I'm in the same boat as you. I definitely won't be switching to Windows 10 with the privacy settings as they are, but I prefer working on Windows over Linux, mainly because I'm more confident that it won't break in some way (I've not had the best of luck with Linux, though I've seen it get progressively better, and I'm glad about the emerging work on Wayland/Mir, I just wish the audio stack had an overhaul too). Fingers crossed ReactOS will be stable by the time Windows 7 is no longer supported, either that and bite the bullet and switch to Linux/BSD.
I've been using both Unix and NT since about 1996. I agree with you entirely.
The killer for me is a weird combination of Stockholm syndrome and a seemingly drug-like addiction to Windows that I just can't shift. One minute I'll be swearing at the 15th problem of the day that occured on Windows and then spend all Saturday installing a Linux distribution and killing off my Windows Phone and Live accounts.
By Sunday it's got Windows back on it and I'm at it like a raving crack addict again. But I know it's hurting me. I know Linux well and am responsible for a fair chunk of Linux kit but I always end up with it on Windows again.
Last time: unity won't show file copy dialogs suddenly, duplicity backup won't work due to a bug in Ubuntu that has been open for over a year, my FortiClient VPN drops every 5 minutes, I can't find a RDP client (so I can still connect to my day job) that works properly.
Argh just kills me this. I want to do something else for a living now.
I know what you mean, I feel like that sometimes. I'm tired of the compromises on both sides, and it feels like we're building complex software on systems that can barely get the basics right.
Ultimately I'd like us to get rid of some of the cruft and start again. I'd like to see device drivers being hosted in a bare metal hypervisor like Xen, then just allow all OSes to use this common base. I suspect we could see renewed activity in the OS space if the hardware side was taken care of.
In the meantime, have you considered using a Mac? I personally try to avoid giving Apple money, but perhaps they'll be a decent halfway house for you?
That's exactly it. Too many compromises on each side.
I've had a couple of Macs. Plagued with hardware and software problems and are very inflexible IMHO. Last was a 2011 MBP and Mavericks which was WiFi hell.
A lot of friends have these problems at University. Turns out the common factor is Ubuntu. After I tell them to install Debian and enable non-free sources, they never have weird bugs again.
I sometimes get this feeling that Ubuntu is giving Linux a bad name, with all the weird stuff that happens (or unexpectedly fails to happen) when running it. Of course, I only have anecdotal evidence here...
I've switched to Arch about a year ago and sure, the installation was a bit painful, but after that, I don't know... it just works (including the switch to the new 4.x kernel, but I'm given to understand that the jump was fairly minor). Oh, and Plasma 5 is pretty :)
I had Debian for a while, but the outdated packages were killing me (and I was on testing). Other than that, I couldn't really complain.
Have you considered trying out CentOS on those ops servers? There's plenty of support and documentation online. Package versions do tend to lag a bit, but I believe Python 3 is available (EDIT: It is... http://sopel.chat/python3-centos7.html ).
Interesting, I'm also servicing an ailing CentOS 5 server; un-upgradeable and a pain: currently having to migrate the core application onto a new server, haven't had issues with Ubuntu LTS for server usage in the past so that's what I'm going for but the discussion here makes me want to go with Debian instead next time!
Thanks for the advice on Debian, I figured Ubuntu would be similar in stability to Debian Testing, as Ubuntu uses the same code base for its main repos AFAIR, perhaps I was wrong. Which release branch do you recommend to your friends? Debian Stable?
To be fair to Ubuntu, I've had issues with distros other than Ubuntu, though admittedly I've not used Debian much.
