What is the best Software?

[lg342]

I am buying a new computer and want to know if I should have Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, MAC Software Snow Leopard, Linux? I have no clue. Could someone please help me. Which is the best, and fastest.

[soybean]

Any new computer, unless you mean buying separate components and assembling a system yourself, will have Windows 7 installed.  Or, of course, if you buy Apple Mac system, it will come with the Mac OS. 

Re: Windows, I'd definitely accept the Windows 7 that would be installed on the new system. Why go back to Vista or XP?  Windows 7 has some nice new features and it performs well, assuming you have appropriate hardware to support it. Even if you have some software you have been using with XP and it will not work with Windows 7, you could use the XP Mode feature of Windows 7 to run that software.

Since Linux is free, you could always install it in a dual-boot configuration (meaning you would have both Windows and Linux installed on the same computer). 

[Allan]

There is no best, there is no fastest. It's whatever makes you happy

[Cifa]

I would recommend that you avoid vista, I have run into some issues with opening apps that require admin authorization that lock up other programs. I really like XP and to my understanding 7 is a beefed up XP, so if you can I would suggest going with 7 if you are planning on making a windows box. Otherwise mac has a solid OS.

Or... If you feel like learning something new you can always load one of the various flavors of Linux, cool thing about it is that it is all open source so you can have all the programs you want for free.

[BC_Programmer]

I would recommend that you avoid vista, I have run into some issues with opening apps that require admin authorization that lock up other programs. I really like XP and to my understanding 7 is a beefed up XP

two things: There is nothing wrong with Vista.  People who have problems with Vista are clearly apophenic. Additionally, regarding versions:

2K: Version 5.0
XP: Version 5.1
Vista: Version 6.0
Windows 7: Version 6.1

Windows XP is a enhanced version of 2K; Windows 7 is an enhanced version of Vista. Either way, Vista itself is just a modification to the same codebase as XP, just as XP was a modification to the codebase for 2000 and 2000 was an enhancement to NT4 before that, and that to 3.51 before it, and so on.

The problem here not that some yahoo is spreading rumours that "windows 7 is based on XP" which is only true to the pedant, but also that people are gobbling it up without question.

Otherwise mac has a solid OS.

Depends who you ask. If you ask me, they had a solid OS with Mac Classic; sure, some of the memory management was arcane, and programming it could be a huge PITA, but the point was that it was quite literally designed with usability in mind. Windows, and to a far greater extend linux desktop environments, sort of had their UI paradigms congealed, rather than designed.

Or... If you feel like learning something new you can always load one of the various flavors of Linux, cool thing about it is that it is all open source so you can have all the programs you want for free.

Open Source is not about free software. In fact, Open Source and Free software are wholly unrelated; there are programs that are open source that aren't free as much as there are free programs that aren't open source. My point is that using the term "Open Source" as if it is somehow better then "free" is only true when you actually plan on working with said free source. otherwise it's just an extra word on top of free.

As far as non-programmers are concerned, it shouldn't matter wether a program is open source or not. Once a house is built, the blueprints are meaningless and uninteresting to anybody who isn't a draftsman.

[York]

Yes, there is nothing about the best, or the fastest, only the most suitable according to your OS. Because some programs don't do well with some OS.