I've used, tried nearly all commercial OS's, alternative OS's like BSDs, many linux distributions and MS Windows from 95 to the latest 11, so
this will be my collective opinion and some quick hacks/enhancements to add for a better computing experience.
I use MS Windows and Linux (Mint/Ubuntu) daily so there will be most focus on them.
There are always numerous cons and topics such as telemetry, data collection, not really owning your PC, horrid changes in look/feel software, proprietary software vs FOSS,.......
you probably all ready know some of these or research the topics yourself.
MS Windows Linux distributions Apple macOS
Firefox, Chromium
extensions: ublock origin, imagus, multi-account container for firefox
Text editing: Emacs, Visual Studio Code or VS Codium
IDE: Visual Studio (for C#s)
Local, Digital/CD colection: Tauon music box
Android: Musicolet
Streaming:
or consider buying digital or CD release (vinyls are for hipsters)
Spotify and similar streaming services are seemingly good for recommendations and public playlist but cut musicians money and is meh overall, with little available music (:( no touhou, little game or anime OSTs, especially old and obscure)) - Moon's spotify video
There are many note taking software, but in the end it goes down to two features: simple distraction-less user experience and sync across all devices
Text-focused notetaking: Joplin
Image, digital pen, drawing focused: Onenote
Analogue note taking: spiral or glued lined paper notebook (look for strong covers and thicker paper); chemical pen, mechanical pencil and 3 coloured markers
Onlyoffice, MS Office desktop
Online client: Steam
Minecraft launcher: MultiMC
fuck new minecraft versions with senseless upgrades that look like half-baked mods, use OG versions like 1.2.5, at this point developing and playing minecraft is like beating a dead horse
All things touhou (OG games, fan games): Moriya shrine
Gaming gems/older games: GOG and Magipacks
Windows: sumatra pdf
Linux: xreader
Android: readera
Android manga reader: tachiyomi
iOS, iPadOS manga/comic reader: Paperback
sinple-scan for linux (find it for your distro)
Ventoy live multiboot UEFI usb maker
Transmission Bittorrent client
netstat -ab or netstat -tulpn to display network connections
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dev47apps.droidcam
you also need a client for PC:
Windows: https://www.dev47apps.com/droidcam/windows/
Linux: https://www.dev47apps.com/droidcam/linux/
There isn't an optimal solution to the OS of the choice, sure there are linux distributions, but if your work is sole design, 3D work, specific programming like .NET/C#, hobby needs like DAWs, artistic software, office use or the worst problem: specific software used in education such as "safe exam (scam) browsers", video conferencing software, etc.. Than you are more or less locked in MS Windows.
It's an OS that most of us have memories of, playing games, discovering internet,... its like a bittersweet ice cream flavour coated with bloated "fixes" and "upgrades".
Cool looking win 95 pc:
There are many possible "windows fixes", software, scripts online, so i will present some i found the best, also some software i recommend.
Windows is rather invasive "out of the box", especially vanilla some versions, vendor/oem preloaded versions with tons of bloatware.
just disable everything
you can always create an offline/local account
for windows 11: use win11 rufus guide if installing windows,
for oobe - set up win 11 without online account.
use privatezilla (remove what you need) + windowsspyblocker + tweak settings to your liking.
Also consider: github sophiapp
more: settings for an enterprise use manage windows connections
more: some other IT guy's blog - dealing with windows 10
random cli software:
perfmon /report performance monitor
scf /scannow file system scan/repair
scf /scannow file system scan/repair
powercfg -h off disable hibernation (just put the pc/laptop to sleep, hibernation slowly destroys the disk since it writes all RAM constents to disk to save battery power each time its used.)
DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth restore windows image with a clean image.
Doesn't matter, we have our own preferences, in the end its just different packed software and developers philosophy.
I recommend linux mint for personal use, ubuntu server for hobby/home/small use servers and debian, rhel/rocky linux for production servers.
Calling linux gnu/linux is a waste of words, if it comes to that we can call it gnu/systemd/gnome/linux.
How to install & use QEMU+KVM and virt-manager
lsblk list all "block" or storage devices
df -h list free disk space
nethogs bandwith usage
lsof -i open ports
cat /var/log/name-of-software view log file(s) of a specific software (tip: use tab completion)
dmesg kernel ring buffer messages
mount -t type-of-filesystem /dev/name-of-device mountpoint mount a storage device
!!!mountpoint can be everywhere, like /media/my-disk!!!
unmount mountpoint unmount a storage device
pgrep -l find a process by its name (tip: use tab completion)
pkill "kill" a certain process
ip a display your ip device info
locate find something, like a file
I don't personally use or recommend any apple products, they are overpriced for what they offer.
Luis Rossmann's opinion on Apple repeated engineering failures and
Macbook engineering in 3 minutes
finally, Apple offers least software/driver compatibility than windows or linux distros, not a good repair policy, leading to more e-waste (huge topic on its own).
BSD license is a joke, not wort of my time typing it: Luke Smith's BSD license criticism.
Other than that i see no real use for BSD distros than specific, embedded, specific device use.
Too many of them to write an opinion.