Time for a rant.
Brief history:
My first computer was a TRS-80. My second was an Atari 400 (I know, it doesn’t really count as a computer, but it had Basic and a tape drive, so I’m calling it that for historical purposes). My third was a Macintosh, where I experienced the giddy rush of owning a machine with a *hard drive* (no more, “Insert System Disk/Insert Disk Entitled [foo]/Insert System Disk”, pure heaven!) Since then, my personal hardware platforms have been more or less limited to Intel or AMD. In my formative years, I spent more than a trivial amount of time on the Apple IIe’s at my grade school and the PC-ATs and XTs in high school.
Operating systems-wise, I’ve used MS-DOS (3 through 6.22), Mac (System 7 & 9), Windows (3.1, 3.11, 95, 98, NT, 2000, XP, Vista), Linux (Red Hat 6, 6.2, 7.2, 7.3, 8, 9; Fedora Core 2; RHEL 4; Mandrake 9, 10, 10.1; Mandriva 2006, 2007, 2007.1, Corporate Server 3 & 4; and a couple of distros that lived and died quickly in the late 90s), FreeBSD 3, 4, and 5 (various subversion numbers, but always -STABLE except one two-week disaster when I was using -CURRENT and nothing worked right), and I’ve even had occasion to log into Solaris machines of various versions.
During my career, I’ve been exposed to various Cults of OS, which historically is a geek-only phenomenon (with the exception of the die-hard Mac Users). I’ve heard discussions about the merits of binary software vs. compiling from source, open-source vs. closed-source, POSIX compliance or lack thereof, security (these have usually been high comedy), file systems, performance, driver support, automated installation, ease-of-use, etc. etc. I now offer to you all The Truth:
All Operating Systems Suck.
Your favorite OS? It sucks. That one for which you harbor secret inner yearning? That one sucks too. The one that you so vehemently and publicly loathe? Yeah, you’re correct there, it sucks. NetBSD? It sucks. Solaris? It sucks. Mac OSX? Still sucking. Windows? Yep, suck-a-doodle. Linux? Not only does it suck, but your own favorite distro sucks just as much as any of the other kabillion candidates in the Linux family tree.
Operating system zealots will wax poetic about the various features and advantages of their operating system over all others. They will do this to the point of utter exhaustion; as if they believe themselves paragons of justice like Mr. Smith, attempting one-man filibusters against the Jim Taylors of geekdom. I wouldn’t mind so much, except all OS zealot are precisely that, zealots. As such, they have a particularly un-endearing trait… any drawback, bug, or flaw in the design of their OS is unimportant. FreeBSD’s sucky installer? Who needs an *installer*, you peon? UNIX’s generally poor file system’s access control tools? What, you’re saying NTFS’s horribleness is better? Mac OSX’s non-existent package management system? Look at the pretty buttons!
Assuming the hate comments don’t bring down my blog, more on your favorite OS (and why it sucks) later 
Edit (24-Jul-2007)
I am not the only person to write a screed like this. Some good posts in these links.
July 18, 2007 at 4:49 pm
I once tried to write a simple OS (it was an assignment). My OS sucked! So, maybe you are right — gathering data to test hypotheses is a good thing.