What computer is satisfactory for programming?

[Dat Guy]

For what the OP seems to want to achieve, any operating system would do, and a Linux distribution adds too much weirdness to the stack. I wonder why @TheInternet wants to use Linux - once I know more, I can make better suggestions.

[wasab]

17 hours ago, Dat Guy said:

For what the OP seems to want to achieve, any operating system would do, and a Linux distribution adds too much weirdness to the stack. I wonder why @TheInternet wants to use Linux - once I know more, I can make better suggestions.

Probably for web server. he did mentioned "web and stuff". i dont know about stuff but web is pretty much linux 

[Dat Guy]

None of my web servers run Linux.

[FuzzyLogic]

As someone who's used Windows for well over 10 years, Linux is a whole lot easier to manage and there's so much less BS to deal with. The majority of my work is in programming and using Linux for it feels way more comfortable. I even have a personal webserver running Linux; deployment is super easy and it's been incredibly reliable.

 

As for computer hardware, something with a 4 or 6 core Ryzen CPU should do well, with a minimum of 16GB of RAM. I'm not sure if any of your work would be GPU-accelerated; if it is, then you'll want computers with discrete graphics cards. Otherwise, having a CPU with integrated graphics should be fine. Something like an AMD Ryzen 5 5600G might fit well.

https://www.amd.com/en/processors/ryzen-with-graphics

[wasab]

3 hours ago, Dat Guy said:

None of my web servers run Linux.

So what do you use?

[Dat Guy]

OpenBSD and OmniOS.

[wasab]

7 minutes ago, Dat Guy said:

OpenBSD and OmniOS.

 problem with these are lack of vendors. Few are really out there selling BSD solutions, software support, and machines. This niche bsd web hosting to just hobbyist projects pretty much.  

[Dat Guy]

1 minute ago, wasab said:

Few are really out there selling BSD solutions

 

Why would you want to buy something? What do you need to buy to run a server?

[wasab]

1 minute ago, Dat Guy said:

 

Why would you want to buy something? What do you need to buy to run a server?

Wait... web hosting is free now???

 

[FuzzyLogic]

What @wasabsaid is very true. I'm also not really sure why you use two Unix-based operating systems and then complain that Linux adds too much weirdness. There are a wide variety of distros available for a reason.

[Dat Guy]

Just now, wasab said:

web hosting is free now???

 

Mine run on rented VPSs. "Support" needed: a way to install from an ISO. What, exactly, is the problem?

[Dat Guy]

1 minute ago, dcgreen2k said:

I'm also not really sure why you use two Unix-based operating systems and then complain that Linux adds too much weirdness.

 

These are different discussions. OP wants "a computer for programming" (and Linux is, arguably, less user-friendly than macOS and Windows, at least on the desktop), then we derived into "what does Dat Guy run on his servers".

[wasab]

4 minutes ago, Dat Guy said:

 

Mine run on rented VPSs. "Support" needed: a way to install from an ISO. What, exactly, is the problem?

Like i said, no official support. I can install linux on a windows microsoft pro or maybe a hackingtosh but just because it can doesnt mean you should do this to power your bussiness IT infrastructure. Big benefits of having big vendor behind them is precisly you can point finger and let someone else handle the mess should things go wrong. 

[Dat Guy]

Just now, wasab said:

Like i said, no official support.

 

"Official support" exists. What you mean are "paid hotlines". It remains to be seen whether the lack of paid hotlines in favor of huge knowledge bases (and user communities) is a bad thing. - How many companies running Linux servers have maintenance contracts?

[wasab]

9 minutes ago, Dat Guy said:

 

"Official support" exists. What you mean are "paid hotlines". It remains to be seen whether the lack of paid hotlines in favor of huge knowledge bases (and user communities) is a bad thing. - How many companies running Linux servers have maintenance contracts?

There is no need for maintenance contract. if a system is certified, then the ground work and cost to ensure smooth operation is already done.

You can buy linux servers hardwares from list of certified vendors. https://catalog.redhat.com/hardware/search?p=1&c_catalog_channel=Server

And you can buy linux VMs from a list of cloud providers

 

How many of BSDs are certified to run anything? What PaaS platforms offer anything BSD as hosting solutions? Without these, they are just hobbyist projects like I said.  

[Dat Guy]

9 minutes ago, wasab said:

if a system is certified, then the ground work and cost to ensure smooth operation is already done.

 

"Certified" is an empty word. Which certificates do you need? ("Smooth operation" is not guaranteed for any operating system I know, but OpenBSD is pretty solid.)

 

9 minutes ago, wasab said:

You can buy linux servers hardwares from list of certified vendors. https://catalog.redhat.com/hardware/search?p=1&c_catalog_channel=Server

 

Hardware vendors do not guarantee the reliability of the software; all they can do is check and - maybe - test the drivers of the software for general functionality. Now, none of my servers has any missing driver for what's needed, so I assume that being a "certified vendor" is irrelevant.

 

Please also note that reports of (e.g.) a systemd update breaking the system's core functionality exist on any kind of hardware.

 

9 minutes ago, wasab said:

How many of BSDs are certified to run anything?

 

Nobody needs a certificate to run anything. Certificates are a piece of paper (or a file), nothing more, nothing less. What exactly does OpenBSD need so we would not have to discuss this? Paid consultants? Please, by all means, you seem to have an urgent need to make a difference between the reliability of two different community-driven operating systems without actually considering the real-world performance. Enlighten me!

[wasab]

6 minutes ago, Dat Guy said:

Nobody needs a certificate to run anything. Certificates are a piece of paper (or a file), nothing more, nothing less. What exactly does OpenBSD need so we would not have to discuss this? Paid consultants? Please, by all means, you seem to have an urgent need to make a difference between the reliability of two different community-driven operating systems without actually considering the real-world performance. Enlighten me!

Right, certified doesn’t mean it will run smoothly but it means it should and if it doesn’t, like I said, you can point fingers and pass the blame and responsibility. This is quite important if you are running a business. Big company enterprise server applications like to run windows .net and javaEE for one reason, they can tell their clients and shareholders they have done everything they are suppose to and it is oracle and Microsoft’s fault this xyz technology doesn’t work.

[Dat Guy]

1 minute ago, wasab said:

it should and if it doesn’t, like I said, you can point fingers and pass the blame and responsibility.

 

Frankly, if I want to run a business on open source software, I'd prefer to have a reliable and secure system over one that makes all failures someone else's fault.

 

2 minutes ago, wasab said:

This is quite important if you are running a business. 

 

"All data is lost, but we paid someone to take the blame for that" will not bring back your data. In fact, I assume that having a backup and redundancy strategy might even be notably easier to afford for any business that relies on data.

[wasab]

5 minutes ago, Dat Guy said:

 

Frankly, if I want to run a business on open source software, I'd prefer to have a reliable and secure system over one that makes all failures someone else's fault.

 

 

"All data is lost, but we paid someone to take the blame for that" will not bring back your data. In fact, I assume that having a backup and redundancy strategy might even be notably easier to afford for any business that relies on data.

Nah, you have a lot more benefits. Read the fine print in licensing for most open source software. Author claim no responsibility for the damage done by the use of this product whatsoever and it is provided without any charge and thus dont expect the author to fix anything if there is vulnerability, a hack, and whatever. They have no liability nor responsibility whatsoever.

 

if Microsoft or oracle screw up, at least you can sue them for billions of dollars. If red hat certified whatever failed spectacularly, same thing.

[Dat Guy]

1 minute ago, wasab said:

Author claim no responsibility for the damage done by the use of this product whatsoever

 

Also true for Linux.

 

2 minutes ago, wasab said:

if Microsoft or oracle screw up, at least you can sue them for billions of dollars.

 

Not in Germany, we usually have smaller fees. Anyway, neither Microsoft nor Oracle are hardware vendors. Your point was that OpenBSD was less suitable for businesses because you could not find a hardware vendor to sue. It seems that we lost track here.

 

Regardless of the system (Windows, UNIX, BSD, a Linux distribution, Plan 9, Haiku, whatever), a business could pay a consultant to be the one to blame - but hardware vendors are only responsible for hardware failures.

[wasab]

16 minutes ago, Dat Guy said:

Also true for Linux.

Community ones yes, not ones maintain by big companies who then sell support and subscription for. 
 

16 minutes ago, Dat Guy said:

Regardless of the system (Windows, UNIX, BSD, a Linux distribution, Plan 9, Haiku, whatever), a business could pay a consultant to be the one to blame - but hardware vendors are only responsible for hardware failures.

That is fair enough but I doubt any consultant would advise BSD and if you are stubborn to use it anyways, what legal case would you have against them?

 

If they do tell you to use bsd and sell related web hosting solutions and support, well then yeah, you get the same benefit of pointing fingers but I doubt stake holders will be as sympathetic should issues arise because you chose a much smaller market share os and support vendor instead of those back by big players.

 

[Dat Guy]

3 minutes ago, wasab said:

I doubt any consultant would advise BSD

 

OpenBSD.org literally has a list of paid OpenBSD consultants (link = above).

 

4 minutes ago, wasab said:

you chose a much smaller market share os

 

Which is entirely irrelevant for the quality of service. It depends on the contract, I guess.

[Franck]

13 hours ago, dcgreen2k said:

As someone who's used Windows for well over 10 years, Linux is a whole lot easier to manage and there's so much less BS to deal with

For IT maybe but for devs Linux always takes lot of time to configure to test while simple windows It's about 30-40 seconds with exactly 4 buttons to click and 1 textbox to enter a name. But anyhow nowadays most web coding can completely run in IDE without server. when ready you simple copy your binaries to your server or upload to the shared folder in AWS or Azure so you have pretty much nothing to do specially since most config (for asp.net specially or microservice) are set in the code and the server use them no matter the host

[PetrusJPrinsloo]

For most of my career as a back-end developer the most limiting factor has been RAM (32GB) and the cpu just needs to be OK and I normally look for good Linux compatibility. The upper end business Dell laptops (currently a new XPS) have served me well over the years and I try and stick to AMD GPUs or intel integrated graphics for better Linux compatibility.

[HelloPeople]

the company I'm currently working at is a developer company located in japan,

and all the pcs are Dell Vostro 3471

• i7 9700
• 8GB 2666mhz
• 250GB SSD
• 1TB HDD
• 23' ~ 24' 16:9 main monitor
• 4:3 for second monitor
• basic dell mouse + keyboard that comes with the PC

we do a lot of projects for other company (usually web app) language ranges from

PHP, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, Java, C#, C++ etc.

and we don't have any problems with the pc.

we rarely run out of memory, but 16gb+ would be nice.