Your main desktop OS at home is:
Displaying poll results.25445 total votes.
Most Votes
- By the end of 2026, how useful do you think agentic/multi-agent AI systems will actually be in your daily work or personal projects? Posted on March 11th, 2026 | 10829 votes
Most Comments
- By the end of 2026, how useful do you think agentic/multi-agent AI systems will actually be in your daily work or personal projects? Posted on March 11th, 2026 | 40 comments
It's really a mix (Score:2)
"Main" as in what's getting the most use as a desktop environment? Sadly, Windows. Because I haven't rebuilt my workstation yet, and it's the only OS that'll run properly on the cheap box I bought as a media center for my television.
"Main" as in what do I deal with at work? Windows, because it's what's paying my bills to support.
But in terms of quantity overall (and excluding the 'desktop' requirement), I'm majority Linux of one flavour or another.
Wait (Score:3)
Given screentime, i'd say Android is my main 'desktop OS'. Yes, one should call it a ''coffeetable OS''.
Mark Linux (Score:2)
Android is Linux.
Re: (Score:2)
Hmm... I, too, feel Android is too far from Linux to call it the same. I haven't even used a terminal window for several of my latest smartphones... Lots of smartphone users even have no idea what an OS is, so I guess they would ignore the poll?
Re: Mark Linux (Score:2)
I use termux on Android frequently as my terminal. There I can run python to do calculations, etc.
On my cellphone I use Linphone to talk on my VOIP number.
On my desktop to talk on VOIP I use.... Linphone.
Re: Mark Linux (Score:2)
iOS is MacOS and MacOS is NeXTStep and that has BSD underpinnings, but also MACH. Processes run on MACH.
Android is Linux underneath and it would be recognizable and comprehensible to anyone familiar with even very old UNIX, once the terminal is enabled, though there are obviously lots of differences.
The Android user environment is not at all Unixlike, but there is such an environment on the device. You just aren't expected to need to use it to get things done. But it's there if you want it.
Re: (Score:2)
I got to use NeXTStep at a job for a time and really liked it but it was different enough from my previous experience on mostly System V Unix that it was hard at first and then I switched jobs again and never really played with it again.
It wasn't so much the operating system that was hard for me, but the whole Objective C vs standard C and I wanted to make everything perfect when I should haven't tried to be such a perfectionist. For example I spent way too much time making little things work just exactly t
Re: (Score:2)
A business with 8" floppies and cabling in the ceiling usually had some kind of multiuser CP/M. Often you'd have a machine with two 8" drives in it, and about eight serial ports (maybe some more for modems) for terminals. I had a machine like this briefly, but it didn't work and I let it go without putting much effort into fixing it as it was just becoming possible to conveniently run Unix on a PC (And I was already running SCO Xenix on a 286, but then I went to Linux on a 386.)
Re: (Score:2)
Ah... MP/M... I remember it well. I wrote quite a bit of multi-user code running under MP/M back in the day.
To my mind it should have been the winning alternative to MSDOS once 16-bit CPUs hit the scene but sadly, not.
Like others have said, depends on what "main" mean (Score:1)
Main as in most screen time - Linux because it powers our home theatre and it's pretty much always on if someone is home (mostly used for music streaming and watching videos)
Main as in what I use at work - it's a tie between WIndows (my gaming PC now also used for work when I WFO) and Mac (work laptop) apparently my company will remove the BYOD policy so I will go back to Mac only
Main as in personal usage - also a tie between Windows (same gaming PC mentioned above) and Mac (personal laptop) - it all depend
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Why a poll? (Score:2, Interesting)
Why do you need a poll? Just publish slashdot traffic stats.
But that would show how much readership has fallen off a cliff...
Re:Why a poll? (Score:5, Interesting)
It asked about main desktop OS at home, so:
Re: (Score:2)
It's probably a bad look for Slashdot if they published their user agent stats and showed that 90% of their users are actually open source pretenders who use Windows at work. Maybe a better idea for the business to keep those private.
Re: (Score:2)
That's funny because most of my actual jobs have involved working on Unix systems of one flavor or another even if I accessed them through Windows most of the time. It might skew the results, because it might look like I'm coming from a Windows machine when I'm at work - because I am. But they pay me to do stuff on the Unix (and database) side. The Windows is just a convenient means of accessing it all because...well, I guess that way we don't have 30 different variants of different operating systems on eve
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
In terms of comments, however, it's 3 times fewer.
Last 40 polls: https://slashdot.org/pollBooth... [slashdot.org] comment range 8-333, mean 87 (st.dev 59)
10 years ago: https://slashdot.org/pollBooth... [slashdot.org] comment range 91-701, mean 264 (st.dev 125)
Re: (Score:2)
An equivalent poll to this one "Which desktop environment do you like the best?" https://slashdot.org/poll/2751... [slashdot.org] had 611 comments out of which 7 were posted as AC (and winner was KDE). This poll (favourite OS at home) has 32 comments after a whole week, and 6 are AC. You're still there posting as AC 10 years later, it's everyone else that left.
I think another explaining factor is that they turned off new accounts so we are left with a shrinking population.
Re: (Score:2)
"Main desktop at home" is not the tablet I'm currently typing on. It's the Linux box on which I do my banking and taxes.
half (Score:2)
My desktop at home is dual boot: a Windows partition for games and a Linux partition for work (photography, graphics, web development, freelancing stuff)
Re: (Score:2)
Closest hit to my situation? Per force mostly using Windows, but wanting to abandon my last Mac and having trouble installing the dual boot. No problem booting the MacBook Pro from the Ubuntu USB stick, and Linux can see the 60 GB partition I've prepared for it (as well as the smaller partition that I planned for swap), but so far I haven't been able to figure out how to get the installer to use that partition.
Both Linux and Windows (Score:2)
I run Linux Mint of my laptop I keep in the living room. Windows 10 on the desktop in my work area. I spend more time on the laptop.
two in one (Score:1)
Mac with Linux running in VMs under Parallels.
the breakdown (Score:2)
mac = Real work, and most idle activities
windows = games that don't play on mac
Linux = infrastructure
Linux all the way (Score:2)
Linux Mint to be specific. I like it quite a lot. It does everything I need it to do.
- web browser
- word processor
- email
- porn
- more porn
- even more porn
Re: Linux all the way (Score:1)
Do laptops count? (Score:2)
I haven't had a desktop computer for several years now...
Linux, of course (Score:1)
POLL IDEA (Score:2)
Was Luigi Mangione justified in killing Brian Thompson?
Re: POLL IDEA (Score:2)
Not until I can spend mod points marking the poll as flame bait.
Next poll suggestion (Score:2)
What kind of neckbeard are you?
[ ] Libertarian neckbeard
[ ] Republican neckbeard
[ ] Moderate neckbeard
[ ] Crypto-Nazi neckbeard
[ ] Crypto nazi neckbeard
[ ] CowboyNealbeard
Wouldn't touch MS, Apple too expensive. (Score:2)
Re: Wouldn't touch MS, Apple too expensive. (Score:2)
MacBook Air is around $1k. Comes with the OS for no extra charge.
If money was a major factor for me, then I would only get Chromebooks and let Google handle my security and data.
But I run Linux because I want to and I have the time and money necessary in order to do so.
Re: (Score:2)
Linux laptop with the same hardware will be cheaper. That was the meaning of "Apple too expensive". No matter whether it costs $1 or $10000.
not for anything useful (Score:2)
Linux (Score:1)
Year of Linux on the desktop... (Score:2)
My personal year of Linux on the desktop arrived back when security updates for Windows XP were discontinued. I can't remember if I went straight to Linux Mint, or dabbled in Ubuntu first. It's been my primary desktop OS ever since, although I did buy Windows 10 and install it in a dual-boot configuration for some games and apps that don't support Linux, such as iRacing (which ironically used to support Linux natively).
Thanks to Valve's efforts, nearly all my games run on Linux now, so I only boot up Wind
Windows (Score:2)
But I do a lot of "work" on my Linux virtual machines. Be it a VirtualBox Kali Linux VM or one of the 300 or so Linux or Unix VMs on my homelab cluster.
Right now I'm at work and it's a pretty restricted Windows laptop. I'm doing automation work but with no access to anything at work so I'm using my homelab to poke, prod, and learn what needs to be done, then submit tickets to get the work done.
I have several cygwin terms open, slack, and discord open. I have iTunes cranking out music (ZZ Top, La Grange righ
Linux, linux and linux (Score:2)
Linux at work, linux at home, linux at laptop. No windoze (except a VM on uni server, which I use to convert .dwg to .dxf).
Ubuntu mate specifically.
Linux, with a caveat (Score:2)
This is much harder to answer than 10 years ago! (Score:1)
"main?" (Score:2)
I do a lot of stuff on computers at home. Video games and entertainment, I use a Windows machine hooked to the big screen. That same machine has three separate partitions. 1. Windows for games and nonsense. 2. Linux for actual "work" (i.e hobbies) like writing, 3D modeling/rendering, art, etc. 3. Windows scrubbed to the degree I'm capable of scrubbing it for music / video production. I *CAN* record under Linux, and have, but all my virtual instruments and plugins just seem to run better under Windows native
Depends (Score:2)
At work I use Macs because they run all the MS Office stuff, I don't have to buy them, they make the IT people happy, and I have a nice zsh prompt and can get stuff done using sudo if I need.
At home I have a Windows computer, mainly to play games and for reverse engineering work.
The main computers I use personally at home are a pair of Linux laptops, so my answer is Linux.
by main to you mean master (Score:2)
So if by "main" you mean master then yes. I thought everyone ran Beowulf clusters. LOL
LoB