@Webster and all other fanbois
<rant>
GOD/DESS, but you lot are boring ... Especially you, Webster.
As a preface, a bit of my background (not in calendar order!):
My first "Personal Computer" was a Heathkit H11A hobby computer. At the same time as dad & I were building the Heath, I was connecting to the Stanford Tymeshare system using an acoustic coupler and a teletypewriter (I was supposed to be learning COBOL, Fortran and BASIC, but mostly played Wumpus & StarTrek). I first sent what we now call email to a friend at MIT, regarding an IMSAI 8080 another friend and his dad were building. I was an early member of the Homebrew Computer Club in Palo Alto. I was a phone phreak, and still have a dozen or so Crunch whistles in a box somewhere. This was all when I was a teenager.
The first system that I personally owned that I consider to have been a "real computer" was an AT&T 3B1. I had been familiar with UNIX for about a decade at the time (I've been using UNIX for over 30 years, and have a Guinness & coffee stained first edition K&R, signed & dated by Dennis & Brian to prove it). I got the money to buy the 3B1 working as a backup monkey in a mainframe shop (I used to speak SNA like a native). As I continued in school, I learned TOPS-10, and then the internally much different TOPS-20. I owned a small VAX cluster at one point, for reasons I still don't really understand.
In the early-mid 80s I was involved with <telco>, and became friendly with SS7 and the ins & outs of the [T|E]-carrier standards, and all the hardware involved. Later in the 80s, I was involved with Sun Microsystems, IBM, NET, and Cisco. I was a consultant for Amdahl in the early 90s (they didn't listen, and are now owned by Fujitsu. Cause & effect? Probably not, I'm not that good!).
Along with my bang path addresses at Stanford and Berkeley from the early '80s, I was an early adaptor of The WELL and BIX. You can probably find News posts of mine at DejaGoo from before TheGreatRenaming[tm]. The TCP/IP stack you use to connect to teh intrawebs probably still has code that I contributed, regardless of platform. (I'm not narcissistic enough to look for either).
Along the way, I was in the right time and place to help beta-test the IBM PC (at Ford Aerospace in late 1979 or early 1980 ... We had PC-DOS 0.98, the UCSD P-system, CP/M, and of course the built-in ROM BASIC). I have followed along the DOS/Windows trail over the years, mostly out of self-defense. I believe I have the only copy of DOS 3.0 in existence (outside MS) that has the internal networking hooks turned on. I have working legacy machines running virtually every version of DOS and Windows that were made available to the public. Most rarely boot anymore, and should probably be recycled. You might say I'm kinda familiar with WinDOS. I had a dual core, 4gig Vista box for a year or so; it now runs a BSD variation and is a backup file server. I don't like, use, or support, Vista. I think I'm done following Microsoft's software.
Apple has been in my office since the 5802 days, first as a curiosity, then for Pagemaker, and now for video editing. Little else, other than testing software for clients. I have a wood-cased 5802, a Lisa, some NeXT gear, and various other bits of Apple trivea that I purchased new. I do NOT have an iPod, an iPhone, or any other mass-market iThingies. I'm not iNterested.
There is more, but to avoid further yawning, I'll stop.
I think I've learned enough to be allowed to have an opinion.
Basically, all you nit-wit fanbois trying to pretend you know "which OS is best" or "which hardware is best" or "which application is best", or whatever, are wrong and should shut the fuck up until you have a clue what you are talking about.
THERE IS NO ALL AROUND BEST. So shut up. Stop it. You're embarrassing yourselves.
All OSes suck. All hardware sucks. All applications suck. All fanbois suck.
There is only the best OS/hardware/application combo for a specific user and/or a given situation. But it all still sucks. Learn it. Love it. Treat it as a mantra. Your blood pressure will drop, and you'll have a chance of living past 30 ...
</rant>
That said, just for full disclosure ... After the AT&T UNIX PC, I ran Mark Williams Coherent at home. I had been using Mark Williams C compiler for a couple of years, and liked their product. When Mark Williams Group obviously was having problems, I looked around and discovered Slackware 1.0. I've been using it as my personal desktop ever since. I do use Windows, mostly for AutoCAD. I also still use a Mac occasionally, mostly for video editing. But my go-to system is Slackware. NOT because I'm religious about it, but simply because I haven't found a better solution for my needs. If I find a better solution, I'll switch.
Windows 7 borrows from OS X, avoids Vista
