The fact of the matter is that no operating system will be everyone's cup of tea. There are some people who are still happily running the old
OS/2 OSes because that's what they like. Each OS has its benefits, challenges, and failings.
Windows is an extremely diverse operating system yet is still fairly easy to use for most novice users. Some people love this combination since it can offer everything needed in one package. Others feel that this is an unnecessary tax on their hardware. Still others may not like the controlled nature of the Windows software. There are also advanced users that get their hands dirty in the core of Windows and love it.
There are Mac users that refuse to use anything else. They love how stable their system is, how their system rarely comes under attack from malware, and how there is consistent design and structure to most programs. Other users may find using a Mac to be limiting or prohibitively expensive.
Then you have the *nix crowd. These people tend to be more technical than either of the other two camps. The draw to such an operating system is the fact that they are usually free; are community developed, allowing for nearly unlimited customization and enhancement (if someone is able and willing to code it); and are pre-packaged with developer, desktop, etc tools depending on what you pick. Of course, the are the downsides as well: varying degress of driver support, steeper learning curve, requires a higher degree of technical ability to perform certain tasks/make certain changes, etc.
All in all though, Windows is a fine OS. I just constantly like it less than I did before. I loved the old DOS days, I always found problems with Windows 3.1, 95 was a bit of an adventure in trial and error, 98 was pretty good, 2000 was great, XP was good, and Vista is just okay in my book. Maybe the next Windows OS will be fantastic. I just hope that I will have fully moved over to Linux by then since that's where I'd ultimately like to be.
Basically, I'm getting sick and tired of the OS wars. I personally love Linux and try my best to migrate over to it more and more. That said, I don't hate Windows and I don't hate Mac. I just don't particularly like them. In programming, everyone has their own favorite code editor. That doesn't mean that people need to go to war to declare one editor king; rather, it just highlights that different people have different preferences.
Competition is always good. The more OSes that exist, the better all the OSes become over time. Windows users should want Apple to succeed since Apple will innovate new things that Microsoft will never come up with. Apple users should want Microsoft to succeed since Apple could never support all the different type of functions that Windows offers and trying to expand the Mac OS to support such a diverse range of options would most likely destroy the Mac OS as we know it. Everyone should want the *nix communities to thrive as they develop great innovations and find vulnerabilities that affect all OSes. Similarly, the *nix communities need Apple and Microsoft to continue thriving as none of the Linux distros are robust enough right now to support a large percentage of the computing public.
</rant>
I ran ultimate fine on on 1.5GB of ram, I didn't 'run out of ram' so to speak.
