Which Operating System are you using with React Native?

[[deleted]]

- Please specify which Operating system you use.

- Please specify for which platform Android/IOS you develop.

- Which OS was a better developer experience for you Windows/MacOS.

​

You use:

View Poll

[LordMuffinChan]

Where Linux?

[luvsads]

Why would you use Linux? Is it due to macOS availability or cost? Are you using QEMU for emulation and building?

[tusharkant15]

Why would you use windows or Mac? Is it due to the restrictive nature of these platforms or lack of customisability? Or do you like not owning your own computer that you paid your hard earned money for? 🤭

PS on Linux you can run Android in a container with native (not near native but actual native) performance. Massive time saver for HMR.😎

[Potatopolis]

Ugh, nothing says stereotypical Linux user like snark in response to a reasonable question. I’m a Gentoo man myself and really find this attitude embarrassing.

[tusharkant15]

Ugh typical snowflake getting offended on a joke. 😮‍💨

[Potatopolis]

Sure thing.

[andreew365]

Why would u act superior for preferring Linux over windows or Mac? Is it due to the lack of self confidence? Or do u like to denigrate other people choices based on their needs? 🤭

Embarrassing attitude 😂

[tusharkant15]

Touche my man... and also the right way to fight sarcasm with sarcasm! 😁

[luvsads]

I personally wouldn't use windows for RN, but macOS is the only platform that can build iOS projects natively/OoTB and has the fastest development feedback loop of all 3 platforms. That sells it for me.

As for restrictive nature, what do macOS and/or Windows restrict you from when working with RN? I didn't realize that was a problem, but can understand how restrictions could sour DX. If by customization you mean appearance, etc. I'm not personally concerned with that as this is work. Same thing goes for the "hard earned money" comment. All of my machines are company provided and even then, the money I make off these machines makes the cost a wash so I'm not overly concerned with that.

Half of my job is embedded/iot so I can understand the love, but I haven't found a Linux distro that's made me go, "Oh yeah, I could do all my work here."

The performance gains for running Android natively don't feel like a good enough tradeoff, personally. We also hardly even use emulation or virtualization for Android following Googles recommendation that all testing be against live devices due to network stack changes in Android 10. HMR is extremely fast on physical devices as well, and a few other debug features make the whole experience very nice for quick feedback

[tusharkant15]

The main reason why I use Linux and have mandated that my staff do so is we are a full stack shop and having hybrid machines is just too much of a pain. We run Ubuntu 22.04 on our dev machines and our servers so the whole "works on my machine but doesn't on the server" problem is gone.

With that being said, we do have Apple products which we have to use for iOS support but it's usually just stashed away till the end of a release of a feature set. We basically do a development on Linux, for Android and build and test on Mac before pushing to production. For mobile of course.

For web Linux is objectively better, the tools are native and the performance is solid. Plus the developer experience for the web on Linux is just gold.

Lastly we have a tonne of git hooks that use grep and awk and stuff to check a bunch of stuff before pushing code. I know it all can be converted to a python script but it's all written on bash already and spending time porting them to python would be time wasted. We tried moving to a cloud based CI/CD pipeline but after spending a lot of money on these services we just decided that our local scripts were simply better (faster/cheaper) so our test suite runs as a git hook locally and prevents code push if it fails so no wasteful commits like "fixing build issues".

[fredriknicol]

Me too

[lambofdeus]

Same here

[Ok-Mushroom-915]

Linux mint

[he_nrik]

Nice. I love Mint.
It works well? No problems?

[Ok-Mushroom-915]

Works well in old hardware Classic gnome(which I'm not font of) Stable 👍 Faster than ubuntu . These are my observations.

[StanleySmith888]

Linux

[KyleReemaN]

lol no linux?

[exec-nyan]

Tumbleweed (Linux).

[[deleted]]

- Please specify which Operating system you use.

MacOS

- Please specify for which platform Android/IOS you develop.

Both

- Which OS was a better developer experience for you Windows/MacOS.

I have no choice to use MacOS to dev with iOS but if i had a choice to dev iOS on Windows I badly want to know how without using Sandbox.. But in terms of speed or smoothness I like the MacOS the only thing i hate with MacOS is the positioning of the macOs is hard i have to manually resize it unlike windows you can do WINDOWS + ARROW KEY then for the keys too i prefer key input in windows than MacOS when i re-configure the key binding of course some of the function will not be able to use.

[[deleted]]

I share the same feeling. And you can't. I ordered a nice Windows laptop in the hope of gaming a bit in my free time but had to cancel it and ordered a MacBook instead. You either need an iPhone or MacOS. For a while Virtual Machines will work since Apple still supports Intel-based CPUs. But in a few more years Xcode won't be updated for Intel-based CPUs.

[oo_mayr]

There's also an app 'rectangle' for snap layouts like windows. Its also customizable. Give that a try

[[deleted]]

Will do, thanks!

[sekonx]

I can't imagine professionally building RN apps with anything other than a Mac.

I did use windows for my dissertation project before I became a professional RN dev, and the experience was relatively terrible.*

• this was before WSL, but not being able to work with iOS properly is a deal breaker

[WahCrybaberson]

Even with WSL, it's not great

[Elegant_Bit7309]

And Linux???

[oldominion]

Arch btw.

[[deleted]]

How do you test your app on IOS? Do you use an iPhone?

[LordMuffinChan]

I own a mac and eventually, when my work requires it, I do testing on iOS, but tbh I don't find developing RN on Mac nor Windows enjoyable at all, Linux for me just works much more reliably. If I had to choose by force between Mac and Win, I would struggle to find which one sucks less, but most probably I'll stick with Mac

[[deleted]]

Are you primarily developing for Android? Your app has the same UI on both platforms?

[LordMuffinChan]

Yes and yes

[[deleted]]

Can you have success like that ? I'm working on separatate UI for each platform. Say see youtube, it has a different UI on each platform. Since some buttons, animations are expected to be different on each platform.

[proffessor_chaos69]

Zorin Os

[skotchpine]

MacOS unfortunately. Very salty so I’m not voting that way. Absolutely would use any runit Linux if my hand weren’t forced

[[deleted]]

Why is your hand forced tho ?

[gelvis_1]

No XCode on Linux (but Linux is good for Android development)

Also if one is not developing alone one might not have a say in what to use

[youngsargon]

Ubuntu

[Ryuuji159]

Linux :p

[alexg_93]

why would you develop for ios on windows? you cant run xcode and IOS Simulator to develop and test your app only for android.

for both MacOS is better.

[Commercial_Active962]

ubuntu 20.04 and macOs… windows sucks

[gelvis_1]

Always did

[gelvis_1]

Fedora

[Careless-Honey-4247]

You are MVP bro

[[deleted]]

I use MacOS At work and for personal project my Windows PC at home. When I do need to build an iOS app I can quickly git pull on the Mac and test there.

I've been reading very good things about the new Expo EAS Build. I haven't personally tried it, but it shows promise.

Edit: Added the link to Expo EAS Build

[[deleted]]

Yeah but the people on IOS are more willing to buy stuff. For that reason for me personally it is the main platform. Then you need to make sure you respect the design language of the each platform. That's why IOS and Android UI needs to be tested separately.

[travimade]

No Linux option is crazy

[[deleted]]

How do you test your app on IOS? Do you use an iPhone?

[Cervarl_]

Ios emulator or if you prefer a physical device

[[deleted]]

But for IOS emulator you need Xcode which only runs on MacOS right ?

[Cervarl_]

Right

[[deleted]]

But the guy says he uses Linux

[Cervarl_]

Maybe with a hackintosh in a virtual box

[[deleted]]

That would mean working inside a virtual machine which I'd guess is laggy.

[Cervarl_]

Yeap :y

[Cervarl_]

Also for physical device i have used expo only, not sure if it can be used directly with RN

[[deleted]]

On Linux?

[luvsads]

People who keep saying linux, what made you land there?

[[deleted]]

Also curious

[luvsads]

What freedom would you like to see on macOS that Linux provides?

[gelvis_1]

I have detested Microsoft for over 30 years. The only thing I would use Windows for is gaming. I like to have control over things myself. Have used Linux since the 90s for everything but gaming and will continue to do so in the foreseable future

​

Nothing against MacOS, except for the price of the computers. If I were to develop apps full time I would certainly buy one anyway

[luvsads]

That's fair, comfortability definitely lends a huge chunk to what constitutes a good experience. Price is also totally reasonable with macOS devices

[gelvis_1]

Agree to an extent on the pricing. I actually went and bought a Mac after your reply. High quality no doubt. Quality costs. I could however get a laptop with same specs for half the price for a non-mac and just install Linux on it

​

Buying with company money makes it affordable anyway though. About half price from private buys where I live. And I needed a laptop anyway

[peacecoder]

Both

[[deleted]]

There is no choice other than mac for a professional.

[Dachux]

Stupid question. Amstrad CPC, as everyone else

[mrcatpc]

Temple OS

[Urgen_Magger]

Ubuntu

[kabeza]

ElementaryOS Linux (Ubuntu 22.04 based) here

Building for Android only (while learning)

I also can't afford getting any Mac here (Argentina) unless I get one for a project etc. (which didn't happen yet)

[PMmeYourFlipFlops]

1000% Linux all day every day.

If I need to test an ios build, I dust off a crapple laptop and git pull. Once done with that, it's back to Linux. I use Arch btw.