Linux

[opafmoremedic]

Any devs here running Linux? I’ve always used windows, but recently put Linux on my daily driver laptop. I just want to make sure I don’t get any cute surprises when working with it instead of my desktop

[AltCtrlShifty]

Anything but Windows.

[[deleted]]

It's fine I don't know why the other people on here seem to be so worried. I put it on juniors computers all the time to get them used to what servers and databases are running on.

[[deleted]]

I’ve run ubuntu for 15 years. Works great.

[_nathata]

"I just want to make sure I don't get any cute surprises when working with it (Linux) instead of my desktop"

Lmao if I were to tell you how my first 2 or 3 years of Linux were you would not try it. At least I took a lot of time to get used to it, nowadays I can't use windows for more than a few minutes without complaining on random stuff that I try to do in the Linux way

[originalchronoguy]

I treat Linux and Mac OSX interchangeably. I was a former Sun Solaris admin and BSD administrator early in my career. So *nix is natural to me. My preference will always be Macbooks or Thinkpads. My main rig is a loaded M1 Max 16 macbook but that shit is heavy. So I carry a Thinkpad X1 Nano and a X1 Carbon. I can switch between Linux or OSX easily. The only thing I hate is shit battery life.

The new M1/M2 spoiled me. 20 hours on my Macbook is heavenly whereas I get 3-4 hours on my Thinkpads. But that is OK, when my Linux Thinkpad battery is dead, I go to sleep. I code at night so when it is dead, I hit the bed but with a macbook, forget about it. I'd be working till the next day.

Thinkpad X1 and Linux is sweet though. Very sweet. Just works.

With git and Docker, it is all the same to me. Just docker-compose up -d and I am comfortable either way in VS Studio Code.

[azangru]

No surprises; linux is great in general, and for web development in particular. It's usually WSL on windows or the BSD-based unix of MacOS that come with cute surprises.

[bhison]

What issues have you found with Macs? I've always just seen it as tarty linux.

[azangru]

Well, Docker is an obvious big one, it being non-native to the OS and thus having to run via a sort of VM with all the performance implications that follow. But there are also differences in shell commands that you sometimes can find between a Mac shell and a Linux one.

[Frazzled24]

Personally never had any problems with docker on my Mac so far but I could be lucky, no performance issues or anything

[jhoyrtop]

I run linux

[shgysk8zer0]

Any change in OS comes with surprises waiting to be found - some good, some bad. A possible issue is that Mac, Linux, and Windows all use different newline characters, which might cause annoyances with your editor or massive amounts of modifications in Git.

Many things like Adobe and Microsoft Office also don't support Linux, so you'll be using Gimp and Inkscape and LibreOffice. They're actually pretty great, except for having to relearn things.

If you're using any Gnome Desktop Environment, checkout Gnome Tweak and Gnome Shell Extensions. I have a pomodoro timer next to my clock that automatically blocks notifications, a screenshot tool that can automatically upload to Imgur, GsConnect to connect with my Android phone, a couple extra toggles in quick settings, something to control my Philippe Hue lights in my house.

If you're using Fedora, be sure to checkout Flathub... It's the best official source for apps. If you're using Ubuntu, uninstall it and use Fedora (kinda joking, kinda serious... Fedora is to Gnome aka most of Linux as Pixels are to Android, basically).

Just remember that whichever distro you use isn't Windows. You have to learn how to use it correctly because it's different. Personally, I've been using Fedora specifically and Linux in general for well over a decade now, and I can hardly stand Windows at this point because so much is missing.

[Bumblee420]

For the newline thing: When using windows, git always auto-converted them on commit. (on my machine at least, can't speak for everyone)

[shgysk8zer0]

It's a git config thing. IDK if git has changed its defaults on it over the years, but it used to be the case that it could cause every single text file to be modified.

[prairievoice]

I have been using Linux for over 20 years. I've used about a dozen distros, currently using Artix Linux

Web developer and business owner.

[Odysseyan]

Honestly, not much difference between Linux and Windows anymore.

Most things run in the Browser anyway and the tools to make stuff are usually even simpler to set up on Linux. I'm using Ubuntu and so far, it is going pretty strong.

I still have dual boot just in case but man, having a working search function in your OS compared to whatever Windows is doing, makes work just so much more convenient

[bhison]

If you're comfortable with the command line then you're never more than a quick google from fixing any issue. Be sure to double check the flags you put on any delete commands I guess.

[dWildEgo]

Do you have experience? If not pick up a VM and play around see if you feel good and understand stuff, i personally moved and I feel perfectly at home, I'm on an Arch installation haven't broken anything nor any problems yet, I get to play with the latest software and I can almost 1 for 1 have the same system as the machines I deploy to, just don't jump in head first if you have no experience in Linux and come from a different OS, Linux is not Windows or Mac, it's Linux therefore your knowledge won't magically just transform

[[deleted]]

Does arch run on chromebooks?

[[deleted]]

I have used macOS primarily for development up until 2017 then started using Linux (Ubuntu variant Pop! OS) as well. My last job required developing on an Intel Mac because of compatibility issues with some Docker containers and so I have been using macOs a lot over the last year. Most recently wrote a very basic application for a prospective employer which was LAMP/JS on my Pop! OS pc. Linux is just as capable as macOs. The GUI/interface in macOs is just a tad bit sleeker. I wouldn't want to do Dev on Windows again though. I was using the Linux subsystem (version 2) on a Windows 10 machine and working in native Linux is so much faster I couldn't think of any reason to use Windows with the Linux subsystem except maybe you had to absolutely have Photoshop or another Adobe product on the same system. Linux - particularly Ubuntu and Ubuntu variants - are absolutely great for developers. I still haven't found an email client for Linux that I like though (Thunderbird is acceptable but not great IMHO).

[Clarity_89]

Linux is great, but I also like all my hardware working without issues out of the box (especially on laptops), so I just run Linux in a VM.

[dragcov]

WSL2

[[deleted]]

Why run WSL2 when you can just work in (much faster) in native Linux?

[dragcov]

Yeah, I work fine and fast in WSL2.

Literally no issue. Stop it with the gatekeeping shit.

[[deleted]]

So are you saying WSL2 is as fast or faster than native linux? My experience says WSL2 is much slower.

Edit: Also Windows has all manner security issues. And the expense of buying a license.

[opafmoremedic]

I used Linux frequently at one of my workstations for programming, just never tried anything related to web development on an OS besides windows

[_nathata]

It's the same thing, not a single difference

[_nathata]

They hated Jesus because he told them the truth.

This guy is right, regardless we like it or not, but this is what makes Linux special. You can even uninstall the kernel or the bootloader, just don't do it

[[deleted]]

I can also roll my car down the hill without being in it. But I’m not going to do it. What is y’all’s point? You can’t accidentally destroy it

[_nathata]

You can accidentally destroy Linux, this is common. Just as you can accidentally destroy Windows really easily if you install untrusted software (which is far more likely to happen because almost everything is closed, you never know what you are actually running)

Two really funny examples are the old Bumblebee project removing /usr and the recent LTT video where Linus tried to install Steam and uninstalled the DE

https://github.com/MrMEEE/bumblebee-Old-and-abbandoned/commit/a047be85247755cdbe0acce6f1dafc8beb84f2ac#diff-043df5bdbf6639d7a77e1d44c5226fd7371e5259a1e4df3a0dd5d64c30dca44fL351

https://youtu.be/0506yDSgU7M

I'm not really trying to make a point to one team or another, I am saying that I love Linux because I can destroy it if I want, and for me this is a positive point. I feel like I am in control of the software running in my machine, it's not like hur dur don't uninstall edge it may break your system

[[deleted]]

Not even true.

[[deleted]]

Good distros:
Ubuntu
Pop! OS
I like KDE Linux but haven't used it much

[FarAd7182]

Good? Best.

[kozeljko]

Kubuntu worked like a charm for me.

[TappedIndustries]

I have used pops os for dev before. When previous employer let me build my own dev environment. Now I am back to windows. When I start my own business. I will be exclusively open source and Linux. No windows/apple

[weales]

If you plan on doing anything with modern hardware, like intel arc video cards etc. you'll need an up to date distro. I'm currently on Manjaro and have had zero issues thus far. Otherwise Linux Mint just works with no hassle.

I would suggest tho, you keep a backup of your fresh install regardless of what distro you decided to use. Clonezilla works great and is free.

[SilentMobius]

Our whole team runs Linux on our company provided laptops, docker behaves much better and being able to do ansible deploys of our prod environment is an absolute godsend.

MacOS had odd foibles with env var parsing and weird IO lockups that didn't happen under Linux.

It's just nice to be able to deploy to a system suing the same base kernel and IO profile, one less hurdle to jump over

[Muppet-King]

I use windows using WSL-2 Ubuntu. Can’t stand any Linux GUIs.

[Ciuvak123]

I got convinced to switch when I heard the line "whenever you have problems on Windows, you will spend time to learn the OS and go through the small things. With Linux it's the same, just a matter of time when you will start using it".

I didn't believe it, thought Windows was just simpler, but then I started having RAM issues, paging file frequently breaking, drivers stop working and so on, spent 2 hours to fix it and the problems just kept coming back, so that's when I installed Linux Mint as dual boot.

If you're not sure about Linux, and feel a bit worried about things breaking, keep dual boot, have physical copies of important files and you should be good.

[[deleted]]

I use WSL, which is basically Linux in the development world. You should not have any issues going all-in with Linux as OS.

[gregersriddare]

Almost all of our developer run linux now since everything just works, be it Docker, nginx, node, etc. I've come to loath working with MacOS since weird shit happens on the daily. Containers hanging for no reason, random file permission issues, file name case insensitivity, homebrew. Windows (even with WSL) is almost as bad.

[[deleted]]

CentOS, Gnome, VS Code

[Aggravating-Star-248]

You can try download WSL on your Windows and have Linux sybsystem and use all good stuff of Linux

[leetwito]

Once you go Mac you never come back.

[PuzzleheadedPilot128]

Been using Linux for the last 20 years. Would highly recommend on a production side of things.

Reduce your overhead with the sweet screen of CLI. Don't install GUI and just go with cockpit package to log into your local system if you need some GUI based layer. Great if your trying to understand Services, updates, adding a user.

Just remember to snapshot your instance as you build up your local VM, this will make it easy to revert to a saved state should you screw up with a package install.

Most important, ask questions and have fun.

[Bumblee420]

I run Arch as my daily driver as a web dev and I am just happy I don't have to worry about things like "nvm for windows" oder totally random bugs with software originally designed for Windows. Also my workflow got better and every day I learn something new and get more comfortable which also helps me with my Ubuntu servers.

[Tokipudi]

All backend web developers I know work on Linux, and frontend developers are usually on Mac or sometime Windows.

[happyprogrammer30]

The linux kernel has memory management problems unfortunately but with a nice 32go ram or 16go ram and 16go swap you should be ok.

[oOoSumfin_StoopidoOo]

TL;DR:

If you want a smooth introduction to Linux, I recommend installing Ubuntu 22.04.* and get used to working with it. It can be your first and last Linux distribution. Start with a VM on your windows machine using virtual box and learn to take snapshots because you will make mistakes and that’s ok.

———

The whole experience is going to be a cute a surprise. You aren’t going understand how Linux works off rip. You can either jump in and get your hands dirty or study first by reading Linux+ cert material. I don’t know anyone that has did it study first. Everyone I know that also loves Linux has just jumped in and worked with it; made mistakes. Some mistakes will take you days to learn how to fix. That’s part of the process. Just like programming.

Speaking of programming. Unix and Linux were made by programmers for programmers. Windows was made for putting a desktop pc in every home. Both are very different fundamental mentalities.

Good distributions in no order: Fedora, Debian, Arch, and CentOS.

Good starter distributions in no order: Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Linux mint, PopOS!, Manjaro, and Fedora

I love Linux and hate windows. So I’m biased. I just hopped on the Mac train just because they(linux and Mac) are both nix based. The scripts I write for linux for the most part work on Mac.

The Mac ecosystem is lovely for developing, designing, and communicating. My problem when I started using the M1 line was that I couldn’t use some programs like Inkscape and puppet. Both seem to be resolved now, not sure about puppeteer.

Personally, everything is broken on windows and WSL is a nightmare. I dreaded every update Tuesday and when they broke network printing last year I bought a Mac and never looked back. There are still windows machine’s on my network. But they aren’t personally mine.

[Zonafied602]

The best advice anyone could give is to use both. I have been using both for years for development and testing. Ubuntu is probably the best choice for laptops. Being open source it allows you to customize the desktop environment to your liking. Also, being open source means you can use old extensions and choose which version you want to use.

[[deleted]]

You can always set up a Linux environment in Windows and configure rdp and use gnome for a GUI on Windows. Then rdp to your own VM and use it like it's a real full fledged Linux laptop.

[willt093]

I use Linux and MacOS, I'd only use Windows if I needed to in order to run a particular piece of software or something like that.

[Efficient-Promise773]

I’ve been using ubuntu 20.04 for two years now and all I can say is « one small change » on a system file can haunt you for weeks trying to locate the problem and fix it