Windows for professionals?

[Routersforhumans]

Why it is very common IT professionals not using windows for their work PC. Why do they trend towards Linux, Unix etc. How many professionals of you, uses windows products on your PC????

What's wrong with Microsoft that it can't attract hard core IT professionals towards its product?

 

[WR2]

Why it is very common IP professionals not using windows for their work PC. Why do they trend towards Linux, Unix etc. How many professionals of you, uses windows products on your PC????

What's wrong with Microsoft that it can't attract hard core IP professionals towards its product?

What is an 'IP professional' ?
And why do you think they don't use Windows?

 

[silverliquicity]

I like to think of my self as some kind of IT professional and i use windows the most.
I sometimes use Linux based backtrack 5 for security reasons so i can see were your coming from.. ish

 

[Routersforhumans]

You are free to think of yourself. Very good thought............

 

[ibboard]

I won't get dragged into the topic (it could end up as a flamewar), but your poll is odd. Three distinct operating systems (one of which - Unix - is more server and less desktop) and one specific instance of one of the above.

Ubuntu != Linux. Also, Ubuntu is not its own completely distinct OS. Ubuntu is a flavour of Linux, just like Fedora, CentOS and the rest.

 

[Chainzsaw]

Well I use whatever is necessary...

Mostly windows though. I don't like linux - it's not that it's bad, it's just too customizeable (too many options) IMO. I'll use linux boot CD's for recovery though.

Also where do you get the notion that most IT professionals -dont- use windows for work? Most of the people I know only use windows (including IT pros), and will only use linux as a side hobby - or for file recovery.

 

[COLGeek]

The poll is asking the wrong question and assumes that "IT Professionals" focus on one OS. I use all of those choices (really only 3-ish listed) and others as well, including Windows.

I think the OP needs to rethink the question to be more inclusive rather than exclusive.

 

[aqe040466]

Windows is the mainstream PC users while for IT professionals they want to be different, just for "BRAGGING" I doubt if these "Professional" knew how to use "DOS" (Disk Operating System) it purely on keyboard commands.

 

[willard]

Windows is the mainstream PC users while for IT professionals they want to be different, just for "BRAGGING" I doubt if these "Professional" knew how to use "DOS" (Disk Operating System) it purely on keyboard commands.

No, that's stupid.

I'm a software engineer, and I use Windows almost exclusively. Why? Because I'm developing Windows software. If I was developing Linux software, I'd be using Linux. I do not have a choice in what OS I use, the tasks dictate it.

Linux is common because many (most?) servers run Linux. If you want to develop something for said Linux server, you're developing it on Linux. Linux also has a hell of a lot more open source software you have easy access to, especially network libraries, which makes many tasks much easier.

Want to reassemble out of order TCP fragments you dumped to a disk? Libnids makes that easy as pie on Linux, while just getting that to compile on Windows is a massive headache and requires half a dozen other things to be installed and/or compiled first. Wireshark runs on Windows just fine, but building dissectors for it on Windows can be a nightmare.

The OS you use is all about the work you do.

 

[fowang]

Windows because im supporting a windows infastructure!

the only time i need to do anything with unix is telnet!

 

[game junky]

It appears someone attempted to open pandora's box...

I work in a hybrid environment of windows and OSX (damn you graphic designers) but at the end of the day, Windows will always be what I am most comfortable with. That is what I run on my work pc and my home network. I use a couple of linux bootable disks (mostly puppy) in a couple of instances to diagnose hardware issues and disk management utilities.

I say let people enjoy linux if that is what makes them happy, just don't expect me to mess with driver incompatibilities and constantly babying my OS. Frack that...

 

[yoji]

Doh... I dont even understand the question

Since any combo seems to be able to be selected - there are more than 8 options?

And to aswer the question "why not windows for professionls"... a list of other OS's just does not seem to cut it

Cheers

 

[Zoron]

Windows is the OS of choice for most of the people I support along with our own systems. There is only one place I support that uses a Linux (Red Hat) server. Loblaw's used to use Linux on their tills, but they've also switched to Windows.