Operating System Choice - What do you use and why?

[at2marty]

I was reading another thread in one of the forums, and saw some comments where people love/hate certain OS's for different reasons, both valid and in-valid (in my opinion).

I was just curious as to what others use for their personal computers and why?

I personally use a combination on my own home LAN.

1.  Machine #1 is my personal desktop machine.  I primarily use Linux (Mint Deb 64 bit) and use VirtualBox to run Windows 7 in a virtual machine for certain Windows based applications that I need mainly for work (though I really like AVRStudio).  I have been using Linux since the late 1990's and am comfortable with installing either via packages or compiling software from source.

2.  Machine #2 is my laptop computer.  I dual boot it between Linux Mint Deb 64 as well as Windows 7 Professional 64 bit, again for the same reasons.  I mostly use this when I travel, or if I run into a situation where a program doesn't work well in a virtual machine on my desktop machine.  I would guess that 95% of the time I boot it up into Linux.

3.  Machine #3 is a Linux machine (Mint Deb 64) that serves as a backup server as well as a media server for my home entertainment system.  The only time that it gets turned on is if a backup is going to happen from my desktop machine (scripted and a cron job) or if we want to watch a movie that I have on it.  Otherwise it stays off.

4.  Machine #4 is a Windows 7 Professional machine (64 bit) that is my wife's desktop machine.  She pretty much uses this for simple tasks such as browsing the internet, checking email or playing one of her games.  Every now and then she needs to use a basic office suite (Office 2010) to do stuff for work, but that isn't very often.

5.  Finally, machine #5 is my wife's laptop computer that runs Windows 7 Professional.  She uses it much like I use my laptop, more-or-less when she is away on travel, and uses it for the same application as described in machine #4.

Besides those computers we also have our tablets (Androids) and phones (Androids) that connect to our home LAN as well as a couple of "smart" tv's.

I'm pretty much a "Linux guy", but some Windows applications that are essential either for my job or my hobby are as follows.

AutoCAD 2010 - (This is getting upgraded soon)
Visual Studio 2013
LTSpice
Adobe Acrobat XI - (There are Linux alternatives, but some methods that I use for my work need Adobe Acrobat)
AVRStudio 6.1
Microsoft Office - (Some work databases are done in Access)   

I have very limited experience with MAC OSX, but with that limited experience it seemed to be a "dumbed down" *nix kind of system.  I don't mean that in a bad way, but to me it was somewhat familiar to me as a Unix/Linux guy, but many of the usual tools were missing and the file system was different.

So what do you use and why?  Let's please keep this from turning into a flamewar.  As far as I am concerned, each OS has it's Pros and Cons.

[free_electron]

Whatever Os is required for  the applications i need to run. nobody uses an operating system. Programs need one to run , access files and drive the screen and handle menuial tasks like poll the keyboard and mouse.

The OS is not important. the software that you want to use is.

I got windows, OSx and linux machines. Windows for technical work (CAD ), Osx to surf web , banking , create website , photos, video etc. Linux on the NAS boxes.

[suicidaleggroll]

I have 3 systems at home:

1) The laptop runs OpenSUSE.  It also has Win 7 Pro in dual-boot in case I need to do some Windows-specific stuff, but I never boot into that side.

2) The home server runs CentOS 6, with Win 7 Pro in a VM for various Windows stuff (Office, and some embedded tools that are Windows-only).  TBH it's not used very often.

3) Wife's laptop is a Mac because she likes Mac.

I prefer Linux for the flexibility and stability.  I simply can't do the vast majority of the things I do on a daily basis if I used Windows as a primary OS, so it's a non-starter.  Cygwin does help out a bit, but even then Windows still gets in the way at every turn.  A lot of embedded tools are Windows only, so I do keep Windows around, but I try to choose devices that don't have that requirement whenever possible, which keeps my Windows usage to a minimum.

It's pretty much the same story at work.  Almost all Linux systems with a few Windows VMs dotted around here or there and one or two actual Windows systems for those few tools that require it.

[Asmyldof]

Shortly I can say I use many!

I have two laptops, geared for Windows development. They both run Windows 7 natively and have a dual boot Grub set up for at least Ubuntu. (Fixing Ubuntu problems caused by Windows with the live disc is just too easy to ignore in my opinion).

Windows is there for the better supported drivers for high-performance gaming, because there's steam that sometimes just needs to go :-), for MS-Visual Studio, for Atmel Studio (if I may flame you a little: Studio hasn't been AVR for a while, since it also supports the SAMs now), for Adobe Creative Cloud stuff.
And of course for the contract work that I do which is often in some way in Windows. It's weird how much people develop Embedded Linux on Windows DevEnvs.

Linux is there because it's just better at some things and in my personal opinion more fun to develop in, because stuff stays consistent much longer than in Windows.
Linux, for example, is as far as I can determine still better at Disc images, internal copy and move, predictable set-up and maintenance (or continuous performance), localised set-ups such as multi-site development-related webhosting and special hardware tools, tricks and integration.

The old laptop grew up to having Debian and a Sort-of-SUN-OS as well over time and quite possibly the new one will as well.

Next to that for different assignments I have a 230GB dropbox folder containing a multitude of virtual machines spanning al kinds of flavours and set-ups, even a pure Microsoft DOS one running at i486 speeds. I should really get one with some sort of Apple OS, never had a use for one up to this point.

EDIT: Didn't really flame you there, did I? Disappointments all round, I suppose.

[Muxr]

Used DOS and Windows in the 90s. I worked for an ISP in the late 90s where I had to administer servers of which 50% were Windows and the other half were FreeBSD. Unix machines were a dream to work with compared to Windows back then, and it's pretty much the reason why I switched and never looked back.

Then Linux desktop (Debian) for about 10 years. Then about 5-6 years ago I switched to OSX.

Still prefer Linux for server (at work we run about 20k of them). But OS X is my favourite desktop.

- Keyboard shortcuts. For someone who does 90% of my work in a terminal window having copy and paste (and other) shortcuts not overlap with ctrl-c (which means something else in a shell) etc.. is a huge plus. OS X got the keyboard shortcuts right and I only wish Linux would have followed this model.

- It's Unix, and it runs all the tools I use natively. Either through brew or ports. FOSS ecosystem etc..

- Software - hardware integration. Sure it sucks that you can't run it on your own hardware (you can hackintosh but that's a pain when it comes to updates), but on the flipside you get some of the best hardware and software integration on a desktop. As a result my small laptop has a 13 hour battery for example. It also helps that Apple hardware is pretty well designed.

- Time machine. Never had to reinstall the OS, even though I have changed 4 computers so far. It's all backed up and getting a new computer setup exactly how I like it only takes the time to restore. No fiddling or hacking to get everything right again. I mean I use a large number of machines for my company and setting and configuration servers is my job, the last thing I want is to have to do the same on my personal computer. If I need to replace my workstation I am up and running in 30 minutes and "Stuff just works" without any fiddling.

I do use Windows in a VM occasionally for things that don't run on OS X, like FPGA IDEs.

[at2marty]

Used DOS and Windows in the 90s. I worked for an ISP in the late 90s where I had to administer servers of which 50% were Windows and the other half were FreeBSD. Unix machines were a dream to work with compared to Windows back then, and it's pretty much the reason why I switched and never looked back.

Then Linux desktop (Debian) for about 10 years. Then about 5-6 years ago I switched to OSX.

Still prefer Linux for server (at work we run about 20k of them). But OS X is my favourite desktop.

- Keyboard shortcuts. For someone who does 90% of my work in a terminal window having copy and paste (and other) shortcuts not overlap with ctrl-c (which means something else in a shell) etc.. is a huge plus. OS X got the keyboard shortcuts right and I only wish Linux would have followed this model.

- It's Unix, and it runs all the tools I use natively. Either through brew or ports. FOSS ecosystem etc..

- Software - hardware integration. Sure it sucks that you can't run it on your own hardware (you can hackintosh but that's a pain when it comes to updates), but on the flipside you get some of the best hardware and software integration on a desktop. As a result my small laptop has a 13 hour battery for example. It also helps that Apple hardware is pretty well designed.

- Time machine. Never had to reinstall the OS, even though I have changed 4 computers so far. It's all backed up and getting a new computer setup exactly how I like it only takes the time to restore. No fiddling or hacking to get everything right again. I mean I use a large number of machines for my company and setting and configuration servers is my job, the last thing I want is to have to do the same on my personal computer. If I need to replace my workstation I am up and running in 30 minutes and "Stuff just works" without any fiddling.

I do use Windows in a VM occasionally for things that don't run on OS X, like FPGA IDEs.

I need to get an OSX machine to explore on.  I've been running my Debian/Mint machines for several years and never had a problem.  I "grew up" on RedHat back in the later 90's and since I learned C and started doing some programming myself, I would never consider a Windows machine.  A Mac might do the job, but honestly for me, it's an "unknown".  If it's UNIX, then I would be right at home.  As long as I can get the "normal" tools required to compile applications, edit stuff, etc. I would probably be alright.

[Asmyldof]

- Keyboard shortcuts. For someone who does 90% of my work in a terminal window having copy and paste (and other) shortcuts not overlap with ctrl-c (which means something else in a shell) etc.. is a huge plus. OS X got the keyboard shortcuts right and I only wish Linux would have followed this model.

Not to detract from your contribution, and definitely not trying to be a wise-ass, but because I find the thing interesting.
I hope you will allow me to post these thoughts as a response in my insomniac hours.
There is a reason they didn't follow the trick in Linux. There are several, but an important one is Linux's promise of trying to stay compatible with all the hardware, where OSX is compatible with its hardware.
For Linux, there was no (guaranteed) MAC/windows key, and there still isn't on many keyboards connected to Linux systems. There was only a guarantee of CTRL, ALT and SHIFT. Often keyboards didn't even make a difference on a communication level between the left ones and the right ones before USB. If there were two to begin with. Sometimes the right alt was named Alt Graph doing completely different things to the ALT key on a BIOS level. Simply the only thing they could do was take up the growingly used CRL-C at some point, because ALT already had its universal meanings and SHIFT-C would just be silly.
There is a work-around though, Gnome, and quite a few others now, allows CTRL-SHIFT-C and -V for the operation in the terminal, which is not a valid *nix terminal control combination and should not be captured as per standard.

[Muxr]

I need to get an OSX machine to explore on.  I've been running my Debian/Mint machines for several years and never had a problem.  I "grew up" on RedHat back in the later 90's and since I learned C and started doing some programming myself, I would never consider a Windows machine.  A Mac might do the job, but honestly for me, it's an "unknown".  If it's UNIX, then I would be right at home.  As long as I can get the "normal" tools required to compile applications, edit stuff, etc. I would probably be alright.

No desktop OS is perfect. OS X has its annoyances too. But so far it has the least amount of annoyances for my usecase. I ran Linux as a desktop for a long time. And I would be fine running it still I am sure, but there was always something I had to tweak on it. Especially with new updates. I know things have gotten much better.

For example I remember when pulseaudio first replaced alsa, it broke my sound for a week.

In the end the keyboard shortcuts is what sold me on OS X the most. I just find my workflow to be less of an effort on OS X, and at the end of the day that's what it's all about.

[Muxr]

- Keyboard shortcuts. For someone who does 90% of my work in a terminal window having copy and paste (and other) shortcuts not overlap with ctrl-c (which means something else in a shell) etc.. is a huge plus. OS X got the keyboard shortcuts right and I only wish Linux would have followed this model.

Not to detract from your contribution, and definitely not trying to be a wise-ass, but because I find the thing interesting.
I hope you will allow me to post these thoughts as a response in my insomniac hours.
There is a reason they didn't follow the trick in Linux. There are several, but an important one is Linux's promise of trying to stay compatible with all the hardware, where OSX is compatible with its hardware.
For Linux, there was no (guaranteed) MAC/windows key, and there still isn't on many keyboards connected to Linux systems. There was only a guarantee of CTRL, ALT and SHIFT. Often keyboards didn't even make a difference on a communication level between the left ones and the right ones before USB. If there were two to begin with. Sometimes the right alt was named Alt Graph doing completely different things to the ALT key on a BIOS level. Simply the only thing they could do was take up the growingly used CRL-C at some point, because ALT already had its universal meanings and SHIFT-C would just be silly.
There is a work-around though, Gnome, and quite a few others now, allows CTRL-SHIFT-C and -V for the operation in the terminal, which is not a valid *nix terminal control combination and should not be captured as per standard.

Yeah I am sure there are good historical reasons for it, but it's still unfortunate as it always felt wrong. I use OS X with a Windows keyboard (I prefer mechanical switch keyboards). Funny enough Windows is my CMD key. So Windows-C is copy, Windows-Tab is Tab..etc It's really convenient because I can hold Windows key, and hit Tab, C, and Tab, V in a short burst and copy a value from one window to the next, and it's not overlapping with Ctrl-C in the terminal. The only modifier I had to hold is the CMD/Windows key.

It just feels more natural than any other scheme I used.

[Asmyldof]

Yeah I am sure there are good historical reasons for it, but it's still unfortunate as it always felt wrong. I use OS X with a Windows keyboard (I prefer mechanical switch keyboards). Funny enough Windows is my CMD key. So Windows-C is copy, Windows-Tab is Tab..etc It's really convenient because I can hold Windows key, and hit Tab, C, and Tab, V in a short burst and copy a value from one window to the next, and it's not overlapping with Ctrl-C in the terminal. The only modifier I had to hold is the CMD/Windows key.

It just feels more natural than any other scheme I used.

They intentionally made the Key-Code the same for those keys. Memory fails me where it came from for sure, but I have a sort of feeling this one is SUN as well.

I can imagine you experience it as a drag Linux didn't just up and said, hey, let's use the special key for that. On the other hand, I cannot impress upon you the ultimate joy I regularly feel in my work that they didn't ;-).
I'm happy working on a Mac with the re-located finger for the commands at customers, that's not the issue, the thing is that some "platforms" (really broadly applied term in this case) have a dedicated keyboard that got inherited in terms of design from way back when. I'd hate myself if I had gotten used to using that key that's very obviously not on there then.

Now that I am thinking about it, I think, actually, secretly, some flavours of Linux do support the Mac behaviour, just also support the IBM way, so not many people are tempted to use the Mac style. I have a small glimmer of recollection of once trying Win-V by accident/hand-spasm and it working.

[Muxr]

Yeah I am sure there are good historical reasons for it, but it's still unfortunate as it always felt wrong. I use OS X with a Windows keyboard (I prefer mechanical switch keyboards). Funny enough Windows is my CMD key. So Windows-C is copy, Windows-Tab is Tab..etc It's really convenient because I can hold Windows key, and hit Tab, C, and Tab, V in a short burst and copy a value from one window to the next, and it's not overlapping with Ctrl-C in the terminal. The only modifier I had to hold is the CMD/Windows key.

It just feels more natural than any other scheme I used.

They intentionally made the Key-Code the same for those keys. Memory fails me where it came from for sure, but I have a sort of feeling this one is SUN as well.

I can imagine you experience it as a drag Linux didn't just up and said, hey, let's use the special key for that. On the other hand, I cannot impress upon you the ultimate joy I regularly feel in my work that they didn't ;-).
I'm happy working on a Mac with the re-located finger for the commands at customers, that's not the issue, the thing is that some "platforms" (really broadly applied term in this case) have a dedicated keyboard that got inherited in terms of design from way back when. I'd hate myself if I had gotten used to using that key that's very obviously not on there then.

Now that I am thinking about it, I think, actually, secretly, some flavours of Linux do support the Mac behaviour, just also support the IBM way, so not many people are tempted to use the Mac style. I have a small glimmer of recollection of once trying Win-V by accident/hand-spasm and it working.

You should give it a try, really. You do use Alt-Tab no? You use your thumb for the alt right? Now imagine using your thumb for all your shortcut modifiers. It's always the same key. I think you would find it much more ergonomically sound than ctrl+...

Also the problem is much bigger than just different keys. The issue is that ctr-c in particular is an often used terminal shortcut that has nothing to do with Copy.

So what this means is that terminal applications in Windows and Linux both have different keyboard contexts depending on the app that's focused. So for instance Windows Putty uses Ins for paste and mouse select for copy. Konsole which I used on linux had something else entirely not honored by the rest of the Desktop. Where as OS X can maintain a consistent keyboard shortcut context across all the apps. ie.

CMD-C is always copy no matter which app you're in.

[magetoo]

I use NetBSD on my desktop and laptop, and have done so for a over a decade.

As for why - at this point it's mostly laziness/convenience, but it's pretty well designed and documented.  It's just a good Unix-like operating system and it "feels right" to me.  The downside is that it is also pretty much a server operating system, so for desktop use things like drivers tend to lag behind.

Might build a Hackintosh at some point.

[Tac Eht Xilef]

Groan. Roll out the fanboys again.

You use an OS because the applications need one. Or because that's what came free with your machine. Or because you could download it free.

I choose Linux on my desktop because I was interested in gaining experience with it. I choose OpenSUSE because an application I wanted to use recommended it and had been tested on it. I stayed with it because I can't be bothered leapfrogging from one distribution to another. I did try Ubuntu because it was the most popular but I preferred the look of SUSE.

Funny - that pretty much describes how I started using OSX and why I keep using it...

Been using / playing with computers since pre-PC days (various systems, + CP/M). Started using PCs when the first clones came out, and followed along with various versions of DOS & Windows (from Windows 1.x up to 2000/XP), as well as Linux since X was ported to it (~0.9x?), with a few sidetracks on the way (e.g. BeOS - which I still reckon was superior to anything I've seen since).

Bought an eMac in the mid-2000's because I was interested in getting some experience with OSX, and some software I wanted to run was Mac OS 9 or OSX only. I stayed with it because I realised I'd gotten sick and tired of (a) the ever-shifting futzing around with Windows just to keep it working properly, and (b) the all the under-the-hood tweaking that Linux required every time you installed something that wasn't part of the base distro (granted, it may be different now - Slackware was a nice base distro, Red Hat always felt like lipstick on a pig, but I actually quite liked Debian in the pre-Ubuntu days before I went mostly Mac). OS X didn't require anywhere near as much of that, and it allowed me to get 99% of my recommended daily allowance of Unix-y goodness without too much pissfarting around.

Currently all the hands-on PCs around here are Macs, + iPhones / iPads. A couple of other small computers are running OpenBSD (which, after using it for gateways/routers/services while doing small-business networking, I much prefer over Linux). And a single RPi 2+, that I bought because I wanted to fiddle with one & to pad an order to get free delivery, running Raspbian that sits next to the Airport Extreme & does some slightly tricky DNS / VPN stuff.

I don't hate any OS; I just can't be arsed chasing around in any of them anymore. For me OS X is a nice sweet spot between software availability & the annoying issues you get with any OS.

Might build a Hackintosh at some point.

Been there, done that, thinking of doing it again. The only real issues are (a) if you're starting from scratch & choosing whatever the currently-recommended hardware for a minimal-effort setup is you're getting perilously close to Apple prices anyway (b) there will always be some hard limitations (e.g. DRM'd iTunes videos won't play), and (c) you need to be careful about applying any updates (e.g. wait until someone else has done it & sorted out any patches needed for your hardware).

[Muxr]

I've ran a Hackintosh for a few months. But updates were scary. I mean with Time Machine is not a huge deal because you can always go back, but it ended up meaning that I was stuck on an older version. Not sure if this has gotten better.

Anyways my desktop is how I make a living (I work from home mostly). And it's kind of an important piece of gear to me.

In the end I just went with a Mac Mini. Speaking of which, it's annoying that Apple decided to remove the quad core option from their latest Mac Mini (I have the SSD based, i7 Quad previous gen). I plopped 16Gb of RAM in it when I got it a few years ago and it's been running really well. I also have an Air for travel.

Mac Pro is too expensive. I guess if I was getting a new Mac today I'd probably pick one of the Macbook Pro laptops and a docking station. My old Macs end up going to family members and they all prefer laptops anyways.

[Stonent]

Main Personal Laptop: Toshiba S55-B5289 - Mainly Windows 8.1 Pro, however I have VHD booting enabled so I have several VHD's I can select from at start up (Windows 10, Server 2012R2 Core, Server2012R2 Standard)  No Linux yet since there's not a real easy way to do VHD booting on it.  The laptop was configured in UEFI mode so changing that would require repartitioning and reimaging.

Living Room Laptop: (For surfing while watching TV) Dell Latitude D630 - Windows 8.1 Pro (it has 3GB of RAM, but runs fine)

Barnes and Noble Nook: Dual boots the Nook Android and Cyanogenmod (runs from SD card but very slow)

Other laptop: Compaq CQ60 Belonged to my wife's Aunt.  The drive died and she opted to buy another.  Last had Windows ThinPC installed.

Galaxy Tab 4: Stock OS (belongs to my wife's school)
HP Chromebook: Stock OS (belongs to my wife's school)

Work Laptop: Dell E6440  - I had the option of Windows 7 Enterprise or Windows 8.1 Enterprise.  I went with 8.1.  The processor is only half the overall speed as my personal laptop, BUT this laptop has a 14" 1080p display and can also drive 2 additional 1080p screens externally.  I'm considering adding VMWare Player to load Kali linux for when I do wireless audits or network related stuff.

Home Server: Dell Optiplex (300 something) minitower. I've done the hardware mod to make it accept a Xeon instead of a Core 2 Duo.  It runs Server 2012R2

Raspberry Pi B: Running RetroPi linux (raspbian with a front end for video games which I never ended up using)

Clone computer:  It has an Athon X2 and several hard drives so I play around.  It has the latest Windows 10 installed but is running Kali linux right now.

Mostly windows since all my work related stuff is windows.  I've been doing a lot more with C# and PowerShell this past year and while you can use those in Linux to some extent, it's not really what I'm trying to do right now.

I think that pretty much sums it all up.

[eas]

OSX on a Mac, because all computers suck, but Macs suck noticeably less, or they used to. Yosemite has been hanging on me, could be a hardware problem, but it passes self tests. The other thing I like about OS X/Mac is that on average, 3rd party Mac software sucks less than on other platforms. Plus, the standard full UN*X command line userland + easy installation of other stuff using homebrew is just f'ing awesome. I shudder thinking of using cygwin again.

Linux on a small headless box that I use as a file server. Its most important duty is as a backup target for our personal machines, and running rsnaptop to do backups of the hosted VPSs I use for web stuff, and the various ARM boxes I used to use as file servers that still run software (an internet speed checker, weather station logging software) I haven't bothered moving to the new server.

Windows 7 Pro on an old refurbished HP Core2 Duo I got for the cost of a windows license which I bought to run instrument control software that doesn't run on a Mac.

I'm in no hurry to use more recent versions of Windows on a desktop or laptop. Linux as a desktop operating system keeps getting better, but life is too short for me to make a serious attempt at using it. I am intrigued by the Surface 3/Surface Pro as a pen-based tablet. I suspect though that the rumored iPad Pro will be more interesting to me.

[smjcuk]

I love the sucks less hypothesis of macs. I've owned a few and had nothing but pain and quality issues. I could start a mile long comment on why I wouldn't trust one again.

The only thing that has consistently worked for me on the desktop is a properly shaved down windows installation on a thinkpad. Currently 8.1 on an X201. And that's a pretty big admission for someone with a very deep commercial Unix and Linux background.

[Tac Eht Xilef]

Having a Mac is like having a tattoo, and the same old joke applies:

Q: What's the difference between people with tattoos and people without tattoos?
A: People with tattoos don't give a shit that other people don't have tattoos.

[amc184]

For my main desktop; Windows 7 64 bit.  Combined with good hardware it has made for a really stable, fast and great PC.  My tablet on the other hand is a Surface 2 with Windows RT.  I guess it's okay for what I do with it, which is just internet and videos when I travel.  The range of apps available was already limited, and with the new Surface 3 being x86 with regular Windows, you can bet that there's not going to be anything more done for RT.

[German_EE]

Linux Mint on my notebook because everything 'just works'.

Dual boot Linux Mint and MS Windows 7 on my workshop / ham radio PC. Normally it runs Linux but the software for my scope and my logic analyzer need MS Windows.

Linux Mint on the media PC and file server, this also provides a DVD player for the main TV

MS Windows 7 on my girlfriend's laptop because she likes the integration between Skype and her Windows Live account.

Yeah, four computers in a 55 sq m apartment, we're just living the geek lifestyle.

[Wilksey]

You don't choose an operating system, an operating system chooses you!

In reality, I am sure with Windows emulation (WINE) you can run almost anything under Linux these days, but the fact is a lot of useful programs are designed to work on Windows alone, it's only been recently that a lot of things have become cross compatible, like MPLABX for example.

I use both Linux and Windows for my day to day tasks, Linux is very useful for embedded systems and small memory footprint devices, Windows 10 might change this, who knows, time will tell!

I used to think Windows was evil, but with XP came better stability, and whilst Vista and 8/8.1 had / have their quirks, Windows XP and now Windows 7, and hopefully Windows 10 are the best versions of Windows I have used, Windows 7 has crashed once in all the time I have used it, cast back to pre XP I had Windows 98 SE which I had to rebuild from an image every couple of months because the registry had become corrupted, in the end I went to Windows 2000 for the NT kernel.

In terms of why you would use something in particular, well, it's the same as CAD tools, use them and see which one works for you, most people will use whatever comes preinstalled with their machine, and most are happy with this.

[Kibi]

Ubuntu for my main desktop. It's just easier to use than Windows.
OSX on a Mac Mini for fun non critical stuff.
I use Windows at work because that is what they provide.
Critical machines at home are FreeBSD based (FreeNAS for server and pfSense for the router). I had the router up for about 1300 days, it only went down because the power supply eventually failed.

[dr.diesel]

 - Fedora 20 primary file server
 - Ubuntu 14.04 security cam server plus mirror of above storage
 - Fedora 21 development box
 - Ubuntu 14.04 home automation controller
 - Two Mint 17 Steam boxes
 - Fedora 20 XBMC box
 - 1/2 dozen or so other Linux laptops and media devices laying around

[EEVblog]

Windows, because linux wasn't really a thing back when Windows 3 was released and I started using it.
An O/S just gets a job done, and Windows did the job and ran all my programs. I've never had a reason to switch.

[cyr]

Linux Mint (Cinnamon) on my desktop and laptop.
OpenELEC (Linux-based) for my HTPC
FreeNAS (FreeBSD-based) for my NAS
pfSense (FreeBSD-based) for router/firewall
Proxmox (Linux based VM host) for my physical server
Various virtual Debian and Ubuntu servers
One virtual Windows 7 for occasional windows-only software.

Why? Laziness and personal preference. I tend to avoid all commercial/proprietary software not so much for cost or ideological reasons, but mostly because I hate dealing with licenses, DRM and all associated BS. Also, I find that I can simply "apt-get install" 99% of the software I ever use which is so much more convenient than the typical windows way.