IBM z/OS

What hackers pick instead

• WindowsRecommended for running the software and games people depend on, day-to-day stability and solid underlying engineering, but critics widely object to Windows 11's ads, telemetry, forced accounts and UI regressions.1287recommend
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• LinuxA free, open-source OS praised for total control, stability and wide hardware and software support, especially on servers; desktop use can still take extra effort and debugging.745recommend
• HaikuA free BeOS-inspired desktop OS praised for being extremely fast and responsive with a clean, consistent UI, though many say it's not yet practical as a daily driver.115recommend
• NetBSDRecommended for running on almost any hardware, including old machines, with a clean, well-documented design, though support for modern hardware and drivers is weak.100recommend

Every quote

The 10 most detailed of 10 comments. Each links to the original.

1. I think the biggest downside of IBM mainframes, is everything associated with them is super-expensive

   Mixed · May 2026 · in “Show HN: Agentic interface for mainframes and COBOL”

2. You can even run most cool Python, Go, Java, Rust, PHP among others, on systems like z/OS.

   Recommends · Sep 2026 · in “What Sun got wrong”

3. z/OS still supports 50s COBOL frameworks and for good reason

   Recommends · Oct 2026 · in “Why Windows 11 still ships with Windows 95's memory manager hidden inside it”

4. Miserable, pointless, banal, and archaic legacy as fuck mainframe work.

   Criticizes · Apr 2026 · in “IBM Announces Strategic Collaboration with Arm”

5. that $10M represents the cost of only 10 months of operations on Z

   Criticizes · Dec 2025 · in “Oracle made a $300B bet on OpenAI. It's paying the price”

6. I will not suggest building anything new on AIX or z/OS

   Criticizes · Sep 2026 · in “What Sun got wrong”

7. your cost will be higher if your machine has more MSUs

   Mixed · Jun 2026 · in “AMD silently removes memory encryption from consumer Ryzen CPUs”

8. as do the less Unixy z/OS and OpenVMS

   Recommends · May 2026 · in “Windows API Is Successful Cross-Platform API”

9. It's a completely closed off ecosystem and is not as accessible to play around with

   Criticizes · May 2026 · in “Show HN: Agentic interface for mainframes and COBOL”

10. the licensing makes Azure look simple by comparison

    Criticizes · Jan 2026 · in “2025 was a disaster for Windows 11 as bugs and intrusive features erode trust”