The Best, Worst, and Ugliest OSes of the Decade

itwbennett writes "Hundreds of Operating Systems were released during the past decade, finding their way into microdevices, watches, refrigerators, mobile phones, cars, motorcycles, jets, even the International Space Station. Some worked; some even worked well. Others, sadly, didn't. And some were just ahead of their time. Blogger Tom Henderson takes a look back at the best and worst OSes of the decade. Among the worst? Vista, as you'd suspect, along with WinME. But what about GNU Hurd? And some of the best? Solaris/OpenSolaris 10, Mac OS X, and newcomer Google Android."

Comments

Re:like...WHATever, dood...

[yurtinus]

WinME was the best of the 9x line

hee hee

hehehahahahaha

hoo hooo

BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

/wipes tear

Thanks, I needed some cheer this morning!

Again?

[Last_Available_Usern]

What is this, the third post today alone that primarily slams Microsoft? I was glad to hear today that MS at least wasn't threatening the wild species of coffee beans.

Re:Again?

[frank_adrian314159]

I was glad to hear today that MS at least wasn't threatening the wild species of coffee beans.

Well, the Gates Foundation (which derived most of its money from the Microsoft activities of its founder Bill Gates) is funding anti-AIDS efforts in Africa, which might lead to a higher population, and that might place more pressure on native coffee habitat! Close enough for Slashdot... So do I win the "six degrees" prize for bashing Microsoft today?

uh, what?

[amicusNYCL]

GNU rewritten Unix utilities tool set were invented by through the purity in effort of Richard Stallman

Why did the author feel the need to run his text through a Chinese translator then back to English?

Re:uh, what?

[PCM2]

Your post made me go back and read the article. And it's true -- this is one of the worst-written articles I have ever seen. Every paragraph is a mish-mosh of subject/verb confusion, mixed metaphors, redundant wording, run-ons, and just about every other mistake you could make. You cherry-picked the best example of the lot, but among other howlers we have:

• 1. The world was looking for the joiner of Novell's time-honored and rock-solid NetWare network operating system to be joined fully to Linux.
  1. Technically, it arrived late in the 1990's, but its inclusion here is to remember the pain of the name.
  1. The love/hate relationship becomes anchored with deep emotions about the merits/detractions of the devices they use-- through the lenses of operating systems.
  1. Even a leopard can change its spots, sometimes as scar tissue.
  1. A natively 'jailbroken' open phone will test carrier promises to just deliver wireless pipe.

Taken as a whole, TFA becomes a kind of demented poetry. Kudos to whatever maniac got it published.

Re:IMHO solaris has a really bad userland

[Nerdfest]

That's why you rarely hear anyone say "This is the year of the Solaris desktop".

Re:So you don't have to waste your time

[corbettw]

You really don't have to RTFA this time.

Well that's a refreshing change from my usual Slashdot experience.

Re:IMHO solaris has a really bad userland

[ivucica]

The one who thought packing CDE into Solaris for a few years is a good idea should be hanged. I still sometimes have nightmares about it.

Re:So you don't have to waste your time

[Dunx]

And the writing is redundant, terrible and repetitive:

"lack and dearth of appropriate hardware drivers"

Lack _and_ dearth? That's pretty bad. Just put the thesaurus down and step away from the keyboard.

Re:BeOS

[asherlev]

I still miss it. So much potential and such high hopes. I suppose I should check out Haiku.

Checking out Haiku is going to be like resurrecting your dead mother. Her soul is gone and she'll just try to eat your brains.

Nonsense Article

[Tomsk70]

"Hmmm, what can we type to make it appeal to the fanboys?".

That's nearly two minutes of my life I won't get back.

Re:GNU Hurd is not an OS

[VGPowerlord]

Yes, the complete OS is GNU GNU/Hurd.

Re:BeOS

[AndrewNeo]

Or you'll get your arm and leg torn off, and your brother will have to live in a suit of armor.

Re:BeOS

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, at least she's not gonna eat my eyes, that's just unreasonable.

Re:BeOS

[imakemusic]

I'm still missing it.
Such high hopes and potential.
Should check out haiku.

ftfy

Re:GNU Hurd is not an OS

[iCharles]

I thought OS/2 was half an OS?

Re:like...WHATever, dood...

[SharpFang]

Look, we could argue that Postal was the best of Uwe Boll's movies. It tells just as much about its quality.

Re:Bashing WinMe instead of Win98 is clueless

[DragonWriter]

I had tested both systems as candidates to install on friends who demanded Windows, and Windows Me was better

I hate to break it to you, but those things you can install Windows on are called "computers", not "friends".

Re:Windows Mobile & embedded

[dunkelfalke]

I actually like it that way. Don't need a dumbed down UI when my PDA behaves the same as my desktop computer. I can even attach a bluetooth mouse and keyboard to it.

Re:IMHO solaris has a really bad userland

[shirotakaaki]

The beauty is Windows 7 is just Vista SP2 without that nasty Vista name attached. So if you already had Vista you had to pay a second time for 7. **KA-CHING

Re:Vista vs Win7

[PopeRatzo]

Using the damned thing (which you have no choice in nowadays for a lot of functions) is like chewing on broken glass while simultaneously masturbating into a double-handful of half-rusted razor wire.

Please don't tell us how you're able to make that comparison with such confidence.

Re:IMHO solaris has a really bad userland

[amRadioHed]

[citation needed]

Here you go.