Windows or UNIX. Which is the better OS ?

There are folks who like Windows and equivalent for UNIX. But what I don' t understand is do they not perform the same things on a computer.

Windows or UNIX. Which is the better OS ?
Unix and variants (Linux, BSD, etc.) are more stable and more secure in general. Unix was designed as a secure multi-user, multi-processing OS from the start so it would naturally be better in these respects than Windows which evolved from a single-user, mostly single-processing OS with little concern for security.





True, they do the same basic thing - provide a user interface to the hardware. The real differences are in how it's done.





I've used Linux exclusively for several years and see no compelling reason to use Windows. IMHO, Windows is playing catch-up and Ubuntu with Beryl still beats Vista. Desktop applications is where Unix/Linux has been lacking, although this is not much of an issue now. There are still many games that are only provided for Windows, and even then a lot of them can run on Linux by using WINE, Cedega, etc.
Reply:There's no all-around "better" OS. People have different needs and expectations and the value of an OS is going to depend upon that. A software engineer trying to put together a LAMP system on a Web server might prefer Unix, whereas a hardcore videogamer will probably prefer Windows.





But it's true that there's a lot of basic tasks which both can do easily. If you want to do basic word processing and Web surfing, many of those tasks are served equally well on either OS if you have a half-decent browser, and since more and more applications are being provided online over the Internet the OS is actually becoming less important to some degree.





It used to be that computer OSes were so completely different in so many ways that even though they nominally all did broadly the same things the details were so different each OS was a universe unto itself and there was no way for two OSes to communicate with one another. A few things have changed that however.





* Networking and Open Systems made interoperation between different computers a priority.


* The Internet and World Wide Web made intercommunication a much bigger part of computing.


* Many applications and file formats became standardized across OSes, eliminating many technical barriers relating to translating data.





That said, there's still technical differences in how different OSes operate, and more importantly, different kinds of software do the same things on different OSes, and often that software will affect one's preference. For instance, if one wanted to create HTML pages to put up on the Web, one could do that on either Windows or Unix, but if one likes using a friendly graphical system like MS Frontpage or Adobe Dreamweaver they'll probably prefer Windows. If one wants to get into the more technical side like setting up an Apache server especially configured to serve their content, they might like Unix better.
Reply:Personal PC, Intranet or webserver.....traffic?





Hey, windows for personal pc....can't beat the compatible programs written for windows.
Reply:If you want to play games right now Windows is better, however that will change within the next few years.





If you are wanting security for you and your files then Unix, Linux, BSD are better.





I recommend Ubuntu for Linux. or Dragonfly for BSD. I believe that Ubuntu is more complete at this time.





Also anyone that says that Windows has more programs written for it is Wrong.


Their are over 17,000 programs written for Linux and I can't think of any program that is in windows that does not have at least 3 versions in Linux or BSD that can do the same thing.





I play games so I have both operating systems in my house, however when it gets to the point that I can play the games I like to play on Linux I will not go back.


I will admit that there are still issues being taken care of by Linux at this time, however they have tens of thousands of people working on the problems and it wont take long.





I believe that BSD will be better and more stable in the end so I am waiting for it to "congeal" so I can use it. DragonFly is my hoped for favorite.





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