What's the best Operating System you have ever used?

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

I have extremely find memories of both pure DOS (no actual GUI, just commands for days and days... Made me feel like a colorblind general XD) and XP (which was actually the opposite on every single way).

DOS was my reliable workhorse, doing anything asked of it instantly and without failing, so long as I punched in the right commands. It made me feel like computers were really all that, an unstoppable force ready at a moment's notice and always performing... A notion that future OSs gleefully destroyed.

Interestingly, XP was actually the first time I actually felt in control of a Windows PC and it did a lot to restore my faith on the brand after having 95 and 98 going out of their way to give me constant grief for seemingly no reason -- things that simply didn't work for either of those (despite being DESIGNED for them) just worked flawlessly on XP and I think that was the last time I ever felt right managing a computer on my own. Nothing I could throw at XP seemed to confuse or overwhelm it, despite me being unreasonable and handing it a rotten potato to work with (can you imagine letting your main HDD being only 3GB big and placing EVERYTHING on it? MADNESS!!!).

Unfortunately, I couldn't stay on either forever and the honeymoon was over terrifyingly fast, swept aside by a constant need to upgrade just to stay the same... At least Vista proved reliable without outperforming anything, but everything that came after soured me to no end with their built-in BS.

What about you?

 

[Lod 10]

CWindows 7 quando eu era criançaWindows 7 when I was a kid, I played the games and everything's fine with you too.

 

[vulonkaaz's iconvulonkaaz]

i guess GNU/Linux, just gets better over time, don't see it ever getting worse (parts of the community is getting worse but they can't take away what we already have)

current Artix + heavily customed dwm is very l33t and comfy

OpenMandriva + KDE on the laptop is very Windows vibe (when Windows was good)

only problem I have is the Artix machine having way too many updates since its Arch based and Arch tend to constantly push new things occasionally breaking stuff (I just don't do the updates most of the time), when I won't be lazy i'll switch to Devuan which i think will be perfect

(i have tried multiple versions of windows, multiple versions of BSD, non-GNU Linux distros (Alpine), GNU/Linux just works flawlessly most of the time)

 

[Clippy]

I'm very nostalgic about this one:

 

[JoueurCitoyen]

I really like SteamOS, which offers a nice interface in game mode, and a more complete desktop for working.

But this is what I call perfection:

 

[MegaDrive1987]

If I had to pick I'd say Windows XP back in the day as it was miles better than Windows ME that came preinstalled on our family PC, got a lot of memories with that OS such as being up all night on MSN Messenger, playing CS with my mates after school and obviously exploring the WWW. These days I'd have to say Linux Mint as that's what I finally switched to and couldn't be happier. Is it perfect? No of course not but compared to when I was using Windows 10/11 I have had FAR less computer trouble, not to mention the lack of telemetry/spyware that is now infesting Windows.

*EDIT*

I also love the aesthetics of Linux Mint as it reminds me of classic WIndows and not the crap they call an OS these days...

 

[fake-kun]

It's not Windows, that's for sure.

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

I'm very nostalgic about this one:
View attachment 128317

I love the claustrophobic look & feel.

It feels a little overwhelming at first, but I'm sure it was smooth sailing once you got your bearings.