Best Linux Distro for developing?

[Guest]

I posted a question in the non-windows section of the Operating systems tab. 

 

I was curious is the programming lurkers would like to help me out. Here's the link:

 

https://linustechtips. com/main/topic/641824-best-linux-distro-for-programming/#comment-8270748

 

Thanks for your help! 

[Nineshadow]

I personally use Arch, but each to his own.

[DXMember]

what's wrong with the good ol' Windows?

[Dat Guy]

I personally use Windows. There is nothing I could develop on Linux which is not available on Windows.

The opposite doesn't work nearly as well. Linux has no actual Delphi, no C#, ...

[Guest]

Windows 10 installs but the monitor loses detection on my desktop, and microsoft can't or won't help me. I need something to use. I have my laptop with windows 10 but I would like to have my desktop running something. I can't shell out more money for another copy of windows 10 to maybe not work.

 

(The computer works with windows 7 and windows xp but I don't like windows 7, and I don't want my xp drive to fail and have me without a computer. When's the last time you saw an 80 GB hard drive?) 

[trag1c]

I enjoy Ubuntu or Arch. Its really more of a personal choice than a best choice.

[HarryNyquist]

52 minutes ago, Dat Guy said:

I personally use Windows. There is nothing I could develop on Linux which is not available on Windows.

The opposite doesn't work nearly as well. Linux has no actual Delphi, no C#, ...

Fun fact: Linux has a small bit of "official" C# now through the .NET core. Though if you want a more complete implementation you could use Mono.

[Dat Guy]

Just now, HarryNyquist said:

a small bit

Precisely.

[jimistephen]

I like Ubuntu better known as linux light, but the Unity environment has a lot of programming friendly features in the background that if you learn make it amazingly fast and robust.

[Guest]

I decided on Ubuntu because it seems applications for linux operating systems also have a section specifically for Ubuntu in the downloads pages. Thanks for the input! 

[vorticalbox]

18 hours ago, hislittlecuzin said:

I decided on Ubuntu because it seems applications for linux operating systems also have a section specifically for Ubuntu in the downloads pages. Thanks for the input! 

I would still be ubuntu of they bothered I update dungeon defender's on linux. It's a version or so behind windows

 

anyway ubuntu is awesome, if you're looking a good notepad++ style editor check our notepadqq. It's clone of n++

 

remember sudo apt-get update

[Dat Guy]

Kylix is pretty much dead at this point, so: no it doesn't have Delphi. And there are damn good reasons to use it, e.g. an existing codebase. My point was that you'll (probably) never have to maintain a codebase which can't be maintained on Windows. Linux, on the other hand, has major problems in a number of languages.

[lChris]

i have written a few lines of code in DOS/Windows, i have written a few lines of code in linux. what's wrong with coding in windows? well, let me put it this way: it's like saying, "i want to see skin. give me a girl in a coat" ... what's wrong with windows is, it's a commercial operating system for ease of use, not for easy access. most linux distros come with a c compiler and python out of the box. windows? try to find out about the windows system. you are not supposed to! try to find out about the linux system. where is the kernel? what's the purpose of several folders in linux? in windows? windows is COMMERCIAL. you are not supposed to go above and beyond. and THAT is what's wrong with windows. even more so, if you want to develop. developing in windows is possible. but it's almost a contradiction! linux loves cross-platform tools. c, perl, python, ... windows? C#? .NET? this one is for you, richard stallman: windows for developers is like saying "please handcuff me". linux is an operating system from "coders for coders". windows is an operating system from a company for a user.

 

which linux? i have to agree with trag1c. at the end of the day, there is no best. as long as the distro of choice supports the features you need and your daily routine, what does it matter? i use ubuntu and arch. i can write code in both. i can use c in both, i can use python in both, i can setup my favorite IDE in both ... so what difference does it make? well, ubuntu is the simple linux for daily use. arch is the distro more on the freak end, where you learn a lot about linux. but for development? i can run awesome in both. i can run tmux in both, ... otherwise, if you like ubuntu for the ease of use, use ubuntu. personally, i think it doesn't make too much of a difference. but if i'd had to decide, i'd would and did go with arch. why? because arch support the "behind the scene" view from the get go. and isn't that the point of coding? just with the installation alone you'll learn a lot about the operating system before you even start coding. and i think that somehow makes sense for a developer or a developer to be. ubuntu? click, click, installed. how much do you know about your system?

 

regarding coding and testing requirements you might wanna keep your end-user in mind though.

[Clechay]

If you develop software meant to be use on servers you should consider using CentOS or Debian because these are most common OS for servers. If that is not your case then developing software alone is mostly meaningless while choosing linux distro. 

[SpaceNugget]

On 8/11/2016 at 0:17 PM, Dat Guy said:

I personally use Windows. There is nothing I could develop on Linux which is not available on Windows.

The opposite doesn't work nearly as well. Linux has no actual Delphi, no C#, ...

The question isn't about windows. You are wrong anyways, C# works on both.

 

Its really personal preference. I prefer Ubuntu and Arch the most. My university uses Scientific Linux (red hat clone) and its pretty good as well.  

[Pinguinsan]

On 8/11/2016 at 3:17 PM, Dat Guy said:

I personally use Windows. There is nothing I could develop on Linux which is not available on Windows.

The opposite doesn't work nearly as well. Linux has no actual Delphi, no C#, ...

Spoken like someone who's never had to use the WIN32 API.

[Dat Guy]

Been there, done that. Prefer not to, though. 

[SpaceNugget]

1 hour ago, Erik Sieghart said:

I like Windows.

 

I would love to use Linux.

 

But I can't, because Linux is too limited in tools and such. You spend more time configuring things to work right than you do actually developing; so that's pretty frustrating.

Linux definitely has more development tools than windows...

[VulsaviiK]

On 12/08/2016 at 4:55 AM, DXMember said:

what's wrong with the good ol' Windows?

You mean aside from it not coming with anything you need in the box for dev work? Not everything or everyone uses Windows, in fact, by this time next year Mac OSX will probably be the most common platform for developing in the industry, if the trends from the last couple of stackoverflow developer surveys are anything to go by.

 

(mmmmm, I can taste the salt already)

 

OP, considering most servers in the real world use Debian or CentOS, I'd recommend either of those two. I'm partial to Debian, from what I recall there's a little more info on the web about it if you get stuck

[VulsaviiK]

12 hours ago, Erik Sieghart said:

Apple is awful and I hate them.

Their hardware is awful, their documentation is awful, and any app you develop this year is going to be obsolete and nonfunctional the next. I'd rather sell my soul to Google before I develop anything with xcode.

 

Linux is eight million times better than it could ever hope to be for any developer, and represents pretty much the direct opposite of what OS X and Apple are. If it comes down to OS X vs Linux the choice is a no brainer.

I suspect the bulk of that comes down to Web Development. I'm only reciting Stack Overflow's developer survey, which had:
Max OS X - 26.2%

Windows 7 - 22.5%

Linux - 21.7%

Windows 10 - 20.8%

Windows 8 - 8.4%

XP/Vista/God knows why people use this crap

 

Source

 

Most Web Devs I know work from Mac, and if their employers say "Use Mac", it's not like you're given a choice

[Guest]

It's interesting to see this continue. But to butt in about Macs it seems their hardware isn't so much bad as I feel you're paying for the design, and operating system. For instance a Macbook air (Using the cheapest model at 900 dollars) has a 9 hour battery life, 4 gigs of ram (Which I may not be the smartest developer at my state) seems like a lot as it's not intended as a gaming machine. You get a solid state hard drive, so the laptop should virtually last forever. I could say the processor is good and the laptop is pretty durable (I dropped a few a number of times). So it may not be suitable for Linus, but for office use, basic text editing, and using programs designed for OSX are perfectly optimized because the developer knows exactly what hardware is going inside. As an XBOX 360 or PS3 can have such low specs, they can handle some high demand software because the software is designed specifically for the systems. Same with the PS4, many say "wow how could it possibly run VR." The simple answer should be optimization. 

Just my little defense of the Mac. And that's all I have in defense of it. 

 

However please continue about your thoughts on linux. It's all very interesting even if I am not replying to note it. 

[Darksworm]

I prefer Debian.
Windows always gets cluttered with junk and stuff just seems to break on its own. Also you cannot hibernate or leave a windows system on for a prolonged time, especially with an IDE open - it just cant handle it and will start lagging horribly. 

 

Arch linux sounds good, i've tried it just to fiddle around with it and IMHO that's the best part - tailoring it to your needs, but as soon as my installation started crashing i noped the fuck out of arch land. ARCH IS NOT FOR BEGINNERS.

 

Debian just seems to work. I have everything i need - i run multiple VMs, Intellij IDEA, chrome (with tons of tabs) all the time and i've never seen it even hiccup. I guess it's just everything windows isn't and thats why i like it so much. Oh and if you ever want to crash a debian system - play some CS:GO on it

[Guest]

I see a lot of people mention "Not for beginners." Is this because I need to know how to program linux, and know the command line? I mostly used windows 2000 and up, and OSX in my life. I had Ubuntu for a little while but I only used it for notes and web browsing in the past. I installed Unity Engine 5 and Blender on Linux one time but that's basically it. 

[VulsaviiK]

16 hours ago, hislittlecuzin said:

It's interesting to see this continue. But to butt in about Macs it seems their hardware isn't so much bad as I feel you're paying for the design, and operating system.

Apologies, I didn't mean to de-rail your thread. However I find the disconnect between gamers/script-kiddies and industry to be infuriating, particularly considering the number of devs I know (And I mean actual devs, who make money from this stuff) and following that career path myself. Teh internetz attitude is alas, agnostic of topic, you should see some of the stuff people come up with in car discussions.

 

Since I had to double check that survey to pull figures anyway, turns out the most popular one mentioned was Ubuntu. So, there's that. I'm still partial to Debian, but again, that's probably because my VPS runs it. I should point out that the only way I've used Debian and CentOS is via SSH on command line from my Windows desktop, so I can't really talk about the "desktop" experience