How Many Operating Systems Do You Use? [MakeUseOf Poll]

Last week we tried to work out how many computers resided in the average MakeUseOf household. Most of us seem to have 3-5 computers per house, although there were nearly as many people with 5-10 computers.

Out of the 1067 votes collected, here’s the split: 46% have 3-5 computers in the house; 32% have 5-10 computers in their house; 11% have 2 computers; 6% have 10-20 computers; 4% have one computer and less than 1% has more than 20 computers. Just one voter had no computers in their house.

Full results and this week’s poll follows below.

If you have 3-10 computers in your house, you can consider yourself normal for a MakeUseOf reader.

This week’s poll question is: How Many Operating Systems Do You Use?

Consider all the different computers and smartphones you use at home and for work and let us know how many different operating systems you use in a normal week. Consider the various major versions to be different operating systems (eg. Windows 7 versus Windows NT or Linux versus FreeBSD) but leave out minor version differences like Windows NT Home versus Windows NT Professional.

Now that you’re thinking about it, let us know which operating systems you use. Are they mainly all Windows/Mac/UNIX or some combination of different tools for different purposes?

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Angela Alcorn

Ange is an Internet Studies & Journalism graduate who spends way too much time messing with social networks (see AngelaAlcorn.com or @smange).

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  • JTB2 March 28, 2011

    8 linux rigs…2 win boxes.

  • Charles Rachor March 28, 2011

    Windows 7 Home premium on two laptops
    Windows 7 Professional on a desktop
    Google Chrome OS on a Cr-48

  • Mark March 28, 2011

    Mac OS X 10.6.x Snow Leopard. But just until Lion lands… :)

  • Tarina March 28, 2011

    Linux (Ubuntu) at home, Windows 7 at work

  • Joe Carroll March 28, 2011

    Mac OS Snow Leopard, Mac OS Leopard, Mac OS Tiger, Windows 7, Windows XP, Linux Mint, Android – I guess I probably should have counted the Mac OS versions as one, maybe two – but there are significant differences (at least between 10.4 / 10.5/6)

  • Beatle4 March 28, 2011

    Windows XP S3 on 2 comps.

  • Eddy Reyes March 28, 2011

    windows 7 professional and Ubuntu 10.04

  • Mike March 28, 2011

    Ubuntu Linux 9.08 and 10.04, Android, Windows XP, Vista and 7.

  • J Benjimin March 28, 2011

    4: Windows 7 on a netbook and gaming rig, iOS on an iPhone and iPad, Ubuntu on my XBMC, Windows XP on my Torrent/Usenet machine, and Windows Home Server.

  • InfoJunkie March 28, 2011

    Windows 7 Home Premium on a laptop
    Windows XP SP3 on a netbook
    Android 2.2 on a Droid Incredible
    Android 2.0 on a Pandigital Novel eReader
    Palm OS v. 5.2.1 on a Tungsten|C

  • Reuben Horner March 28, 2011

    Ubuntu 10.10, android windows 7 ultimate, vista :( , XP

  • Bpcan March 28, 2011

    Windows 7 – 1 machine
    Windows XP – 2 machines
    Windows Vista – 1 machine
    iOS – iPod

  • Tim Turner March 28, 2011

    Two windows XP Pro’s and 1 Windows 7, which we still hate after a year of trying to use it.

  • Anonymous March 28, 2011

    Ubuntu 10.10. And 11.04 on my external HDD for testing purposes.

  • jan March 28, 2011

    windows xp, vista, mac, android, and ebook that is if you count those or did you only mean computer, plus ipod and creative mp3. Surprising!

  • Andrew March 28, 2011

    Win server 2003, XP pro, Win 7 Ult, Jolicloud, Ubuntu 10.4, blackberry

  • opendast March 28, 2011

    Very impressive how many OS’s we use everyday…
    OpenSuse 11.4, Windows 7, Windows XP SP3 on work, and at Home or for personal use FreeBSD 8.2, Mac OS Leopard, Palm, iOS 4.3.1, Android 2.1

  • Network_error March 28, 2011

    Tiny Core, Fedora 14, WinXP on a single multi-boot setup.

  • Sonny Bass March 28, 2011

    XP Home- 1 computer,XP Pro- 3 computers, Windows 7 Pro/Linux Mint 10 duel boot- 1 computer, 7 Home- 1 computer, Vista Business- 1 computer. Counted as 4 systems

  • Mike March 28, 2011

    Hmm, in a week? Counting each version that would be Win XP, Win 7, Server 2003, Mac OS X 10.4, 10.5, 10.6, Mac OS X Server 10.4, 10.5, 10.6, 10.7 and whatever is installed on my Laptops (have lost the overview).
    I won’t count the iPhones (except my own), iPads, mobile phones etc. because I usually don’t handle them any longer than 5-10 minutes.

  • Jbeaudin1 March 28, 2011

    Linux Mint, mostly, with an occasional stint in Ubuntu (occasionally I’ll try some other flavor of Linux). I used to have Windows Vista on a second partition as a backup, mainly for using Photoshop, but recently wiped the drive in favor of Linux-only.

  • Mayank March 28, 2011

    XP And Win7

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  • Steve March 28, 2011

    At work, I’m constantly switching between XP Pro, Vista Business and Win 7 Pro, plus I spend almost all day logged into our servers running 2003 R2 and 2008 R2. At home, I use Win 7 Ultimate, Debian 6 and ClearOS 5.2. My laptop tri-boots XP Pro, Win7 Ultimate and Linux Mint 10.

  • Jack Cola March 28, 2011

    Mainly Vista, Windows 7 and slowly miagrating off XP – for computers
    Symbian and Bada (Nokia/Samsung) for mobile phone OS
    And a number of UNIX flavours that I am currently using for study.
    So 6-9

  • guest March 28, 2011

    Ubuntu, windows 7

  • Elaine Normandy March 28, 2011

    Two laptops and an old desktop, all of which run Ubuntu 10-11.

  • Michael Zipf March 28, 2011

    windows xp, win 98, zorin – multiboot

  • Christian Tian March 28, 2011

    Installed windows XP,windows 7,Mac OS ?10.5.6 x86 & Jolicloud 1.2 on my EeePC 1001PX,just for fun :)

  • Astrange1 March 28, 2011

    Windows (XP, 7, 2003, 2008), Linux (Red Hat and Scientific), Mac OS, Chrome OS, HPUX, AIX

  • Dshorb March 28, 2011

    I use WinXP, windows vista, and Android

  • Dogboijoe March 28, 2011

    Since you limited it to a given week, it’s only 2 (OS X most of the time and occasionally either Linux or Windows 7 depending on the task I’m doing.)

    I do play with various other OSs from time to time in Parallels, just to try them out. I like experimenting. :-)

  • Chris_lsu March 28, 2011

    Win7 on my primary home desktop and HTPC, Ubuntu Lucid on my Linux file server, OS X on work-issued laptop, and on my desktop at work (with an XP VM). And if we’re counting iOS, then that on my iPad and iPod Touch.

  • Alan Ralph March 28, 2011

    Windows 7 at home, Windows XP and OS X at work.

  • sefcug March 28, 2011

    Windows ME, XP home, Vista Home premium, Windows 7 home premium, Ubuntu 10.10.

    Win7 is 64bit, all others 32bit.

  • Pelowe March 28, 2011

    Windows 7 pro
    Windows XP pro
    Windows Server 2003
    Linux remote to various versions and distros

  • Miggs March 28, 2011

    Arch Linux ( main dostro ) + Ubuntu 11.04

  • JTB2 March 28, 2011

    if we’re talking phones also…three webOS+one PalmOS

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  • szexom leo March 28, 2011

    windows vista, win8

  • 2dougmac March 28, 2011

    Windows XP (still love it)
    Windows Vista Business edition (have hated it from day 1)
    Xubuntu 10.10 (? not sure of version) on an old desktop (P4)
    Whatever my Blackberry is running
    Whatever my Palm TX is running (I miss the Palm PDA’s)

  • Shawn Rogers March 29, 2011

    Linux as main OS, and Windows 7 only when needed. There are still websites in 2011 that refuse to work unless you are using IE.

  • RichieB07 March 29, 2011

    Windows 7 and Ubuntu 10.10 on my main laptop, Ubuntu 10.10 on my netbook, and iOS on my iPod. So a total of three but I usually only use two on a given day.

  • Albert D. Melfo March 30, 2011

    Win XP — work laptop and home PC
    Win 7 Home Premium — home laptop
    Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (Hardy Heron) — obsolete home laptop
    Ubuntu Netbook 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) — ASUS netbook

  • best reseller hosting April 6, 2011

    windows xp,7,2008 server,ubuntu,mac

  • Yash Sharma April 9, 2011

    I dual boot Windows 7 & Ubuntu 10.10.
    Very happy :)

  • Woodogg18 April 11, 2011

    Laptop 1: windows 7 home premium
    Laptop 2: DSL (damn small Linux)
    Laptop 3: Win XP SP3
    Desktop 1: Dual Boot Windows Vista and Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meercat
    Desktop 2 and 3: Win XP SP3
    iOS 4.0 on my iPhone

  • Neraj April 11, 2011

    I dual boot Win XP with Ubuntu Maverick Meerkat on Acer Aspire 4740.

    I also count the Symbian S60 running on my Nokia 5800 Xpressmusic also as an OS.

    So I use 3 OS daily.

  • Luis F Rocha April 12, 2011

    I use windows XP, 7, server 2003, 2008, Mac os x desktop & server, and Linux

    • Luis F Rocha April 12, 2011

      Oh, and iOS on iPhone and iPad :-) , plus Android on phone

  • Frankie_82 April 12, 2011

    Dual boot Windows 7/Ubuntu 11.04 on my main machine;Jolicloud on my netbook;Jailbroken iOS 4.3.1;Windows XP in the office…

  • Leszek Cyfer April 26, 2011

    Windows on my home desktops and laptop, same on my work desktop. Also something Apple on my iPod Touch but I don’t treat it as an operating system as it’s not optional. I voted 1 system.