2022-04-02
What operating systems have you used through the years?
I was stuck with these for a number of years, either on personal computers or work/school computers. The only Windows versions I've enjoyed working in were XP (with the last service pack) and Windows 7.
After that I've tried a whole lot of linuxes, most of them for short times. I distro hopped a lot in my early twenties. Eventually I mostly used Debian at university, Ubuntu for personal computers (the hardware support has always been good in Ubuntu), and Red Hat for work. On my servers I run Raspberry Pi OS (formerly Raspbian) Lite, which I guess is pretty much Debian.
I've tried MacOS, but it just doesn't work for me. The things that others find intuitive just goes completely perpendicular to my way of thinking.
On smartphones I've used Android but have ended up with iOS for a few years now because it tends to be more reliable in terms of security updates than the cheaper Android phones I've been using. And there's always been a bunch of extra crap pre-installed on those for some reason. I know that more premium Android phones are more reliably updated, but iOS has actually worked very well for me. Especially since my entire family now uses it and we can leverage family sharing of purchases.
Right now I'm using Debian with the MATE desktop on my laptop and it's a very nice experience. Just the fact that it gives me near 3 hours of battery life on a computer that gets about 1.5 hours out of the pre-installed Windows 8.1 is a big boon.
-- CC0 Björn Wärmedal