MAC vs Windows vs Linux For Students

[taha116]

Basicly my bro wants a laptop and he aint sure whats best for him as a student who also wants to game on it when he is bored... He really like mac especially after hearing soo much and thier Ads that they use helped as well.

What do you guys think is best for a student in uni?

[galaxyAbstractor]

Windows, as he wants to play, unless he means flash games and arcade games.

[ichwar]

Linux because students are poor so they can't afford to waste their money on less that usable OSs.

[taha116]

He dosent mean flash... but he also wants stability... thats why as i metnioned hes considering mac.... although its allot more expensive... He is luky enonough to have a job that pay almost 19buks an hour... really luky cuz its a comfortable one as a PR for some bank... can linux handle something like counter strike? or does linux happen to only run linux games thru add/remove?

Sorry about nubby question.

The reason my bro is not too into windows is cuz of the stability and he does like to try somthing new. Still he hasnt bought it yet so theres time to prevent any potential mistakes.

[ichwar]

Yes, from what I've heard CounterStrike runs fine on linux.

[Kayos]

Macs are great if all you want to do is work related things. Recently macs have been getting more games but overall they still are not the best platform for gaming. If school is his primary concern then macs will do.

Linux is not an OS I would recommend to a student or even a gamer. It's fun to play around with but overall it's not something I would like using every day.

Windows is probably the best bet for a student/gamer. It receives all the games and has a plethora of school/work office apps like Word, excel, etc...

Me personally I went to college with Windows on my machine. It worked out great too. LAN parties were a breeze because 99% of the guys who I went to school with primarily used Windows as well.

As to the stability of Windows...I've been using Vista for two years now and had no problems at all. Supposedly Windows 7 is much better than Vista as well. You've got to realize that Windows has like 90% of the PC market - that's millions of PCs. You're obviously going to hear more horror stories about windows crashing then a mac or linux. There are just more out there.

But anyway, my first choice will always be Windows when it comes to gaming, school or work on a PC. Then a mac which as I said is fully viable for a student when it comes to school or work but it lacks in the games department.

And as for Linux, it's great that it's free but I can't recommend it for school or games.

[ichwar]

Wow, what you said must of been doubly important. I only read one of the posts though.

Anyways, Linux is better at LAN parties than windows is.

[Kayos]

Wow, what you said must of been doubly important. I only read one of the posts though.

Anyways, Linux is better at LAN parties than windows is.

The site timed out while it was submitting and for some reason it posted twice. Oh well.

If you say Linux is better at LAN parties then it must be true. :hahano:

[deltavolt]

If he can afford a Mac then that's his best bet - just use Boot Camp to install a Windows partition on it for gaming. This way he'd have the best of both (or by creating a partition for Linux the best of all 3 worlds).

If he can't afford a Mac then he should get a PC with Windows.

If he can't afford that then he should get a PC with Linux on it (unless he's technologically advanced enough to know how to use Linux well, then this goes to option 2).

[Smith6612]

Yes, from what I've heard CounterStrike runs fine on linux.

Many Source games run just fine in Linux. I've gotten Steam to actually run on my Linux router (uninstalled now though since that machine takes ages to load Steam via WINE and it's usually signed on via my gaming computer) . Team Fortress 2 which is more recent than Counter Strike has been said to work as well on Linux.