I come across many forums, communities and tech blogs which hammer about how one OS is better over the other and how users of another OS are stupid not to realise the benefits of 'my' OS. Well you may call it hate propaganda but this has the effect of scaring away a lot of people from one OS and make some doubt if this hype is all about propaganda. having used the three popular desktop OSes I have found advantages and disadvantages on all of them which could lead a person to choose one over another or alternatively choose two or more of them.
Below I'm putting in brief some general advantages, disadvantages of the OSes in the distributions/versions commonly used as of today with their features out of the box without a lot of user tweaking and technical support (except where mentioned). I try to keep it as unbiased as possible so that someone soncidering a swtich can get easy reference and if I missed anything please do mention it in a civil way.
Microsoft Windows
Pluses - Have good and intuitive user interface; ease of software installation and configuration; the largest user base which means good support for games, multimedia and wide availability of softwares; easy to get tech support for the neighbourhood geek or the computer vendor; come pre-installed in OEM PCs and laptops; stable on most hardware configurations with appropriate drivers and wide options and choice in hardware
Minuses - Not very secure and stable for mission critical applications like medical systems, space shuttles, high demand business networks; needs a lot of maintenance to keep it up and running properly; security vulnerabiliies, viruses, spywares and a host of malwares which can threaten the system if adequate care is not taken; closed source restricts the amount of customisation for a power user; heavy on system resources; few usable softwares and apps available out of the box after installation and is quite expensive for an OS.
Apple Mac OS X
Pluses - Has a clean and intuitive user interface; software installations are easy as snap; has good technical support (depends on region); a host of softwares out-of-the box which suits most home and pleasure users for both work and play; goood graphics and sound support with a wide array of features, good desktop effects, good looking user interface and hardware (depends on your taste, I personally don't like it), ground up stability and good security due to UNIX based core.
Minuses - Little or no support for most current games, tied to proprietary hardware which tend to be a tad expensive, not as wide options for hardware upgrades as Windows or Linux, closed source restricting customisations for power users, not very popular in server and corporate environments.
Linux (Many vendors/distros)
Pluses - Secure and stable from ground up due to it's architecture; extreme scalability and customisability due to its many distros and open source; most modern distros are fairly easy to use and setup; support most hardware from out of the box; has a decent range of ready-to-use applications out of the box; light on system resources; good community support; a good learning environment because of open source and availability of free educational softwares and cheap or free of cost which reduces expenses.
Minuses - Little or no support for most commercial games; software installations not as easy and intuitive as Mac or Windows; proprietary multimedia do not play out of the box; not all hardware is supported (there is constant improvement though); colour and sound reproduction is as not as good as Windows or Mac (which you'll probably notice only if you work with graphics or sound industry)
So you can see, the choice of an OS refects what we want and one user is definitely not 'stupid', 'capitalist' or whatever for that choice. You made you choice based on your personal preferences and needs and so does the other person(s). Not everyone is a programmer or cares about mission critical security of his kid's photos for him/her usability is probably what matters most. For a power user the story will be quite the opposite, he might be willing to sit 5 hours to get something to work which a pleasure user probably does not have time to spend on. If you think the choice of an OS reflects a person's political or understanding of freedom then it points towards obsession or lack of personality that you need an computer OS to prove it. Propaganda campaigns and misleading 'facts', covering up truths make people think a lot of hype about that OS is propaganda based.
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