Least Stressful OS?

[samsonite2010]

In the last few months my OS usage has changed considerably, but at work they got me an iMac because they believe a Web Developer should use this and they say they are the best computers ever.

So at work I went from Windows 7 (which I think is ok to be honest) to Mac OSX. At home I went from Windows 7 to Kubuntu Linux due to the hard disk dying and Linux actually allowing you to install to an external drive!

So my comparison of using 3 OSs within a few months:

Windows 7 - it works, it looks good, but is still very bloated and has many flaws as we all know. That being said, you can get things done on it.

Mac OSX - in 4 months, Dreamweaver stopped being able to connect via FTP for no apparent reason, but a text editor can still, so I have to do PHP & XHTML using a text editor, or faff around with an FTP client. Ok, so I faffed around, but everytime the FTP client auto updates, it fails and then removes the app from the Mac! Why can you only resize windows using the tiny bottom-right corner (quite tricky at full HD resolution). GIMP crashes after a few minutes everytime. Machine becomes sluggish with a few big apps open. Apple updates want to reboot the machine every day. The list goes on and on...

Kubuntu Linux - the GUI is easy to use, as easy as Windows, but much faster. My Windows apps are running faster on Wine & Virtualbox than they were with Windows (crazy, but true!). Application installs seem to be flawless and fast. Updates work great and do not cause conflicts. I can work on all the things that the Mac and my old Windows would do separately, but all at the same time and without any slowdown. The list goes on and on...

I was always sceptical of OSX, but thought I should be open-minded and I can work with it, but it has more bugs even than Windows and the GUI looks old and is the least userfriendly one I have used for a long time. So why is it so hyped up by the userbase?

Sorry to rant, but I love technology and I still like playing around on the Mac as it is a decent piece of kit, but I hate praise for things that are not that good...

Linux so far, has blown me away with it's performance and ease of use. Even using the terminal is not scary at all, you just have to pick it up bit by bit

[nujinini]

Hi!

I have tried quite a number of distros for the past year and have found Linux Mnt 7 to give me the least of stress.

But then again, one must have to give it a try and decide for himself.

[MikeTbob]

+2
Linux Mint is the bees knees!

[samsonite2010]

Will have to give it a try. There is so much choice with Linux, I mean you can have pretty much anything you want. Why would you go for one of the others?

[oz]

Least Stressful OS?

I used to be quite comfortable in Windows but not anymore, and my experience with OSX has been minimal at best so I'm not comfortable there, so to answer your question, I personally find Linux to be the least stressful OS.

As for distributions, Arch seems to work best for me out of the 50+ different distros that I've tried. That said, it's clearly not the best distro for everyone, or we'd all be using it.

[gerard4143]

Myself, I find Mandriva/Gnome to be fast, stable and the least stressful distro/desktop environment out there....

That said, I personally find Arch Linux to be the most satisfying distro for my 'GNU/Linux' skill level.

[hazel]

Arch may be fun, but imho if you want to avoid stress, you need to stay away from bleeding edge software. When I used Gentoo for a few months I found it very stressful knowing that each update could break something.

[MikeTbob]

Arch may be fun, but imho if you want to avoid stress, you need to stay away from bleeding edge software. When I used Gentoo for a few months I found it very stressful knowing that each update could break something.

I use Gentoo everyday and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone but the most stubborn people I know. It's worse than Windows in some ways. I'm just the kind of person that likes messing with broken stuff!

[hatebreed]

I've been dabling with linux off and on for about 12 or so years. I've never stuck with a distro because nothing ever detected my hardware correctly. I've been using Ubuntu for about 2 weeks and I must say wow. It detected everything right from the start, although I had to tweak my vid setting in terminal to get it working correctly. I'm very impressed with the OS, it is a bit sluggish on older systems but I found that you can just disable some of the notifier programs at startup and this helps out huge. I've never had a problem with windows, never had to pay for any software cause I would just go to download.com and get what I needed for free. I never had any stability issues either, but I think that most people who have issues just don't take care of the system in general. My vote for stress free goes to Ubuntu hands down.

[Etna]

I am of the firm belief that Windows is by far the least stressful OS.

Why? Because you must remember the target crowd Windows was designed for; the everyday Joe Plumber who just wants a PC to do their work in and have all hardware working at the flick of a button.

Of course, it is argued that Windows does not come with any form of drivers preloaded into the system, but that's what OEMs are for: to ensure that all those drivers are already installed prior to selling the system.

And for those who buy retail Windows CDs or DVDs, they know that any hardware they own will work on Windows because

1) hardware vendors will have slipped in a Windows driver CD in the hardware box

or

2) There are downloadable official drivers immediately available off the manufacturer's page.

No.1 does not apply to Linux, and No.2 is also almost non-existant, since most dpwnlodable drivers are only for Windows or OS X.

Faced with a potential case of having none of your hardware working on a technically superior OS vs 100% hardware compatibility on a lowest common denominator OS, which one will the average Joe choose?

Dont get me wrong, i like my Linux boxes and all, but the troubles known as driver hell and dependency hell is definitely not going to make things nice for the everyday user.