What platforms do you own?

[Cybermonkey]

It is interesting to see that at least half of contestants own a Linux-based system. May I ask what were your reasons for moving from Windows to Linux OS? What edition do you use? How is the stability and driver support?

I use both Kubuntu 11.10 and Mageia 1. I started to switching to Linux long ago. My first Red Hat based distribution was shipped on 3,5" floppy disks ... but was a pain to install. KDE 1 wasn't that nice either.
Since Windows 95 I was looking for an alternative for WinDos. I had a look at OS/2 but it obviously failed to gain a market share. Linux has now the best "support" of alternative systems. But a long time I used the BeOS Personal Edition so I always have a close look at the Haiku-OS. (Which should be added to the list because FPC runs on it ...)

[Ñuño Martínez]

It is interesting to see that at least half of contestants own a Linux-based system. May I ask what were your reasons for moving from Windows to Linux OS?

Actually because I can't use OS/2.

I used OS/2 3 Warp in the '90s and I think it is the most stable, user friendly PC operating system ever, even nowadays. Unfortunately it's almost dead (IBM tried to open-sourced it several times but Microsoft vetoed it always). Currently there are "eCom Station" but it isn't the same and cannot compete with Windows in the most modern computers.

When I changed my home computer and I realized that I cannot use OS/2, I moved to Linux (Redhat IIRC). I was using it occasionally and I found it recovers from my programming errors better than Windows.

What edition do you use?

Xubuntu in both computers (an old IBM desktop and a new DeLL laptop), but I'm tempted by Mint.

The IBM has an OEM WindowsXP too. I use it only to play and to test the Windows version of Allegro.pas.

How is the stability and driver support?

Not sure why but I never have it tuned perfectly, may be because Xfce has fewer support than famous KDE and Gnome, but my home computer isn't powerful enough to support anything "bigger" than that (good old Pentium IV 1.8 Ghz). By the way, the latest Xubuntu (11.10) seems to be much more stable, less buggy and more ease to configure than previous releases, but it's slightly slower.

Unfortunately, Intel graphics support is broken. I've read that they know why it doesn't work (the driver doesn't reserve the graphics RAM correctly as it's shared with conventional RAM so system and graphics becomes mixed after some time...) but I don't understand why they decided to drop off the OpenGL support instead of fix it (Windows XP has full OpenGL support and it's fast and safe. Actually old Kubuntu 8/9 had full OpenGL support and was fast and stable!). AFAIK this problem isn't fixed in any Linux.

The DeLL laptop has an nVidia that works, but I've found that it isn't able to render some effects. Not sure if it's problem of the graphics card itself or because I didn't configured it correctly or because I'm using the open-sourced driver.

[chronozphere]

I've got:
> desktop dual boot system with Windows 7 and Ubuntu 10.04 (AMD Althon 64X2, 4GB RAM, Geforce 8600GT).
> HP Proliant microserver with Atom CPU and 4GB ram running Archlinux
> A 3 year old laptop running Windows XP with a Celeron CPU and Geforce 7400 (I should install linux on this one)
> EEE Pad transformer tablet
> A very old PIII system standing lonely in the corner of my room

Two years ago I decided to make a move from windows to linux. Because I can't do that at once, I installed a dual-boot which I'm still using today. I started with Ubuntu 9.10 which is now upgraded to 10.04. I did that because I got in touch with it during a programming course at uni and I discovered that some friends of mine were quite enthousiastic about the OS. After playing it, I learned that the the commandline interface is very powerfull and allows you maximum control and ability to learn how things actually work.

I'm starting to dislike Ubuntu because it's quite bulky and still does not always have the packages I need. I discovered arch a couple of months ago and I installed it on a new home-server I bought. It's a big improvement, allthough you must take your time to install things and troubleshoot (when neccesary). I use my homeserver mainly for backups, downloads and hosting my own repositories. I'm still looking for other nice ways to put it to use, because I'm not using it to it's max potential (200MB of the 4GB of RAM is actually used lol).

[de_jean_7777]

I've got a
- Lenovo G700a laptop with Windows 7 and Fedora 15 dual-boot (i3 2310-M, 4GB DDR3, Intel HD3000 and Radeon HD6650 switchable graphics)
- Samsung Galaxy Ace with android 2.3.7 (unofficial cyanogenmod port)
- ASUS EEE Pad Transformer with Android 3.2
- Athlon II X240, 4GB RAM and Windows 7 at home (I use this rarely as now it's most family computer)
- ASUS 1000HE laptop running Fedora, with a broken screen (serves as a server for SVN and other stuff)

In the future, I also plan to get a Mac machine and some iDevices if my android projects become financially viable. But this is currently only a plan. I may also get some gaming consoles (xbox360, ps3) but it's unlikely I'll develop for these machines.

[LP]

By the way, out of curiosity, anyone tried running React OS, which is a free and open-source Windows-compliant alternative? The screenshot on Wikipedia seems pretty convincing.

[Cybermonkey]

By the way, out of curiosity, anyone tried running React OS, which is a free and open-source Windows-compliant alternative? The screenshot on Wikipedia seems pretty convincing.

Yes, I tried it in Virtualbox. Freepascal (Windows version) works, Lazarus does not. GUI programs for ReactOS can be done with fpGUI. Now I am waiting for the next release ...

[Super Vegeta]

A PC at home and a Toughbook laptop, both Linux+Win32.

On PC I have Windows Vista - arghh. Since my parents bought the computer quite soon after Vista was released, they purchased it. I am planning on switching to Windows 7 from MSDN AA, though. Linux distro here is Linux Mint, as it has a nice GUI and everything is quite user-friendly. Only had some minor issues with sound card drivers (Sound Blaster X-Fi). A shame I can't get FPC to compile anything using non-standard units.

Toughbook has WinXP - I would not even dare trying W7. XP runs quite nice, though I use it mainly for gaming. Linux distro here is Fedora, running an LXDE desktop. So far my only problem is being unable to find a working driver for the touchscreen, but other than that, I daresay everything runs like a dream.

Reasons to moving from Win to Linux? I was curious about Linux for a long time, but I only gave it a try after I got my own computer. One of the reasons was also going to university - I knew there would be some subjects regarding Unix\Linux, so I thought it could be good to check it earlier. After some adventures with different distros (I tried six or even seven), repartitioning the HDD several times, et cetera, I decided to stick to Fedora+LXDE. Now, over a year later, I use mostly Linux, mainly for being able to change literally everything in the system's runnings (not that I was lucky enough never to have it not running after some of my experiments...), it's stability and ability to be customized. Running programs with WinKey+Letter is wonderful - and addictive, to the point I created registry entries for like 20 apps in WinXP just to be able to run them via the Win+R "Run application" applet.

A funny fact to end the post - when at home, I most often use both computers. I work at the PC, with the laptop sharing it's disk via NFS. No need to worry about transfering files or whatever.

[Ñuño Martínez]

By the way, out of curiosity, anyone tried running React OS, which is a free and open-source Windows-compliant alternative? The screenshot on Wikipedia seems pretty convincing.

I did test it a long time ago. It was quite stable but has a feel of WIP everywhere.

Don't know how much it changed from that.