Just curious, I want to compare my results to internet averages. I'm willing to bet that linux and windows are above average, with ios and osx below average. We'll see. Threw in mobile too, remember that this is "most" not "current".

I'll take that bet (because I have the actual numbers and you're dead wrong).

I only care about people who post. not a general assessment of browser usage (which is probably average).

"Most not current" is going to be skewed in favour of Windows because this is a Windows game fan site. I voted based on my moving average.

Android

I only run Linux these days. Gaming has become a bit more realistic as of late & was the only thing preventing me from running said OS exclusively. I do own an iPad, but it's primarily used for reading eBooks, checking email & playing films for my daughter. I have an iPhone as well (selling it soon--in favor of Android) but primarily use it for texting, email, maps & music.

I'm honestly consider an iPhone for my upcoming upgrade, only because Google does not have an iTunes equivalent. Oh how I wish they did....

Fixed.

Seriously, who the hell actually likes itunes?

itunes plays nicely with my car stereo, and genius playlists are great.

Please for the love of God tell me you're joking. What in the WORLD could you possibly want from iTunes?



iTunes the desktop application doesn't play nice with your car stereo (it doesn't play with it at all).

But let's go on about that "iTunes" integration anyway. This is just an instance of being forcibly locked into a certain system. Many OTHER car stereos are platform agnostic, and just about anything that uses Bluetooth will give you similar integration to the iTunes playback. Not to mention that iTunes on the iPhone is pretty underwhelming compared to the plethora of options out there.

Genius playlists are terrible compared to anything else, like say Pandora. Pandora provides far more variety, doesn't require you to buy every damn song, and despite its quirks, still has a better recommendation system. Spotify also does well with this, in addition to allowing traditional playlists. I still love how Genius recommends songs that quite literally have NOTHING to do with each other. Daft Punk apparently ties in with "I wanna hold your hand" by The Beatles. ...

itunes plays the music I bought, and syncs with my phone, and stores stuff in ~the cloud~.
Works for me

So does Google Music. And it does that for free.

Works for me.

Pandora requires a data plan to use in my car. My iPod does not.

Spotify doesn't. Any other excuses?

Monthly charge for something thats currently free?

I don't know what Spotify is, except that it sends me emails every freakin day.. that I hate..
But... iTunes syncs my music to my iPod VERY easily..

If I had an iPhone, it would do the same for that. Android does not have an equivalent. If I want to sync my music to my Android, I have to mess with tags and all that nonsense. I don't like that.

itunes is free isn't it?
sure looks like

Point out to me how purchasing music is free.



Android has about 4 equivalents (because Android is, if nothing else, full of options).

A. Spotify, which is an unlimited music subscription system, allows you to play whatever music they have on their network, in addition to syncing over wifi any songs from your PC that may not be on their network. It's actually easier to use than iTunes. Bonus points: you're not limited to Android, you can use Spotify in a LOT of places (PC, Mac, iOS, Android, Blackberry, and even Roku boxes).
B. Google Music will sync your music to the cloud (one click, literally). From there, the Google Music app on your phone will let you do literally anything iTunes did, and easier.
C. Many apps can treat Android phones as traditional MP3 players, letting you sync them using their own software (example: Winamp).
D. If you absolutely, positively had to, you could still use iTunes to sync to Android, using one of a handful of different Android apps to pull it off.

The first option is my preferred option because there's literally no easier way to sync than something that syncs automatically, in the background, using music you didn't even purchase (just $10/m instead of $1000/year it'd take to buy the music I listen to).



iTunes Match isn't, genius. You know, that magical cloud **** that isn't really all that magical? (Because it fails half the time and can't stream worth **** on cellular connections)

I don't use it, I probably wouldn't if I could.
Idgi man, why are you arguing so hard with people who are perfectly happy with that they have? They never asked for your input or opinion yet your trying to shove this android argument down their throats.

Neat, My guess turned out right.
The sample size is tiny, but I was only looking for current posting members.

I don't even know why you had to ask, if all you wanted was some obscenely small sample size on a very strict set of terms. It's like going to a Microsoft fansite and asking what the number 1 OS is there.

Not much else going on around here, why not?

since this discussion is using bandwidth and it IS about how people use this site... can you use it as a R&D tax write-off??

Guy I can't believe that the majority of the site's users are running Windows!

who is guy?

only stupid nerds like linux.

just kidding, my quant programmer friend is pretty smart and uses linux almost exclusively (ubuntu?). must be good, personally i just can't be bothered to learn how to use terminal and all that shiz especially when i don't see how it would significantly improve the efficiency of my work flow.

Linux is hecka cool, but I never felt the need to use it when Windows does everything I want it to do, and OSX is there when I want an OS that isn't stuck in the 90s.

Write-down and only if the benefits of the research apply in the short term.

Basically.

The learning curve is really the problem. You know, it's not even complex software development stuff, it's simple things that add up over time. For example, renaming all of your music files to "# - album - name.mp3" will take you all day in Windows, but it can be done in a one-liner in Ubuntu without installing anything extra.

I'm definitely not suggesting that the average person learn how to use a Unix shell, but this sort of thing is why even a lot of die hard Windows developers end up installing some Posix compatibility layer just to make working on the platform more tolerable.

The problem with Windows is that it has no real advantages over Ubuntu. Ubuntu has disadvantages, but it's easier to get rid of disadvantages than it is to create advantages. If you understand what I mean.

Ubuntu Linux 12.10 is unironically better than Windows 8 for all classes of user. OSX 10.8 Snoop Lion is an okay Unix except for the bad package management.

dwi.

Windows 7 continues to be the bext general use OS on the market.
Also does wine work 100% yet, I'm a dumb baby who needs him video games.

You do understand how easy dual-booting is, don't you?

Wine will never work 100%. Windows itself doesn't even work 100%. Besides, Valve is basically Linux's only hope in gaming right now (just because they're making a serious push for it, instead of the laughable "Linux Support" that games like UT2003 had).

Speaking of one-liners, am I the only one who installed a bunch of windows-ported GNU utilities?

No. I made them a standard install on all of my managed systems years ago.

You all know I'm a horrible snob about this sort of thing.

Yes, I agree: Windows 7 is the best general-use OS on the market. But there are caveats. The disadvantages of Ubuntu are a poor new-user experience and a lack of professional-quality software in key areas. Windows 7 does okay (but not great) on the first and extremely well on the second. That's why I'll always recommend Windows 7 over Ubuntu to anybody who asks (or OSX if they aren't poor).

But really neither of these things are part of the operating system.

Unity incorporates a lot of the best usability lessons from Windows 7 and OSX while making desktop search more discoverable than it is on either platform. In steady state - once you have the system installed, configured, and with whatever limited selection of software you're stuck with - it's efficient and highly usable.

I'm not recommending it, and I'm also not necessarily saying it's better, but I am saying that it has a future. Which is really more than anybody can say for Windows or Apple's 10.7/10.8 iOS inbreeding experiment.

No. Dual boot for old games and AAAs, buy HiB on Linux, watch Steam and cross your fingers.

Between HiB and Steam, having a Linux port is at least becoming "trendy" among indies and mid-tiers so there's a path forward there.

Steam will help. Canonical is also selling commercial apps through the Ubuntu Software Center. HiB has probably done more than either though because their market research has made it pretty clear that Linux users actually are willing to pay money for software.

No, like I said:



You pretty much have to if you're serious about software development.

Or use PowerShell.

But then give up on figuring how to do x or y and go install the real gnuwin32 x or y so you can go home at 5pm

Or the real MinGW/MSys or Cygwin (for those of us in 2013 :)).

Or try real hard, become the only person on the planet who actually uses PowerShell, and then have to install Mercurial and Git clients via MinGW anyway because that's how everyone else distributes their source code, and then GNU Make because that's how everybody else builds, and clang or gcc because the vc frontend is complete trash and can't compile anyone else's source code anyway.

You don't need MinGW for Hg or Git anymore

Yeah you do. The Windows Git client is MSysGit. The download includes a minimal subset of MinGW. "Minimal" does not mean small; git depends on glibc, curl, expat, zlib, less, patch, rsync, openssh, perl, gettext, etc. so any Git client is going to have to include a large chunk of a Unix userland. I imagine the situation is similar for Mercurial but I haven't checked.

Oh. I mean you don't need to install MinGW yourself and build anything yourself. Github has a Windows client now, I don't know if it works with anything other than Github. And Mercurial has always been mostly Python and C and has never had issues on Windows. Looking at my installation of TortoiseHg, it's mostly a Python runtime with a zip archive of Python libraries and some other stuff like Qt and a few misc C libraries. A straight command line build probably has a lot less.

Git, on the other hand, was programmed incrementally using the Unix toolkit philosophy. This isn't the most portable approach (MingW notwithstanding), but I heard the author is a pretty hardcore Linux user.

Can't... tell if joking