Debian Jessie on my desktop computer. Ubuntu Raring on my work notebook (yes, I know, an upgrade is overdue).

It is not obvious in my case, which is my primary OS.

I do have a Mac mini which I leave on 24/7, being a low power consumer, but only use it to check whether new emails have come in, and for online banking. Any closer look at email I take through the Chrome browser on a desktop PC running either Xubuntu or Kubuntu. So I certainly would not consider Mac OSX as my primary system.

Most web browsing and reading of online newspapers I do in the evening on a notebook computer, running Arch Bang Linux and Chrome.

Any web development I do on a desktop PC on Xubuntu. I keep it simple, using Geany as editor, Developer Tools in Chrome for debugging and Filezilla for FTP transfer to external server.

Other work may be either on Kubuntu or Xubuntu on a desktop. That could be anything, like some simple word processing, an occasional spreadsheet, ripping my CDs to MP3, editing and managing a photo collection, consulting eBooks regarding devlopment and programming...

I also use Kubuntu at least once a week, away from home, running it in the crouton chroot environment on a cheap ChromeBook notebook.

I have used MS operating systems occasionally for specific tasks, if and when the drivers for the used peripherals were not readily available on Linux (scanning), all the way up to Windows 7. Despite all my attempts I have not been able to update any Windows 7 to Windows 10 and have it run and update reliably. This was mostly on a notebook PC which runs Kubuntu and Arch Linux kept up to date at all times without issues. But Windows 10 freezes and has problems with updating on this same machine.

I also run Raspbian on a headless Raspberry Pi 2 with two external USB drives, as a NAS server, allowing for easy access to all my data from whichever computer I am at and a good backup.

Since Ubuntu became available I have been using that in one form or another depending on the age and power of the machines and the intended use (Lubuntu, Xubuntu, Kubuntu, CrunchBang...). Only the last few years have I started using Arch Bang Linux, enticed by it being a rolling distro. Despite Arch being a rolling release which I keep updated daily, and despite it having much later versions of kernel and software than my Ubuntu varieties, it has proven to be very stable.

Nowadays I would lean towards calling Xubuntu my primary OS.

I have been using Linux since the mid nineties and have never regretted it. Throughout the years I have run Slackware, Red Hat, Fedora, Mandrake, Mandriva, CrunchBang..., but what I mentioned before in this post represents most accurately what I use most now.

A year ago all of my computers were MS Windows (apart from Mac and I-pad).

After a particularly long phone, email and postal exchange with Microsoft, who had yet again changed something on my computer (yes MY computer, Mr. Gates, not yours) without asking my permission, I started the process of ditching MS.

I started with my dedicated A/V server which now runs the superb Plex server far better than MS ever did. I no longer suffer from buffering even when serving 4 different HD films to 4 different televisions or Roku devices (This was a test by the way, I don't watch 4 films at once!)

Having seen the speed and stability of that machine , I booted up my main machine with Mint. I have never looked back. Everything that I used to run on the Windows machine (it was 7, refused to take it to 8) runs far more smoothly on the Mint system.

The other 5 PCs in my home are now all on various distros of Linux

I now understand why so many people and some quite large businesses and organisations are ditching Microsoft in droves.

1 members found this post helpful.

GNU is my only system!

I left Windows back in Sept. 2015. I use Manjaro Xfce exclusively. Good riddance to Windows.

Currently, Ubuntu MATE 16.04, on my 8 year old desktop with Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q9450 @ 2.66Hz x 4, 7.9 Gib Memory, and also Linux Mint 17.3 MATE on my laptop which is a 12 year old Acer Aspire 17"Intel Pentium 4 3.0Ghz x2 2 Gib Memory. Both fly and run flawlessly with the MATE desktop. There is still plenty of life yet in these old machines.

I have it the other way around.

LM 17.3 MATE on my Desktop and UM 16.04 on my Laptop.

Linux. The "buntu's" have the most foolproof installers, IMO. I've had problems with others, and I don't mean operator error either. I ditched Windows in 2013 and have never looked back. There is nothing that Windows can do that I can't do with Linux. But that's me.
I've tried just about every distro I could install. XFCE is my favorite.

Yes,

that's been my experience too. Seldom if ever, any install issues. Even when I was doing the less obvious, like very old computers in which I installed SCSI interface cards, with several 'recovered' SCSI drives, I mostly managed to get them running. Even with SoundBlaster SPD dif breakout boxes and MIDI. That kind of tinkering I have left behind, clearing the basement of evryting that was older than about 12 years old.

The last two years I have been intrigued by rolling releases. But being used to the virtually fail proof 'Buntu installs, it has been a bit more 'testing'. About two years ago I found that on the one PC I wanted to install such releases, from live DVDs, I got seldom past the first few screens when booting the DVD. Probably a video problem. The fact that nearly every rolling release was one version or another of Arch meant that similar problems showed with all of them. On another PC (notebook) I was able to run the live DVD, but I did not want to replace my Kubuntu with something else on that one. I the early days of these trial and error atempts, I had more success with Suse Thumbleweed. But after a few days I lost it to an update that went wrong. Eventually Live DVDs with later versions of Arch based distros started showing up, or later versions I downloaded, probably Arch Bang, which did install. And as I said in an earlier post, these have been remarkably stable for me, despite being cutting edge latest kernel and software updates.

At first it took me the most time to get the software installer and update GUI program to work (there is something to be said for synaptic!) and figure out how to use pacman and AUR, doing so. But Octopi has served me well once I had all that sorted out. Occasionally Octopi ran amoc, but a quick pacman -Syu got me out of the tight spots.

All in all an enriching experiment.

I loaded LINUX Mint on three of our four laptops. There are no desktops in this home/home office. I had 4 Small Form Factor Desktops die and I'm certain it was due to heat.

Anyway, I got sick and tired of Windows Updates causing something to stop working on them and trying to find a workaround on the MSFT "Knowledge Base". Sometimes it would take well over two hours to get things back in order. Not so with LINUX. My wife's laptop still has VISTA Ultimate because she has an expensive Embroidery Program and is afraid that it won't run under the superior OS. She isn't tech./computer savvy at all, so that's why it still has Windows.

I have one laptop on which I reinstalled VISTA, because it's a server for our Media Stream on the LAN and was having many headaches getting it to work. I'm sure it's a "Permissions" issue and I hope to have time to get that working with LINUX as I now will have time, just as soon as I get everything caught up around here. I retired (2nd time) 5 days ago and again, I can't figure out how I even had time to go to work! LOL

All The Best,

Boobaloo

Ubuntu 9.10 hooked me on linux and still fires my antique Compaq desktop. Ubuntu 14.04 powers my wife's Toshiba laptop while my HP thrives on Ubuntu 16.04. Neither of us are gamers and are both retired. We do not even think about Windows even though our computers originally had XP, Vista, and 7 respectively. We love problem free computing.

Kubuntu for me. Wife still runs Windows 7.

Desktop - Linux Mint Cinnamon 17.3 can also boot into Mint 17.1 or Mint 16, both Cinnamon
Laptop1 - Windows 7 Used for access to an application on an external system that only talks to IE
Laptop2 - Windows 8.1 Bought as a stopgap when Laptop1 was temporarily infected with a virus.
Notebook - Windows XP Used to access Internet Radio and feed it to the HI-Fi

All my data files are located on a separate file system; Mint OS is on /dev/sda5 and /home is on /dev/sdb6. This means editing /etc/fstab to include /home entry with /dev/sdb6 on all boot systems but whichever I boot up, I get the same file structure and data. No need to rsync and update!

I would prefer to say that Ubuntu was my primary desktop, but I have a daughter who needs to use iTunes very frequently on a moment's notice, so I edited grub to boot into windows first. Since it is usually already running windows I usually leave it there, but if I am sitting down to do an hour or so of work, then I will reboot it into Ubuntu which has been my preference for about ten years.

I run two computers...a desk top that has windows 7 with Apache 4.1.2 programs [I hate MS Office]...The other computer is a Acer laptop with Fedora 16 loaded and is still working OK...I recently purchased a set of Fedora 23 from OSdisc 64 bit and it will not load over the Fed 16...Should I format the HDD and try to load...Cos I think I've got a confliction 32 bit V 64 Bit?