
+ XServer
+ all Mac G4 & Mac G5

Atelier Art Media Lab R&D
+ Amd64 & Windows 64 Bit < get the last beta.RC2
+ Windows 2003
+ Linux Red Hat
+ Mandrake
But there's no one with the skills to configured it well.

@ Home

Notebook:
Windows XP Pro SP2

Testing machines:
An old AMD Athlon and a Compaq

Windows XP Pro SP2
Linux Mandrake and testing Knoppix (4Xoops CD Demo)

http://ftp.knoppix.nl/os/Linux/distr/knoppix/KNOPPIX_V3.8.1-2005-04-08-EN.iso

KNOPPIX is a bootable CD with a collection of GNU/Linux software, automatic hardware detection, and support for many graphics cards, sound cards, SCSI and USB devices and other peripherals. KNOPPIX can be used as a Linux demo, educational CD, rescue system, or adapted and used as a platform for commercial software product demos. It is not necessary to install anything on a hard disk. Due to on-the-fly decompression, the CD can have up to 2 GB of executable software installed on it.

Duh, of course it's free, it's open source!

++

Mac is as already mentioned, mostly used for media working, articles, making professional movies etc. by the way it's an expensive solution.

Microsoft has made people so used to windows, everyone buys it now. There are good linux alternative, they just have to dare to change, because they arent so different as people think.

Linux vs Windows is like a pen vs a pencil. They basically do the same thing, they just work all different on the inside, which you don't need to care about anyway.

Linux is at the moment, mostly used on servers. Because it is so stable and stuff.

But you can run both on an older PC meaning you dont have to spend a shit load of £Y€$ to get a stable server for FTP / Web /etc. as long as its got the CPU / RAM its needed an a little bit more it's all good mate.

Just a little warning, mixing up all different OS'es on one computer is BAD. I had Windows XP and Linux on one computer at once, was some unstable bad crap.

Stick to Windows if you feel ok with it; you don't really need to change. Also, if you play a lot of games, stick to windows as most games are made for it.

Quote:

That depends. I've been running dual/multiboot setups for over two years with very few problems. There's a rule of thumb to remember...

Load older Windows first
Keep each OS on its own partition
Load Linux Last

If you follow those simple guidelines, and you kow enough about the OSs you're installing, there is generally no negative impact on running dual/multiboot systems.

Lately, I've switched to a more productive solution. I've been running my Linux Distro in a Virtual Machine using Microsoft's Virtual PC (similar to VMWare). This allows me to run my Linux OS at the same time as XP. It's fantastic for development and testing since the guest OS just sees the virtual machine as it's own stand alone box. It's like two PCs for the price of one.

We use this solution extensively at the college I work at so that we can lock down the student machines (Win2kPro) through Active Directory while still making it possible for them to run client/server OSs in the virtual machines for labs and skills assessments.

I've tried Linx, both RH 9 and RH Enterprise 3.
And in both cases, I've found that doing things on Windows XP/2003 is just way easier.

And I use Knoppix sometimes to test web pages too see how they look in Linux or boot up my Linux in VMware Workstation.

Pesonally, my first computer was a Mac, and when I got a PC to use, I liked it sooo much more and thats why I like Windows so much.