Why do people use alternative OSes?

[Zulu]

There are many OS out there, some new ones like QNX are looking promising. How ever it is not for the general public use. That is, you can't just put the OS cd in the cd-rom and expect it to work properly without any intervention.

The strength in the MS OSes is the large market audiance and the abundance of software. At the moment no adobe software runs on any other platforms apart from Windows and Mac without any emulations. For graphic designer this is a very important factor.

I've tried almost every forms and variants of OSes, and even have written a real-time OS. But what it comes down to is what you need it for. If you want simplicity go with Mac or windows. For greater stability go with some variant of unix/linux. Or lastly, just build your own and see how complicated it is. But with all OSes there are disadvantages and advantages.

[jumpthru]

Originally posted by Zulu
There are many OS out there, some new ones like QNX are looking promising. How ever it is not for the general public use. That is, you can't just put the OS cd in the cd-rom and expect it to work properly without any intervention.

The strength in the MS OSes is the large market audiance and the abundance of software. At the moment no adobe software runs on any other platforms apart from Windows and Mac without any emulations. For graphic designer this is a very important factor.

I've tried almost every forms and variants of OSes, and even have written a real-time OS. But what it comes down to is what you need it for. If you want simplicity go with Mac or windows. For greater stability go with some variant of unix/linux. Or lastly, just build your own and see how complicated it is. But with all OSes there are disadvantages and advantages.

I really dont think it is as simple as "just bulding your own."

[Jason Donald]

I think linux is awesome as a server environment. Throw a box here, throw a box there. And it's free.

As much as I hate to say it, windows is by far the most productive desktop environment for us.

[Zulu]

Originally posted by jumpthru
I really dont think it is as simple as "just bulding your own." [/B]

Indeed, I'm currently pulling my hairs out trying to write a power plant simulation in real-time OS. aarrghh!

[superbird]

I use MacOS - I use a Mac because I need nice stuff around me to be productive

[java]

Well, I've been using a Slackware Linux for 8 months now.
I've 2 machines at home, one of them with winblowz 98, simply because im playing Couter-Strike sometimes, there is nothing else on it .
If like you said looking for something different, try Linux!
It's soo cool! You'll love it!
And for people who think there is 'no' photshop in Linux...
or something like that... take a look at my screenshots:
http://javagui.com/sceenshots/
BTW, im using ÒÕÓÓËÉ too.
Good luck.