Depends on so many missing factors like what is the nature of the assignments, what hw is available, does the curriculum specify that a specific os and software be used, budget to name but a few.

Back in my student days I used a variety running from RISC OS, DOS, AIX 2.2.1, CP/M and whatever the BBC B ran on. But that was quite a long time ago.

Windows 95. /thread

I can't believe I fell for this.

You are a student and so you won't be playing any games. Just studying.
Skip DOS and Win9x. Those are for fun.

Install Debian and then use the command line to install Vim and Taskwarrior. Maybe a few other things. DO NOT install X or any other GUI. Do not install nethack. Too distracting. Use the library computer at your school if you need a GUI.

You can take it from there. Good luck.

telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl

hundredtonmantis wrote:

You are a student and so you won't be playing any games. Just studying. Skip DOS and Win9x. Those are for fun. […]
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You are a student and so you won't be playing any games. Just studying.
Skip DOS and Win9x. Those are for fun.

Install Debian and then use the command line to install Vim and Taskwarrior. Maybe a few other things. DO NOT install X or any other GUI. Do not install nethack. Too distracting. Use the library computer at your school if you need a GUI.

You can take it from there. Good luck.

Are you trolling? I mean, I love Linux as much as the next guy, but that response is ridiculous. You might as well recommend Stallman's form of esoteric web interface (great for Stallman but not for everybody).

The first response is the best. Your choice for OS will depend entirely on what kind of course work you're doing. Is there any software you'll be required to use? What are you most familiar with and how comfortable are you with change (while adjusting to a new campus)? Too many unknowns given the original question. Heck, we probably don't know all the questions we'd want to ask in order to make a good recommendation.

As a student, my main computer runs Linux (whichever flavor I feel like, right now it's Linux Mint 19), and I have a hand-me-down MacBook Pro which I have upgraded with an SSD and extra memory, for anything that doesn't run on Linux (e.g. Adobe CC).

In this way I have de-Microsofted my life, and so far I have not had to use anything that requires Windows.

It helps a great deal that pretty much all of my courses use web-based systems heavily.

Yeh the question is wayyyyy to general.
What hardware? Any OS from Apple/MS in the last 5 years can surf the web and type up assignments. but may be to resource heavy for your hardware.
In which case some Linux variant is fine, bit then you may be better off getting a cheap old computer that can run a recent OS from the "big boys"

As a learning OS, Netware made the biggest impression on me for teaching networking fundamentals as each component has to be configured properly, not like Windows that does 1/2 of the work during setup. But Netware was already a dying OS by that time (2001) so not like I'd recommend it for anything but the classroom, even back then.
So depends on what you mean by "for student" as well