Windows, MacOS or Linux - Which is best
Today - there are four choices for a Desktop OS - Windows, MacOS, Linux and ChromeOS - so which one is best and is there a clear advantage of one over the other ?
I have used all four and each has it's good, bad and ugly. Over the next few paragraphs I'll give my opinion of each of my experiences and may help you make a decision.
Windows...
So regardless of all the press/hype what have you regarding Apple and Google vs MS, Windows is still the 900lb gorilla in the Desktop OS space. With an over 90% market share and over 1B desktops in play, Windows is available on more platforms from more manufacturers than anyone. It is the defacto Desktop OS.
In fact is has to be said that Windows XP was so good that some 24% of all desktops out there are still running this 13 year old OS. 53% are on Windows 7 - a 5 year OS.. About 13% are on Windows 8 or 8.1.
The big advantage I see to Windows is that due to its extreme breadth of exposure and history - is that you can easily run some version of Windows on just abut any x86 platform out there. From the Intel NUC all the way to the most powerful dual-proc workstations you can install Windows and 99 times out of 100 it will run straight out of the box. Sure you might need to grab some drivers from a vendor site for a particular configuration. But you can always find them....
From a User Experience perspective - Windows was extremely consistent from Windows XP through Vista and Windows 7. If I had a complaint it was that various tools and control options were moved about over the years for in many cases not very good reasons.
My other biggest core complaint about Windows was it's lack of a consistent approach to media and the use of proprietary formats for content like music, video, etc. It's not that Windows Media Audio (wma) Video (wmv), etc didn't work - it's just that they weren't very portable to other devices. In addition, the apps, tools to manage and play this content were confusing and inconsistent. There were multiple tools to do the same job - there was Media Player, Media Center, etc - each doing the job differently with different capabilities...
Finally there are few tools to create content. MS assumes that you will use Office for content creation. The native tools are minimal at best and Office can get expensive. Yes today you can utilize an Office365 subscription - but it's still an extra cost.
Windows 8 & 8.1 added the Modern UI experience. Obviously focused towards tablet and touch the experience is a very mixed bag. While you got some nice improvements in the overall view of content like pictures, music, etc - a lot of functionality was lost. The Modern apps are in my opinion "Lite" versions of their traditional UI cousins, so while you may like the look - you'll hate the lack of function. The Bing Apps - so news, sports, weather, finance etc are nice to see in a desktop OS - but MS could have just as easily made that content consumable at the desktop just as easily..
What MS did get very right with Windows 8 is its efficiency and handling of modern hardware. If you own an ultrabook or modern multi-core desktop with SSD - Windows 8 is fast - very fast and very stable when compared to any of previous versions of Windows...
MacOS....
So MacOS really is Unix with an Apple UI. Today Apple owns about a 5% total market share. Apple over the years has continued to add more and more base apps to the OS distribution and the upgrade costs are always very reasonable at $20 or less.. a much nicer value than MS...
Whereas a few years ago you would have to go out and buy a very expensive content creation tool like Office for Macintosh - you now get Pages, Numbers and Keynote - the equivalents of Word, Excel and Powerpoint included. If you have already bought into the Apple Ecosystem with iTunes, etc - then it is a very nice experience.
Yes you will not get Touch support with MacOS and most likely never will - but the question becomes - do you need it ? However if you need tools like MS Project and Visio - you'll have a challenge with MacOS - and that is simply because MS does not make MacOS versions of these apps.
Apple has always done a nice job with media especially in terms of supporting more "standard" formats like mp3, H.264, etc. It's not that MS didn't support them - its just that Apple just works out of the box whereas with MS you sometimes had to down a special codec or activate a feature.
if there is a complaint I have about Apple it's just that it is a closed system - where you can only run MacOS on a Mac. With that said, Apple does make excellent devices. I've written before about my experience with Macbook Air and it really is a state of the art laptop. Yes some folks have created Hackintosh devices and some do work very well - but what I would like to see is Apple either A) fully support virtualized MacOS on platforms like VMware or B) provide a developers edition of MacOS that you could load on non-apple hardware for testing...
Finally if you need to join an Active Directory domain and utilize Windows Server based corporate resources - you may need to add a 3rd party tool like ADmitMac by Thursby...
Linux....
So there are several very good Linux desktop distributions out there. The most popular is Ubuntu but Mint is also very good. The great news about these products is A) there are completely free and B) the can run on a lot of x86 platforms.
While not as diverse as Windows from a hardware support PoV - especially as the versions move forward - leaving older processors and chipsets behind, you can still get nice performance from Linux on older gear...
From a user experience - it's a mixed bag. Personally I like the Mint UI over Ubuntu - simply because it is very Windows like. You also get a complete version of OfficeLibre which is a very acceptable, Word, Excel, Powerpoint alternative.
Where you can get challenged by Linux is with driver support for some printers, bluetooth stacks, USB Devices, etc. There is a surprisingly large number of apps in the store and so you can often find tools to get a particular job done.
There are still gaps with Linux in terms of configuring certain services and features where you need to open a command prompt and run various commands or scripts which can seem very cryptic. If you don't have a good working knowledge of Linux - these exercises can be very frustrating...
Also I'm not a big fan of the Thunderbird Mail client - which just seems antique. Yes there are other clients out there - but I use Outlook as a benchmark to compare other Mail, Calendar apps against and most of the Linux offerings appear very crude in comparison... With that said - if you use Web based mail like Gmail - you may not even use a Mail client.
ChromeOS....
So last but certainly not least is ChromeOS and the Chromebook. So you can argue that Chromebooks do not qualify as a general purpose OS and I would agree with you. But with that stated ChromeOS focuses on what some consider the future of end-user computing - a very light OS designed for Web based applications. If you are a user of Google Apps, then Chromebooks should definitely be on your radar. And especially now that Google has expanded their Chrome apps portfolio and allowing off-line usage. Google Play is very good and the apps will be ever expanding...
If I have any complaint about ChromeOS it is the limited platform support. Most Chromebooks are low end laptops focused towards a $200 - $300 price point. While LG has released the Chromebase an all-in-one model - it is not very powerful - but it is still priced around $329 for a 21.5" all-in-one. You can buy a 20" Windows all-in-one for about the same price and the entry iMac is $1099.
Also since this is a NonOS - you can't just plug in USB devices and expect them to work - even with printers. Google does offer Cloud Printing but you need to make sure your device supports it... Finally remember everything gets stored in the cloud. Depending on your use case that may or may not be a factor.
Bottom Line....
All four options have their good, bad or ugly at varying price points. With Windows you'll have the widest variety of choice of platform - but will need to purchase Office or Office365 for content creation. With Apple you can get a complete package but will pay a premium for their devices - albeit excellent.
Linux is really for the DIY crowd - its very hard to find Linux based devices in the marketplace - but you will get a complete package and something that will run very well and there are many different distros available to meet your needs. Its a nice way to get extra life from an older device - just check the release notes to make sure the release will support your chipset.
Finally there is ChromeOS - the NonOS. Cheap entry price - good companion to Google Apps and a growing app portfolio. Just don't ask it to be a general purpose OS - it's not....
So what am I going to use going forward...?
For my wife, daughter and granddaugter - who really live in the Chrome browser - I've most recently been looking at the Intel Next Unit of Computing (NUC) devices. These are small 4 x 4" computers that run Core i3 or i5 processors up to 16Gb of RAM, PCIe SSD and Wired or Wireless connections. a Base unit can be had for just $272 via newegg and by very nicely configured for less than $400 while still supporting HD screens, etc. About 30% less than the price of a Mac Mini with a smaller footprint and more capability.
And the OS choice - Windows. Why ?
With Windows 8.1 MS has proved it makes a rock solid - fast OS Kernel. It still has by far the largest level of 3rd party device and app support. Also I can easily create "task station" configurations for my daughter and granddaughter that boot right into what they use..
The new "Threshold" release is coming to further improve the UI experience and I still use Office as my primary content creation. When I compare the experience I have with Windows vs Mac vs Linux vs Chrome - Windows in my opinion still is the benchmark...
I have used all four and each has it's good, bad and ugly. Over the next few paragraphs I'll give my opinion of each of my experiences and may help you make a decision.
Windows...
So regardless of all the press/hype what have you regarding Apple and Google vs MS, Windows is still the 900lb gorilla in the Desktop OS space. With an over 90% market share and over 1B desktops in play, Windows is available on more platforms from more manufacturers than anyone. It is the defacto Desktop OS.
In fact is has to be said that Windows XP was so good that some 24% of all desktops out there are still running this 13 year old OS. 53% are on Windows 7 - a 5 year OS.. About 13% are on Windows 8 or 8.1.
The big advantage I see to Windows is that due to its extreme breadth of exposure and history - is that you can easily run some version of Windows on just abut any x86 platform out there. From the Intel NUC all the way to the most powerful dual-proc workstations you can install Windows and 99 times out of 100 it will run straight out of the box. Sure you might need to grab some drivers from a vendor site for a particular configuration. But you can always find them....
From a User Experience perspective - Windows was extremely consistent from Windows XP through Vista and Windows 7. If I had a complaint it was that various tools and control options were moved about over the years for in many cases not very good reasons.
My other biggest core complaint about Windows was it's lack of a consistent approach to media and the use of proprietary formats for content like music, video, etc. It's not that Windows Media Audio (wma) Video (wmv), etc didn't work - it's just that they weren't very portable to other devices. In addition, the apps, tools to manage and play this content were confusing and inconsistent. There were multiple tools to do the same job - there was Media Player, Media Center, etc - each doing the job differently with different capabilities...
Finally there are few tools to create content. MS assumes that you will use Office for content creation. The native tools are minimal at best and Office can get expensive. Yes today you can utilize an Office365 subscription - but it's still an extra cost.
Windows 8 & 8.1 added the Modern UI experience. Obviously focused towards tablet and touch the experience is a very mixed bag. While you got some nice improvements in the overall view of content like pictures, music, etc - a lot of functionality was lost. The Modern apps are in my opinion "Lite" versions of their traditional UI cousins, so while you may like the look - you'll hate the lack of function. The Bing Apps - so news, sports, weather, finance etc are nice to see in a desktop OS - but MS could have just as easily made that content consumable at the desktop just as easily..
What MS did get very right with Windows 8 is its efficiency and handling of modern hardware. If you own an ultrabook or modern multi-core desktop with SSD - Windows 8 is fast - very fast and very stable when compared to any of previous versions of Windows...
MacOS....
So MacOS really is Unix with an Apple UI. Today Apple owns about a 5% total market share. Apple over the years has continued to add more and more base apps to the OS distribution and the upgrade costs are always very reasonable at $20 or less.. a much nicer value than MS...
Whereas a few years ago you would have to go out and buy a very expensive content creation tool like Office for Macintosh - you now get Pages, Numbers and Keynote - the equivalents of Word, Excel and Powerpoint included. If you have already bought into the Apple Ecosystem with iTunes, etc - then it is a very nice experience.
Yes you will not get Touch support with MacOS and most likely never will - but the question becomes - do you need it ? However if you need tools like MS Project and Visio - you'll have a challenge with MacOS - and that is simply because MS does not make MacOS versions of these apps.
Apple has always done a nice job with media especially in terms of supporting more "standard" formats like mp3, H.264, etc. It's not that MS didn't support them - its just that Apple just works out of the box whereas with MS you sometimes had to down a special codec or activate a feature.
if there is a complaint I have about Apple it's just that it is a closed system - where you can only run MacOS on a Mac. With that said, Apple does make excellent devices. I've written before about my experience with Macbook Air and it really is a state of the art laptop. Yes some folks have created Hackintosh devices and some do work very well - but what I would like to see is Apple either A) fully support virtualized MacOS on platforms like VMware or B) provide a developers edition of MacOS that you could load on non-apple hardware for testing...
Finally if you need to join an Active Directory domain and utilize Windows Server based corporate resources - you may need to add a 3rd party tool like ADmitMac by Thursby...
Linux....
So there are several very good Linux desktop distributions out there. The most popular is Ubuntu but Mint is also very good. The great news about these products is A) there are completely free and B) the can run on a lot of x86 platforms.
While not as diverse as Windows from a hardware support PoV - especially as the versions move forward - leaving older processors and chipsets behind, you can still get nice performance from Linux on older gear...
From a user experience - it's a mixed bag. Personally I like the Mint UI over Ubuntu - simply because it is very Windows like. You also get a complete version of OfficeLibre which is a very acceptable, Word, Excel, Powerpoint alternative.
Where you can get challenged by Linux is with driver support for some printers, bluetooth stacks, USB Devices, etc. There is a surprisingly large number of apps in the store and so you can often find tools to get a particular job done.
There are still gaps with Linux in terms of configuring certain services and features where you need to open a command prompt and run various commands or scripts which can seem very cryptic. If you don't have a good working knowledge of Linux - these exercises can be very frustrating...
Also I'm not a big fan of the Thunderbird Mail client - which just seems antique. Yes there are other clients out there - but I use Outlook as a benchmark to compare other Mail, Calendar apps against and most of the Linux offerings appear very crude in comparison... With that said - if you use Web based mail like Gmail - you may not even use a Mail client.
ChromeOS....
So last but certainly not least is ChromeOS and the Chromebook. So you can argue that Chromebooks do not qualify as a general purpose OS and I would agree with you. But with that stated ChromeOS focuses on what some consider the future of end-user computing - a very light OS designed for Web based applications. If you are a user of Google Apps, then Chromebooks should definitely be on your radar. And especially now that Google has expanded their Chrome apps portfolio and allowing off-line usage. Google Play is very good and the apps will be ever expanding...
If I have any complaint about ChromeOS it is the limited platform support. Most Chromebooks are low end laptops focused towards a $200 - $300 price point. While LG has released the Chromebase an all-in-one model - it is not very powerful - but it is still priced around $329 for a 21.5" all-in-one. You can buy a 20" Windows all-in-one for about the same price and the entry iMac is $1099.
Also since this is a NonOS - you can't just plug in USB devices and expect them to work - even with printers. Google does offer Cloud Printing but you need to make sure your device supports it... Finally remember everything gets stored in the cloud. Depending on your use case that may or may not be a factor.
Bottom Line....
All four options have their good, bad or ugly at varying price points. With Windows you'll have the widest variety of choice of platform - but will need to purchase Office or Office365 for content creation. With Apple you can get a complete package but will pay a premium for their devices - albeit excellent.
Linux is really for the DIY crowd - its very hard to find Linux based devices in the marketplace - but you will get a complete package and something that will run very well and there are many different distros available to meet your needs. Its a nice way to get extra life from an older device - just check the release notes to make sure the release will support your chipset.
Finally there is ChromeOS - the NonOS. Cheap entry price - good companion to Google Apps and a growing app portfolio. Just don't ask it to be a general purpose OS - it's not....
So what am I going to use going forward...?
For my wife, daughter and granddaugter - who really live in the Chrome browser - I've most recently been looking at the Intel Next Unit of Computing (NUC) devices. These are small 4 x 4" computers that run Core i3 or i5 processors up to 16Gb of RAM, PCIe SSD and Wired or Wireless connections. a Base unit can be had for just $272 via newegg and by very nicely configured for less than $400 while still supporting HD screens, etc. About 30% less than the price of a Mac Mini with a smaller footprint and more capability.
And the OS choice - Windows. Why ?
With Windows 8.1 MS has proved it makes a rock solid - fast OS Kernel. It still has by far the largest level of 3rd party device and app support. Also I can easily create "task station" configurations for my daughter and granddaughter that boot right into what they use..
The new "Threshold" release is coming to further improve the UI experience and I still use Office as my primary content creation. When I compare the experience I have with Windows vs Mac vs Linux vs Chrome - Windows in my opinion still is the benchmark...
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