As long as there are choices in computing platforms, there will be those that claim that their OS is the best over all others. In this article, I will work to put my own preferences aside, examine my years of experience with past clients who have used all three major platforms and why each made the most sense for them.

Why Change What Works? There are some people that need specialized options from their platforms. My wife, for instance, is happy to use Linux to check her e-mail; however, she cannot not rely on anything less than OS X for color calibration and working with Adobe Photoshop. Users like my mom have an entire hard drive (nearly) full of Microsoft Publisher files that are not likely to be migrated over to anything different anytime soon. Windows XP does what she needs it to do, why change it?

Then there is me with Ubuntu. While I run a number of other distributions, I have found that with the possible exception of the latest Fedora release, the adoption rate and external utility development for Ubuntu have blown the doors off of everyone else. But that is just me.

At any rate, the point is that I prefer Ubuntu, since it works for what I’m looking for. I can get every application imaginable from the given software repositories or simply Deb packages from GetDeb.net. Because of the way Ubuntu does things, I have not compiled anything since migrating to this distro from a whirlwind tour of my previous distributions.

So we are faced with the question - is any one of these "better" than the other? The very idea of one being the better option is totally relative and in the eyes of the user.

Part 1

Part 2