Elementary OS for Web Development?

[Den15]

Morning, people.

 

So, here I stand with manjaro, pop os and elementary looking at me, waiting for my decision... which I can't make yet...

 

So I need your guys' help:

 

How's elementary OS for web development?

 

I know about the packages, that it "feeds" on Ubuntu repositories, but how about it for coding?

 

When searching on YT I see a lot of people using pure Ubuntu, some others with manjaro(that I heard was more on the bleeding side of the bleeding edge), but I don't know which to pick.

 

I need stability, not too high of resource demanding (i got a i3 3240 with 8 gb of DDR3 and a kingston SSD, but want that baby flying on compilation).

 

My main focus right now is Javascript (with node and vscode), but soon enough college will require Java and C.

 

Can you guys help me out?

 

What distro would be good for a guy learning to code?

[Breadpudding]

To be honest, you could use any distribution to learn how to program. The only question is about what you want to use. For web development, all you really need is a text editor and a web browser. Personally, I use Atom as my text editor/mini IDE and I use Chrome as my web browser. You also mentioned wanting to learn node.js, Java and C. Obviously, you need a text editor to code things, so all you need now are the specifics. Node.js supports all of these distributions and your specific distribution may have a package for it. Java and C are probably the easiest to find because most distributions have packages for them since they've been around for a while. While Oracle only officially supports Red Hat-based distributions, Debian-based distributions(Ubuntu included!) has a package for OpenJDK. Finally, C requires a compiler such as GCC to work, and I am not familiar with a distribution which does not have gcc as a package. In short:

• A text editor(I recommend Atom)
• A web browser(I recommend Chrome)
• Node.js
• OpenJDK
• A C compiler(I recommend GCC)

One thing I would be wary about is Java and C since you mentioned that you would be learning it at college. I would check with the requirements of the college before jumping straight into GCC/OpenJDK. As someone who is currently taking computer science in college, OpenJDK is fine for Java and I haven't encountered any issues related to using that over Oracle's JDK(Although there are some differences). I'd worry the most about C since the preprocessor statements are vary between compilers. Overall, good luck and have fun on your journey into Linux! ~Breadpudding

[Nettly_]

Any of those work. If you want my opinion Pop!_OS is a much better option because of the gaming aspect too. Also you will need: A **GOOD** browser (and Firefox does NOT fully work) (Chrome is a good option). A PLAIN TEXT (not rich text) editor, I personally recommend VSCode, OpenJDK, GCC (for C compilation), G++ (for C++), Node.js, Python (for more back-end stuff than what I find Node.js to be useful for). 

Simply:

-Chrome
-A code/plain text editor like VSCode
-OpenJDK
-GCC
-G++

-Node.js
-Python

 

and you should be golden

[elsandosgrande]

6 hours ago, SafyreLostTooManyAccounts said:

(and Firefox does NOT fully work)

I agree with your other statements, but what do you mean by that exactly? For one, Chrome has always been slower than Firefox for me, especially Firefox Nightly, since I can enable WebRender right now, instead of waiting for it to be completely stable for it to enter the regular release channel. Two, I don't really see any standards compliance issues with Firefox.

 

Please do elaborate upon that statement with good arguments and, preferably, external sources backing them.

 

Anyway, yeah, apart from the package versions differing by some degree between distributions, you're good to go with what the others have suggested. I would also recommend setting up some server software if you intend on doing any web development (*ahem*JavaScript*ahem*), but that's a whole other can of worms.

 

EDIT: Also, I can play 1080p YouTube videos on Firefox while compiling Electron in the background with MAKEOPTS="-j3" (Gentoo Portage variable, it just passes -j3 to gcc or g++ so that it uses three threads; yes, packages are installed by compiling them locally, which takes a day and a half if a few big packages are installing back-to-back), while Chrome struggles when there is nothing else running and has only one tab open versus many on Firefox. By the way, I'm on a dual-core laptop from 2016.

Edited April 23, 2019 by elsandosgrande
One more thing to mention

[wasab]

11 hours ago, Breadpudding said:

 

One thing I would be wary about is Java and C since you mentioned that you would be learning it at college. I would check with the requirements of the college before jumping straight into GCC/OpenJDK. 

Doesnt matter. Oracle JDK can be installed on Linux as well. In fact, all java jdks are suppose to be cross platform. Openjdk is merely open sourced. You can use openjdk on windows operating system in fact. There are many other JDK as well which are not owned by oracle like the one developed by Azul system. 

[elsandosgrande]

13 hours ago, wasab said:

Doesnt matter. Oracle JDK can be installed on Linux as well. In fact, all java jdks are suppose to be cross platform. Openjdk is merely open sourced. You can use openjdk on windows operating system in fact. There are many other JDK as well which are not owned by oracle like the one developed by Azul system. 

On top of that, Oracle's JDK is based off of OpenJDK, as they are maintaining both JDKs to the best of my knowledge, sort of like Red Hat and RHEL, I guess.

[wasab]

2 hours ago, elsandosgrande said:

On top of that, Oracle's JDK is based off of OpenJDK, as they are maintaining both JDKs to the best of my knowledge, sort of like Red Hat and RHEL, I guess.

Oracle JDK isn't exclusively made for red hat Linux. Any Linux can have it install. I don't know where you get the idea only red hat has support for it from. 

[elsandosgrande]

1 hour ago, wasab said:

Oracle JDK isn't exclusively made for red hat Linux. Any Linux can have it install. I don't know where you get the idea only red hat has support for it from. 

I wasn't saying it was for RHEL, I was just comparing software models (Oracle vs Open <--> RHEL vs CentOS).

[wasab]

2 hours ago, elsandosgrande said:

I wasn't saying it was for RHEL, I was just comparing software models (Oracle vs Open <--> RHEL vs CentOS).

Oh, I quoted the wrong person . 

[Nettly_]

On 4/22/2019 at 6:14 PM, elsandosgrande said:

I agree with your other statements, but what do you mean by that exactly? For one, Chrome has always been slower than Firefox for me, especially Firefox Nightly, since I can enable WebRender right now, instead of waiting for it to be completely stable for it to enter the regular release channel. Two, I don't really see any standards compliance issues with Firefox.

 

Please do elaborate upon that statement with good arguments and, preferably, external sources backing them.

 

Anyway, yeah, apart from the package versions differing by some degree between distributions, you're good to go with what the others have suggested. I would also recommend setting up some server software if you intend on doing any web development (*ahem*JavaScript*ahem*), but that's a whole other can of worms.

 

EDIT: Also, I can play 1080p YouTube videos on Firefox while compiling Electron in the background with MAKEOPTS="-j3" (Gentoo Portage variable, it just passes -j3 to gcc or g++ so that it uses three threads; yes, packages are installed by compiling them locally, which takes a day and a half if a few big packages are installing back-to-back), while Chrome struggles when there is nothing else running and has only one tab open versus many on Firefox. By the way, I'm on a dual-core laptop from 2016.

I had the experience of Firefox being slow AF

[Den15]

Thanks, guys.

 

I'll probably try ubuntu bionic beaver for now, if it doesn't fit me I'll switch to Debian probably.

 

Turns out I figured elementary wouldn't be up to the task for me and manjaro would be too instable.

[elsandosgrande]

1 hour ago, Den15 said:

Thanks, guys.

 

I'll probably try ubuntu bionic beaver for now, if it doesn't fit me I'll switch to Debian probably.

 

Turns out I figured elementary wouldn't be up to the task for me and manjaro would be too instable.

Regarding stability, while Debian is a beast, as I heard (don't mind the title, it's a bit of a joke)

, I was running Antergos (it's an Arch derivative) with the testing repos enabled for half a year without any real issues (maybe two or three, but I was poking around the system at the same time, so I am not blameless here either) and am running Gentoo on the testing branch without many issues (I actually have a tangible amount here in Gentoo as it does compile every single package locally, so some intended versus provided version mismatches are par for the testing course).

 

Also, sorry for being that guy, but it's unstable, not instable.

[elsandosgrande]

11 hours ago, SafyreLostTooManyAccounts said:

I had the experience of Firefox being slow AF

A "your mileage may vary" kind of scenario, I guess.

 

To be fair, Chrome has become faster than it was when I switched to Antergos (never tried it on Ubuntu). Honestly, even if Chrome (Chromium) became on par with regards to performance with Firefox (Firefox Nightly), Chrome still feels somewhat limited compared to Firefox with regards to tweaking it to Hell and back (not sure about Plasma integration, I never got it to work on Chrome(ium)).

 

Anyway, no hard feelings. Enjoy the rest of your day!

[Den15]

4 hours ago, elsandosgrande said:

Regarding stability, while Debian is a beast, as I heard (don't mind the title, it's a bit of a joke)

(...)

Also, sorry for being that guy, but it's unstable, not instable.

Sorry, sometimes the words get mixed with my native language haha

But I'll look into Debian... seems nice

thanks

[duncannah]

Make sure you use cross-platform apps (for example avoid Notepad++) for easier flexibility if you decide to change platforms

[elsandosgrande]

1 hour ago, Den15 said:

Sorry, sometimes the words get mixed with my native language haha

But I'll look into Debian... seems nice

thanks

Also, you might want to check this review out of PopOS! 19.04:

 

Also, I just realized it's spelled Pop!_OS. Guess I've made an oopsie as well.

 

EDIT: One more thing. Debian stable holds packages back by quite a bit, so they can get quite old. If you can deal with the lower rock-solidness of Ubuntu and Pop!_OS, then those would be most likely a better choice (I've run Antergos, an Arch derivative, and am running Gentoo off of the testing repositories and on the testing branch respectively and have never had any major issues, barred those that were caused by me poking around places where I shouldn't really poke around, in which case the testing/unstable aspect merely aggravated the problem, and even then it was by just a little, so I don't think you will have any issues with Ubuntu or Pop!_OS stable).

[Den15]

43 minutes ago, elsandosgrande said:

Also, you might want to check this review out of PopOS! 19.04:

 

Also, I just realized it's spelled Pop!_OS. Guess I've made an oopsie as well.

 

Pop!_OS is so aesthetic... I'll probably give it a shot, if the repositories don't serve me enough (probably won't happen) then I'll hop to Ubuntu... (don't even know if it would make any difference)

 

The design itself is much more appealing to me and I kinda like those people at System76.

 

Another question: anything that works on Ubuntu (like ppas, vscode, node and etc) will work on Pop or it has to be ported?

[Nettly_]

2 minutes ago, Den15 said:

Another question: anything that works on Ubuntu (like ppas, vscode, node and etc) will work on Pop or it has to be ported?

As far as I have seen... both from time to time depends. More often than not it works just fine but I ran into 2 things that needed ports but I made them so I fixed that lmao

[elsandosgrande]

3 minutes ago, Den15 said:

Pop!_OS is so aesthetic... I'll probably give it a shot, if the repositories don't serve me enough (probably won't happen) then I'll hop to Ubuntu... (don't even know if it would make any difference)

 

The design itself is much more appealing to me and I kinda like those people at System76.

 

Another question: anything that works on Ubuntu (like ppas, vscode, node and etc) will work on Pop or it has to be ported?

Imagine Pop!_OS like a slightly more up-to-date version of Ubuntu (technically, it's based off of Ubuntu, that is it is an Ubuntu derivative), especially, as he said, when it comes to drivers.