Which desktop OS do you prefer?
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- By the end of 2026, how useful do you think agentic/multi-agent AI systems will actually be in your daily work or personal projects? Posted on March 11th, 2026 | 32 comments
Believe it or not, my choice is ... ChromeOS (Score:4, Insightful)
Chromebooks are exactly where Macs used to be a decade ago: they "just work". Connectivity is a breeze. They are instant-on and instant-off, very responsive. The UI is intentionally kept simple, fast, and uncluttered. Updates are automated and long-term. New features are added sensitively, there are never any changes just for the sake of change or merely for aesthetics.
Personally, I think Chromebooks have not been pitched properly. Sure, they run on low-spec hardware, but that is NOT an experience anyone would like. When you are using a machine to basically just replace an entire human assistant, does it really matter if you spend $350 vs. $600? You're going to make up that difference in time saved practically overnight. You don't need much in the way of hardware, even a moderately-spec'd machine from 5 years ago will perform brilliantly. Google has recently fessed up to this lack by launching a new hardware standard named "Chromebook Plus". Those specs will work extremely well.
I recently tried out Windows 11 and was aghast at how ugly and cluttered the desktop was. Completely unusable, in my opinion. I'd have to remove 4/5ths of the apps on those machines before I'd dream of handing them over to a normal user. Macs fare little better, in my opinion. They are a bit more UI-stable than Windows, I grant you that, but things no longer "just work" out of the box.
So sure, go ahead and roll your eyes at my naivety. I'm a grizzled veteran of computing. I know the goods when I see the goods.
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Kubuntu has really come a long way. Until 18.04, I would have told you the best desktop I had ever used was Fedora 14, and then, at 15 or 16, they went to Gnome 3, which was a complete disaster. Between then and Kubuntu 18.04, I was doing the same as you - switching distributions often. Not anymore.
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I use openSUSE (Leap with KDE) for pretty much everything, but with a couple of caveats.
- the newest version has a new "Dragon Player" and the developer(s) have/has removed the memory functionality. Older levels carry a list of videos you have played with the oldest at the bottom. I use this for a playlist which cycles around every 1-3 weeks and have that running as background music. My test/backup machine is on the new level, the machine I actually use is staying on the old level for as long as I can ma
Re: Believe it or not, my choice is ... ChromeOS (Score:2)
Focus-follows-mouse, surely?
Re: Believe it or not, my choice is ... ChromeOS (Score:2)
Chrome-devices are also amazing computers for mom, pop and grandparents and other people who are less technically skilled and really just need a half decent and reliable device for some internet surfing - and the device is pretty much bullet proof and very low maintenance and low support effort.
There is not much that can go wrong, it more or less updates itself, and the much lower complexity makes usage easier and more enjoyable AND there will be way less questions and issues, so much more relaxed for you i
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I put my mother on a Chromebook 5-6 years ago and she loved it... right until she left it on the roof of her car and drove off. SMASH.
She loved her new one even more when she logged in and everything was exactly as she left it.
Absolutely the low-maintenance computer option for those high-maintenance users.
We don't need no stinking preferences! (Score:3)
Obviously a flame war poll. And without a sense of humor.
But I have to reject your three-point shot based on my dismal experiences with a Lenovo Chromebook.
I think the missing option I wanted was "Native FORTH as implemented by Cowboy Neal". (Many years ago I actually used a no-OS system. Ran Lisp right out of the microcode. Probably the last of those machines. TI wound up dumping the entire money-losing division onto HP...)
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I would have voted for that option
also BeOS, TempleOS and GNU Hurd needed aon the option list
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Re: Believe it or not, my choice is ... ChromeOS (Score:2)
Re: Believe it or not, my choice is ... ChromeOS (Score:2)
Yes, but itâ(TM)s a shame that you have to submit to anal-level surveillance to partake. Enjoy that forbidden fruit, but donâ(TM)t act like you didnâ(TM)t pay for it, in one way or the other.
Currently, Mint on a Framework is the most respectful and flexible workstation Iâ(TM)ve found.
Re: Believe it or not, my choice is ... ChromeOS (Score:2)
What the hell is wrong with the unicode around here? Those are supposed to be ascii apostrophes.
Re: Believe it or not, my choice is ... ChromeOS (Score:2)
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Re: Believe it or not, my choice is ... ChromeOS (Score:2)
Happens when you post from mobile.
Re: Believe it or not, my choice is ... ChromeOS (Score:2)
> they "just work"
Not everywhere they don't...eg mainland China. That's Google's deliberate decision to exclude ~1/5 of the world's population. There are ways around it, but, ma fan, as they say.
That's a clear message from Google to not use their products.
Re: Believe it or not, my choice is ... ChromeOS (Score:2)
Making Windows usable was easier back in the day. I forget the name, but there was an application which systematically removed useless applications and DLLs from the system. I no longer offer help to friends and family when they want to buy a new laptop: just point them to Linux or Mac. There is no longer enough time in the world to be free customer support.
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Inb4 (Score:4, Funny)
All the rest of my fellow windows users complete updates and overtake this poll!
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I'd pick Windows only if it was the Windows 2000 style desktop. Last Windows that could provide that was Windows 7.
Then some mentally retarded person thought that borderless flat windows was the best thing ever. Flat windows was last seen with Windows 2.x. The amount of lost time due to closing the wrong window for a lot of people is probably staggering.
Systemd is a crippling of Linux, and that's worthy of all hate it gets.
Apple lost its way somewhere when they gave up the 68k processor.
Re:Inb4 (Score:4, Funny)
And bring back leaded gasoline!
And phones became worthless when they lost the dial and use buttons.
And if I'm paying for cable I prefer a box that sits on top of my TV.
But if I want it from space I want a massive dish in my back yard.
And don't even get me started on carburetors and distributors!!!
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And bring back leaded gasoline!
And phones became worthless when they lost the dial and use buttons.
And if I'm paying for cable I prefer a box that sits on top of my TV.
But if I want it from space I want a massive dish in my back yard.
And don't even get me started on carburetors and distributors!!!
... and let's not forget the foul murder of the iconic 3.5 mm audio jack.
Re: Inb4 (Score:2)
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OS X is great. Classic Mac OS was and always will be awful.
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Yes, KDE's default themes went all flat, too. Luckily you can just go to System Settings -> Appearance -> Window Decorations and set the window border size from the drop menu.
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I'd pick Windows only if it was the Windows 2000 style desktop. Last Windows that could provide that was Windows 7.
This desktop environment style was indeed peak usability. That is why I chose the MATE desktop environment on Linux.
But I don't like the desktop itself. When I'm forced to use Windows I like to keep as close as possible to zero icons on the desktop. On Linux I use the i3 window manager (on top of MATE).
Systemd is a crippling of Linux, and that's worthy of all hate it gets.
I used Devuan for quite a while (tried Gentoo, too), until I discovered Void Linux, the distro that finally put an end to my distro hopping.
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Microsoft drove me away (Score:4, Insightful)
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I left Windows when Windows 8 came out and I needed a laptop. I couldn't stand the new UI. Especially the configuration. Windows 10/11 aren't much better.
Left to Mac and haven't looked back.
Windows 7 was the best Windows ever.. but they killed it.
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Windows 7 was the best Windows ever for users... but they killed it.
I mean, when has micro$oft ever given a shit about its users?
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The Windows 8 UI (and that includes 8.1's) was so unpopular that they backed the changes out a bit for Windows 10, rather like they changed course when they saw how much their customers loathed Vista.
Whatever they change, some people are going to hate it, but when the level of hate reaches a certain point then even Microsoft accepts that it needs changing again.
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I will remind you essential departure from Windows 7, I still consider the best, and was brave to keep for good while as business OS of choice at sites of my clients.
They moved from structured graphical Windows interface to the gimmicks of full-screen calculator, Android-style endless sausages of text lines, instead of icons, and now to the plain visual distractions of all sorts. To maintain their OS business-suitable became work of refusing nearly every option of setup, searching how to cleanup and disable
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I thought the point of the Windows 8.x tiles was to have a similar UI across all devices to improve the acceptance of Windows Phones. That went well.
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Sure, the idea was that. Yet: from window-based interface on PC to fall into trap of full-screen calculator is not much of improvement. It is destruction of window-based interface. Likewise, replacement of graphical icons with the sausages of faceless text-lines.
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Ultimately, the best core features of 7 were introduced in Vista. It's basically like an XP-ified version of Vista, as XP is essentially 2000 with an absolutely awful user interface, and idiotically organized control panels.
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The first time I installed & used Windows 11, which incidentally was yesterday, I couldn't find the shutdown button. THE SHUTDOWN BUTTON FFS! Searching on the Internet told me in Win11 you now have to right click on the Start Button to find the shutdown/reboot button-more stupidity from the "change for the sake of change" religion.
Dumb unintuitive designs like this is what happens when you hire for DEI charity instead of hiring for talent.
BTW, if you use Win11, install Open Shell; it will reduce your
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Do you not have a power menu on the bottom right of the start menu?
Every Windows 11 machine I've seen has this: https://imgur.com/a/Gdpd03f [imgur.com]
Microsoft's response: Why not both? (Score:2)
Adding advertising to an operating system is the dumbest thing anyone could do because it is wholy the opposite of what users want.
"prefer" (Score:5, Interesting)
I "prefer" Linux for my desktop, but I "use" Windows.
I also have a playstation. I don't like the playstation. I don't like Sony. But that's where some of the games I want to play are.
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MATE (Score:2)
For over 15 years already the desktop I use for productive work is MATE on Fedora.
KDE (Score:2)
That's a good point--the desktop matters much more. I've been using KDE (now Plasma) since 2007.
My daily driver is FreeBSD, but I multiboot with Manjaro and OpenBSD. The important constant is Plasma.
As a corporate user.... (Score:2)
As a corporate user, I find it is just easier to run Windows on my work laptop. Almost all of my work is done on AIX and Linux servers via SecureCRT. I don't have issues with any of the required, Windows only, apps that we have. I know there are workarounds for a lot of this, but our security policies keep us pretty locked down due to the sensitive nature of our work.
There are some that use Macs, but many of them seem to struggle. We have a Mac Support team space that is always abuzz with people having
They are ALL good options (Score:2)
I use a Mac, it works for me, and I have been using them since the Macintosh 512Ke, I moved up from CPM and TRSDOS/NEWDOS80
I have used Windows at work for light CAD work (PCB design), played with Linux, but stuck with my Mac.
Computers are like golf clubs, if you are left handed you will suck with RH Clubs and vice versa. If you have specialised software that is only on one platform, then use that.
What you use has no bear
At home running Linux since 1994 (Score:1)
At the office we are forced to use Windblows, yuck..
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Windows is ugly and tacky (Score:3)
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No AmigaOS ? (Score:1)
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Linux (Score:3)
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I have, of course, used and administered various versions of Windows, because it's pretty hard to entirely avoid if you live in the world and interact with people. I even have pretty strong opinions about the relative merits of different versions. But there was never a time when it was the only OS that I knew or the one that I knew best or liked best.
I did try FreeBSD
macOS is definitely last for me (Score:3)
I've been messing with GhostBSD lately and I'm really enjoying it. It doesn't really properly support Samba and CUDA, which makes it a no-go for a Linux replacement, but it's pretty neat. It's basically a FreeBSD distro made to be user friendly, and it's doing a good job with that. I've got it on an older Thinkpad for when I travel, but it's been kicked off any actual desktops. I wish the open source workstation world focused more on FreeBSD, but I understand that people have to focus on what's going to make them money.
macOS though... The first time I used it was for work a couple of years ago and in order to get more used to it, I bought an M1 mac Mini. Hoooo boy. I do not understand the love for macOS. I loathe the "menu-bar-at-the-top" thing. Yeah, I know about the infinite mouse movement thing, but having several windows open and being able to click on them and then instantly open their menus in Windows and most Linux DEs is just so nice. macOS seems to want you to do one thing at a time in full screen mode. No matter what I do, it's constantly nagging me to log into my Apple account, it has weird issues keeping mounted Samba shares mounted when it goes to sleep, it has non-stop updates, and things seem to be either dead simple or strangely complicated to do. For just office use and browsing, I get it, but it's not for me. I also had a hard time finding apps I liked to replace things like Notepad++.
No shade thrown at anyone who disagrees, but for me it's Linux > GhostBSD > Windows > macOS.
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If Linux could run all my games I'd probably use it more. Windows 10 is alright(there is too much junk!). I'm not
Nerds (Score:3, Funny)
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Honestly, I expected the Linux share to be higher.
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all of them (Score:2)
For my everyday use, MacOS, for gaming windows, and for my homelab and old machines, linux
for my servers, whichever OS the ISV requires, and if there are multiple choices, a cost/benefit analysis by the whole team is in order
what do you mean I have to choose one?
are y'all the kind of people that use a flathead scredriver also as a chisel, a hammer and as a philips screwdriver?!
Linux (Score:2)
My current machine still has Windows, though I really prefer Linux.
Mind you, there is no single "Linux desktop OS", so only listing it as 1 item is not technically accurate. ChromeOS (which you didn't list) is based on Linux, so I suppose I can forgive you for not making it a separate choice - but the "real Linux" users and FOSS purists (not necessarily the same people) would exclude it. But as a Mageia user my Linux desktop bears little resemblance to a Debian or *buntu user, and then there's OpenSUSE whic
Missing options... (Score:3)
We could have at least used an "other" option. I prefer and primarily use FreeBSD.
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Haiku! (Score:1)
I'd prefer to use Haiku, but not everything I need is supported (yet!).
MacOS (Score:1)
Apple put the E in unix and castrated a perfectly good OS.
Cowboy Neal OS (or...) (Score:2)
OS/2
Prefer Linux, stuck with Windows (Score:2)
I was stuck with MacOS. No, that's not fair. I liked Mac OSX, up to the point where it became obvious they were crippling hardware to push new sales. My first couple Macs lasted for five to seven years before seeing significant performance loss. My last two lasted two years, then about eight months. Which is why they were my last ones. The two years was nearly acceptable, but was a negative hit against them because the big selling point for paying a little extra up-front was the length of time I could go be
Re:Prefer Linux, stuck with Windows (Score:4)
Yup. I'm in a similar boat as I use a Windows 10 LTSC desktop and a Windows 7 laptop for music production. As a Reaper user I could run it on Linux but without access to the huge collection of VSTs I use (both freeware and paid). So I'm stuck with Windows for music production.
However, when I saw the direction Microsoft started to head in a few years back I moved all my day to day stuff (web browsing, email, playing music, watching the occasional DVD, occasional office stuff etc. etc) over to an Ubuntu machine. Couldn't be happier with it.
Windows is rapidly devolving into a totally unusable mess and it just gets worse every time they fiddle with it. Where are the settings for this program ? In the registry ? In an INI file ? In some sort of propietary database ? Can you find them in settings ? Control panel ? Can you only access them via GPO ? Can they only be changed via Powershell ? (another disgusting mess) etc. etc.
And can they leave the UI alone for even 5 minutes ? Sadly not. It's a totally disorganised, untidy mess. No wonder there are so many security holes as it's just kludge, upon kludge, upon kludge.
With what I've see of the Widows 11 machines I've been asked to help with they also now seem to think that your computer is a Fisher Price activity centre and everyone wants to do the same thing. Which is drool over retarded social media rubbish, buy crap, and stream crap. Added to the awful interface, continual popups, interruptions and focus stealing it's a total shit show. And they can stick the idea of forced telemetry and trying to push advertising on *MY* desktop right where the sun doesn't shine.
My Win 10 LTSC machine has had almost every program/service removed from it and it runs all the VSTs I've ever tried to throw at it with headroom to spare. I mixed a Reaper project with 84 tracks and something like 120 plugins last week and didn't even have to start freezing tracks. So, that's going to more than adequate for the rest of my life.
I have no further interest in Windows whatsoever and am looking forward to seeing it's slide into historical irrelevance. Of all my mates kids the ones who are into programming mostly use Python, mostly on Raspberry Pi's, Arduinos, or Linux machines. The ones who aren't interested in programming don't even use desktop or laptop computers when they're not at school. They use phones instead, all running Android or iOS, and mostly use Web based things.
The entire world has got generations of kids growing up who are surrounded by all sorts of machines running Linux. If you look at the total number of devices running an OS Linux would dwarf Microsoft. Windows is already dying. The only thing that's keeping it going are all the old, computer illiterate, people who decide company policy and don't know any better.
As one of my mate's son's remarked when I asked him what he thought about Windows: "why would I want to use grandad's OS ? it's rubbish !"
Re: Prefer Linux, stuck with Windows (Score:2)
To game or not to game ? (Score:1)
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I game on Linux. Mostly Minecraft with modpacks (huge amount of hours e.g. with Astro Block and Per Fabrica ad astra), some Steam games without proton (most hours on Team Fortress) and some native (most hours on Widelands) and some browser games.
There are some games I would pay and play if they were for Linux, but I skipped those because they are not. I prefer to support only those who support me, but this is just my personal preference.
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For me, Windows is a necessary evil for only 1 thing: Gaming.
I don't game on my laptop... so I'm using Fedora and entirely satisfied with the user experience.
I do game on my desktop pc... so Windows 11 it is... even if I'm not especially a fan of it.
Yes, I know, Steam has Proton... but I despise buying games with DRMs. So, I mostly get my games from GOG.com (I also don't use their launchers)
So, vote went for Windows... But I'll just as easily use Linux if I don't plan on gaming on said machine.
I've been using Linux as my primary gaming OS for quite a few years now. My PC dual-boots Windows, but the only things I boot Windows for are iRacing and PUBG, and it's been months since I played either of those. I also buy from GOG whenever possible, and many of their games work fine with Proton. The Heroic games launcher can download your GOG games and set them up to use Proton automatically (and add them as an external application to Steam if you wish). It's what I use to play my Windows-only GOG gam
Multiple Monitors (Score:2)
With 5 monitors and a moderately sized homelab I have a ton of Linux and Unix VMs to play with and Windows to play games.
I tried a linux desktop in the past a few times and the window manager just doesn't cleanly let me use multiple monitors on two video cards (5 monitors on 2 2000 series nvidia cards; 24G of ram). Last time I had it, I had to move my mouse to the right, up, and left to use the upper left monitor. It got annoying after a while.
With 5 monitors I have a hacked 6k display. Maybe when we have t
Y'all are disabling cups-browsed right now, right? (Score:2)
Don't wait until Monday.
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Forced hardware upgrades (Score:1)
The hardware requirements of Windows 11 are enough to cause me to avoid it where possible. The policies of companies like Apple and Micro$oft that seem designed to generate e-waste don't get enough criticism. Computing hardware from years ago is easily powerful enough to do everything the average user needs to do. If Windows 11 was (a) not wasting so many processor cycles on unproductive and counter-productive tasks and (b) more flexible on the hardware it would run on, that would probably have saved many m
Re: Forced hardware upgrades (Score:2)
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If you try to run 10 on min-spec hardware, you will see what I mean. Every time there's a Windows Update to download, the system becomes I/O bound and horrifically unresponsive for hours and hours, sometimes for days. (I think it's memory usage leading to excessive swapping, but it's hard to pin these things down for sure on Windows, due to the lack of precision of its perf-reporting tools, and the
FreeBSD (Score:1)
FreeBSD is still do-it-yourself when it comes to the desktop, but I like it for the usual reasons, a few of which are:
- ZFS integration (boot environments, etc.)
- jails (yes, on a desktop)
- consistency across releases
- No systemd
- POLA
I want to use Linux but for my hobby photography (Score:2)
But Gimp, Darkroom and Rawtherapee are not up to the task. Windows/Mac offerings are great for my workflow. -Posted from my Windows 11 laptop used for editing photos.
This is Subjective (Score:1)
Depends on the use-case (Score:2)
Honestly, it depends on the use-case. For everyday use or gaming, Windows. For development and hosting, Linux (vanilla Ubuntu). I used to be very into Gentoo Linux, but I'm at an age where I want the OS to get out of the way so I can get actual work done and avoid unnecessary tinkering.
WSL sealed the deal for me (Score:1)
My preference is Linux. (Score:2)
The more M$ announces the latest updates... (Score:1)
...The more I think I'm going to try fully switching to Linux. Already running Mint on a couple of systems...
prefer? (Score:2)
I use a Linux desktop, but I would prefer a platform with actual productive applications, and device drivers that are actually supported.
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\o/ (Score:1)
Which flavour of malware does YOUR OS prefer?
Need more options (Score:1)