Best operating system

[MRGTB]

Personally, I haven't defragged since I switched to NTFS.


For Beishe and Razasharp - If you have 20 minute bootups than what did you have installed and loading at startup?

My Windows 7 system boots in about 55 seconds and that is long but I have IIS 7, MySQL, Norton Internet Security, Pandora, Windows Live Mail, Seesmic Desktop, Skype, Jing, and Edison all start during bootup. Of course, I don't normally boot the system. Normally it just goes to sleep and it takes it 10 seconds or so to restore when I move the mouse.

I usually defrag my hardrives about 1 a week, I always thought defraginging your hardives help keep them in good shape.

[Razasharp]

I don't know if it's defrag or something else, but I'd often hear the disk doing something (that sounded like defrag'in) in the background - even when I wasn't doing anything with the pc.

For Beishe and Razasharp - If you have 20 minute bootups than what did you have installed and loading at startup?

Mine never took 20 mins to boot up.

Mine slowed down in the general day to day use - so much so that I noticed a big difference after a clean install.

Maybe they (programs) clogged the memory up, maybe they conflicted with each other - whatever it is, all I know is that every windows PC I have ever had slowed down after a few months of use, and I would say I was a very careful user. I've seen some of my family members PC's that crawled, and would be totally unusable for me! (Mine was still fast compared to theirs :lol.

Are you lot saying your PC's continue to run like just after an OS install? If so you must be extremely lucky (or not as observant *runs*).

[Joe Gronlund]

Personal specs

OS - Windows 7 Ultimate x86
System boots in about 38 - 40 seconds - lower without start-up items, but not a huge change!!

Startup Items
Skype 4
MSN/WLM - 14.0.x Version 2009
Avast 4.8 Pro Antivirus
Twirl umm???? Who cares its just twirl!!
Cyberlink Hi-Def Suite - Product versions vary

System Hardware
MB MSI - BTX
CPU - Quad Core 2.94 GHz - QX6800
RAM 4.00GB
Nvidia 8800 Deluxe - GTX
Soundcard - Sound Blaster X-Fi
Dell XPS 720 Chassis W/C
1 Kilo-Watt PSU
2 x 500 GB Seagate SCSI/SATA
1 x 1 Terabyte Seagate SCSI/SATA
1 x Samsung Blu-Ray Burner - Watching Movies
1 x LG Blu-Ray Burner - Burning Movies and Blu-Ray Content, Backup iTunes to Blu-Ray

Total number of Drivers needing to be installed after Windows 7 is Installed - None!!



Windows 7 MSDN

Optimized Off Shelf boot times of ~21 seconds - 26 seconds have been seen in Engineering of Microsoft Windows 7

35% of systems boot in 30 seconds or less, 75% of systems boot in 50 seconds or less. This can be out of the box, or after your system is setup..
It is key to hit that 21 second boot time with some simple BIOS edits, and some driver changes to increase hardware responsiveness.

[beishe8]

For Beishe and Razasharp - If you have 20 minute bootups than what did you have installed and loading at startup?

What did my mother(70+)install on her machine(Win XP)?
I'm the only one who could install anything special on her PC and I did not.
Messenger was the only one as I remember.
Clearing her PC from the internet rubbish and defragmenting it was my job.
I had to reinstall XP on her PC twice in about 3 years.

What was on my machine? A lot of rubbish.
Installing-removing programs happened often.
What garbage was left on the harddisk to make it work that hard? Dunno.

Since Vista my life is easy! Not once had to format our PCs!

[hitmancode47]

Since Vista my life is easy! Not once had to format our PCs!

I did have Vista once, i put it on my laptop i just found the OS too much for my specs. had boot times of 3-4 minutes after a clean install.

[beishe8]

I did have Vista once, i put it on my laptop i just found the OS too much for my specs. had boot times of 3-4 minutes after a clean install.

Was your laptop faster with XP ?

[hitmancode47]

Um.. i think so yes. and i only had MSN, Skype and XFire to boot on startup Had the same on vista (Did an experiment) and XP was faster.

[Cole2026]

I usually defrag my hardrives about 1 a week, I always thought defraginging your hardives help keep them in good shape.

Not really. Generally the reason that files are fragmented (that is, in pieces) is because the OS or the file system can more effectively use free space on the hard drive. When you are defragmenting, you are moving the pieces of those files closer together on the hard drive head. This reduces the amount of spinning and seeking the hard drive does, and as such I believe could have a very minimal impact on hard drive longevity (but not much).

I have not defragmented in well over a year. I'm running my OS on a 10,000 RPM drive though, and this allows for seek time to be pretty fast, which may be why.

[JakeS]

Well as for the question in OT (Original title)

I use 0% of windows. Meaning, I don't have any computers with windows..

And no. I'm not a Mac

Yup I use GNU/Linux, now I'm probably going to get flamed for this but my personal view is:

For what I need, for what I do, for what I use etc, I have absolutely no need for windows, and it always fails to do exactly what I want it to do, however. GNU/Linux is perfect for me, runs perfectly and does everything I need it to do. :-) so IMO Linux is the best for me. Though I use Fedora, not *buntu. Plus, it saves buying a new licence every time you change your PC -.-

PS: My boot up time is around 30 seconds, or depending what I want it to start up with it's 40. And eh, I've had my install now since FC10 (I had to re-install, main FS corrupted. Previously FC6 upgraded constantly through to FC10 (As Per each release)) and it's now running FC11

[hitmancode47]

Does Linux contain a GUI? (Graphical User Interface, Like XP Load up & Menu's)

Where can i download it from? and know of any good screenshots of the OS?

Thanks!

[JakeS]

Does Linux contain a GUI? (Graphical User Interface, Like XP Load up & Menu's)

Where can i download it from? and know of any good screenshots of the OS?

Thanks!

Yes it has several GUI's. Depending on which you prefer

xfce.org
kde.org
gnome.org

As for where you can download it... Their is tons of distributions. I mean tons.

Look here: Linux.com

&

distrowatch.com

http://fedoraproject.org (My prefered)

http://ubuntu.com

and the choice is yours :-) Just remember, Linux is free, as in Freedom.

Though note that in Linux, generally all needed software is in a repository, so no searching the net for programs :-)

oh and one more thing:

http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm

Read that first. If you decide to switch to Linux, it may be frustrating at first, and not all things may work, but as you get more used to it, the better you learn to do stuff. You may want to read up and stuff on it prior to installing it though.

PS: My desktop:

http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/7720/screenshot1z.png

[hitmancode47]

I already had a copy of ubuntu from way back, ill have to dig it out and wipe the dust off.

As for fedora, found the download, boy im in for a wait at 4.5KBPS download speed (Even though i run on a 6Meg connection :S)

And the word "Free" operating system, i doubt you would know how much ive been looking for something like that no licenses etc

Edit:

Just looked at the screenshot you may want to censor out your vBulletin license number its on the folder on your desktop.

[JakeS]

I already had a copy of ubuntu from way back, ill have to dig it out and wipe the dust off.

As for fedora, found the download, boy im in for a wait at 4.5KBPS download speed (Even though i run on a 6Meg connection :S)

And the word "Free" operating system, i doubt you would know how much ive been looking for something like that no licenses etc

Edit:

Just looked at the screenshot you may want to censor out your vBulletin license number its on the folder on your desktop.

Slow DL? did you try torrent (Torrent is legal, it's the contents that could be illegal, though not in Fedora's)? or other mirrors?

Hmm sensor the number.. why ? If I was to sensor it or something, I may end up looking suspicious knowing my luck

Their IS a license..

http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html

And could be others.. HOWEVER. All are free, and you can distribute modify use etc. Normally if you leave original credits :-)

[Lizard King]

Windows 7 is amazing . I never had bootup problems also. It runs so smooth. I keep a game open on background so i can switch and play anytime i want , usually keep photoshop open , have komodo , editplus online all the time. I have multiple shell windows for each server i manage online. Outlook works in background so i can be notified anytime i receive an e-mail. Skype and windows live is always on. There are other programs such as winamp , tweetdeck running on pc nad never have slowness problems. My system works perfect.

On my servers i prefer centos and for personal linux usage i sometimes use fedora sometimes use ubuntu. Between these two i prefer fedora probably because it was the first linux OS i used.

[hitmancode47]

Windows 7 Sound's like an awesome operating system, but as for Vista/XP what are the MAIN benefit's from W7?