Very Computer

1. Short Summary of Linux vs. Win9X vs. Mac vs. ???

I would be interested to see a short, unbiased summary of the major pc
operating systems.  Which ones lead in categories like (1) number of apps,
(2) stability, (3) ease of use, and so on.  I am not interested in seeing
bashing.  I know Win95 will lead in apps... I suppose what I am really
asking is which OS's are better for which tasks?  What major reasons would
a person have for running each?  Assuming I have only 1 computer, that
would probably mean an Intel platform running a partition manager with
several OS's.  And does the BE OS run on the Intel platform?  And if I use
Win95 for most tasks, then what things would I be better off using Linus
for?

Also, can you run a DOS or Windows emulator under Linux?  And:
do all of these pc operating systems run equally well when on a
partitioned hard disk, as opposed to being the only operating system on a
machine?  What about software installs that automatically reboot a
computer - how does that affect you when you are running partition
software?  Are there apps that are hands down better under Linus and if
so, why don't more people use partitioning software?  I know the MAC has a
windows emulator; does the Intel platform have a MAC emulator?  What about
Windows running OS/2 stuff - can you?  

Finally, and please don't laugh - this is a serious question - would it be
reasonably possible to write a new OS that used all the drivers that Win95
uses for sound cards, cdroms, etc - and all the video drivers as well -
but that was all it did, for a single-tasking mission: to run games.  The
idea is that game developers are turning more and more to Win95 because of
the stardards, including the 3D standards; but it used to be DOS, and for
a reason - you had basically the whole machine, and it was easy to write
for.  So I am wondering, could there be a DOS-like new OS that was not
multitasking, that used Win95 drivers, and was just for games.  Could some
subset of Win95 internal functions be identified that could serve the game
community; that set of functions be documented and basically if the gods
at Id used it for Quake III, lets say - then everyone would follow.  I
don't know enough of the behind the scenes constraints of Win95 to know if
this is possible.  I am sure that uncle Bill would probably9 have
purposely made Win9X complicated enough to make this unreasonable to try,
but it never hurts to ask.  If such an OS were reasonably possible, and
was written using the Linux-model somehow - or some kind of shareware -
then it would not be a part of the big M monopoly.

I am asking all this in the Linux group because I am hoping it contains
more people who are generally knowledgeable about a cross-section of
topics.  I think in a Win95 group it would be mostly Win95 people, etc.

Thanks, Kevin

2. what is the meaning of these code?

3. WIN9X vs WINNT vs Linux

4. bash timestamp command history

5. Linux vs OS2 vs NT vs Win95 vs Multics vs PDP11 vs BSD geeks

6. XFree86 How do I ...

7. Hardware question relating to alphaserver 1200 console port

8. NFS v3 woes

9. Hardware question rel. Linux vs. NeXTstep

10. Hardware related code in Linux-kernel

11. Linux Advocacy - Linux vs Windows 2000 vs Be vs OS/2

12. SPARC vs. Intel hardware question

13. solaris desktop vs. server, vs. hardware