6 ms·

I've always said this but Linux (Ubuntu on the desktop) needed a few applications to ensure that almost all devs didn't need anything else. In my opinion...thos

I've always said this but Linux (Ubuntu on the desktop) needed a few applications to ensure that almost all devs didn't need anything else. In my opinion...those tools (which didn't exist) were: 1. GUI git client (a few exist, but nothing close to Tower or Sourcetree) 2. A nice UI/UX designer (Figma is awesome but you need the desktop client to upload .sketch files that require external fonts - which is almost always the case for most kits - and that desktop client is only available on Windows & MacOS) 3. Creator Applications (Tools that you don't really need, until you do - especially if you are a lone/indie dev). Initially I would have added MS Office to the top of the list, but Libreoffice has gotten a lot better (and people use/are not surprised by Google Docs now) But that said, as someone who's used Ubuntu almost exclusively for development for the last 5 years, it's been getting better and better.

zython 10y ago
what about gitkraken as an intuitive git client. better than sourcetree and tower by far IMO
- ohstopitu 10y ago
  Gitkraken is pretty nice! That said, it seems to have some issues every now and then (for example, I had to increase an Inotify watch limit). * You can't seem to re-order the UI - which would have been great! * Auto save working copy as a stash when switching branches (Sourcetree does this) And finally, I had read an HN thread about it having some vague issues with it's agreement (but I have not read the agreement so I don't know about any specifics).
  - kevinherron 10y ago
    I've had to increase the watch limit for Intellij IDEA too. I think it's common for applications dealing with a lot of files at once.
joshstrange 10y ago
If you are working with code (re: git) I find the JetBrains products built in git to be all I really want out of a "GUI git client". I drop to the CLI for some more complex stuff but basic push/commit/merge I normally just stay in the IDE.
dave_sullivan 10y ago
Yeah, agreed. Even though I use linux every day (and have been a linux user for nearly 20 years), I've always needed a windows box too. One with lots of ram, solid single core performance, and a nice gpu. I need windows for: MS Office (I still can't stand libre office), adobe suite (mostly photoshop, but also AE, Premier), 3ds max, zbrush, all the games. I think that's it though, I think I have solid linux alternatives for everything else. There are occasional one offs with Windows where some application I need works in Windows but not linux. This can just as easily go the other way (cool little app only for linux). I have no problem with linux on the desktop and use it every day, but I have a windows box right next to it sharing the same mouse and keyboard with synergy. It's been the most practical solution for me.
babuskov 10y ago
I have been using Linux on desktop since 2002. 1. git-gui and gitk do the job just fine. I never felt a need for anything else. I have no idea what Tower or Sourcetree does, but doing stuff with git is less than 1% of my development time, so really fail to see what I could be missing? 2. I developed some cross-platform gui programs using wxWidgets and wxFormBuilder was fine. Not Delphi level of WYSIWYG but did the job quickly. 3. What's that, care to give an example? The reason I switched to Mac after 12 years on Linux was because I got tired of having to fiddle with the system. It's nice when you have a lot of time or while you are learning a new OS, but these days I just want things to work out of the box. I was seriously considering Windows at one point, but then I got a Mac Mini to develop some iOS stuff. Initially, I set it up as dual boot, but I spent more and more time in OSX and finally just stayed there all the time. Installed software I was missing and done. I wish Linux all the best luck and I'm still using it on servers, but I'm not sure it can reach that level of Things Just Working(tm). Windows has a huge number of payed developers to make it happen. Mac has locked themselves down to just a couple of types of hardware and manage to do the same with less people. It seems to me that Linux tries to cover the widest possible hardware range with comparatively smaller team - and many developers don't care about UX that much. I know, because I developed some open source programs, and I'm guilty of that as well.
- sqeaky 10y ago
  I think the "Just working" argument is too subjective. Ubuntu just works, unless you have some specific hardware that is too obscure or new. Then one day someone starts expecting you use files from some obscure source and you need an application that isn't on Linux. Windows just works, until you need to re-install because of virus and need to track down drivers. Then you realize the version of office was some weird OEM license and need to figure something else out. I am sure Mac OS X has problems too but I haven't used it much. All these things are so advanced that they just work... until they don't for you.
  - lelandbatey 10y ago
    Mac OS X just works until one day the UI locks up and App store updates hang, and the computer becomes an unusable brick because nothing can be read from the disk after the non-replaceable SSD because it died (happened to me two weeks ago). Everything just works until the awful built in media management applications corrupts your media collection/destroys their metadata. Everything just works till their terrible disk format results in an undetectable error that slowly corrupts your files until even most of your backups have been quietly corrupted. Everything just works till the UI for resolution becomes permanently scrambled and doesn't allow you to switch away from Fischer Price mode on the retina MacBook you use for development. Using Apple computers has thoroughly disabused me of the notion that there is anything in the world that "just works" for anything but the most hilariously trivial use cases. It's a flawed platform just like all the others.
ramy_d 10y ago
on the topic of a nice GUI git client, what do people have to say about git kraken https://www.gitkraken.com/ https://www.gitkraken.com/? It is cross platform for win/mac/linux
- zbuttram 10y ago
  I use it pretty much every day and it's very nice, especially for free. They've had their fair share of bugs, but patches come out pretty quick. Still interested in looking at Tower's new Windows version at some point, but I have a feeling I might stick with GitKraken on all platforms.
FT_intern 10y ago
Where's the video games tho. Linux could get huge market share from gamers who want to get their geek on.
- ohstopitu 10y ago
  I would love to add video games to that list but I have not looked into the data for game distribution - Steam claims that it has over 1000 games for Linux but Microsoft also claimed it has millions of apps for Windows Phone and that didn't help it get wide adoption. I will probably look into various factors (support for the latest hardware out of the box, game libraries, support for Linux by popular games from day 1 etc.) but from the last time I had looked into it (back in 2013), Linux was definitely not "gamer" friendly - (Everything from drivers, random bugs and game libraries). The reason I added those points to that list is because, in my opinion...those are easily achievable in the next 5 years (but that's definitely not the case for games at the moment).
  - sqeaky 10y ago
    > Steam claims > Microsoft also claimed One of these groups is honest and has publicly checkable sources. I can confirm just by opening steam that there are more than 1,000 games that support Linux. Most of them are indie games released for the the 3 PC platforms, there are a fewer larger titles, but the biggest names are avoiding Linux and sometimes even Mac OS now. So while Guacamelee, Braid, Dustforce and Kerbal Space program work on all three, Doom and GTA 5 don't.
clarry 10y ago
Maybe there are developers who really just want more stuff. But I think there are people who would prefer it more if it were simpler and better documented, more stable, etc.
JonoBB 10y ago
1. SmartGit works perfectly on ubuntu
- ohstopitu 10y ago
  I've used Smartgit and I still use it as my daily client but in recent updates it seems to have issues (Eg. git log seems to crash it) Furthermore, one of the biggest issues I've had is the fact that it does not have a tree view for it's files - instead it lists files and directories separately.
budward 10y ago
TLDR; Laziness creates bad habits and bad habits perpetuate bad decisions, and crappy software and hipsters wearing skinny jeans create security nightmares. --------- The fact that the OP said "MS Office" on linux just makes me cringe. Why put bloated closed-source software like that on your linux box? The very fact of entertaining the idea of this as if it is acceptable, screams, "grab the clue stick!" Since Ubuntu and Mint came along (and other plug & compute distros), they allow users to run linux without understanding their OS/Tools at a basic and fundamental level. I'd like to see all these Ubuntu users take a trip to the mid 90's and even complete an install. Problems weren't solved by Google search or Stack Overflow, they didn't exist. If you had an issue, you either figured it out by reading/patching source, IRC, or mailing lists, what open source project didn't run majordomo? When asking questions on IRC, you were more likely to get help if you had some semblance of a clue as to what your tool did and how it did it. At the very least, it was expected that you read through the man pages, provided pastes of any error and of course articulated your questions in a reasonably intelligent way. The days of OS wars are seemingly over, that is not that point at all here. People use what they want to use, I get that. However, thinking nix would be better if it had support for"MS Office" ..to suggest such is antithetical to the most basic principals of open source. I'm not at all saying that people who use Ubuntu are not intelligent, but I am saying that many newer users are lazy and as a result can be a detriment to their systems, as well as others in the community. Whomever started with this "sudo su" stuff and spread it around just proves my point. They obviously have not read any sudo related documentation. Of course Ubuntu's default configuration for sudo is less than ideal, but a little time spent RTFM (can't remember the last time I heard someone say RTFM) they'd see that there is no need to use "sudo su" whatsoever. There is a much cleaner way to accomplish the same thing using sudo. It's lazy and dumb period. Makes me wonder if these users even know anything at all about their shell, and I net these users use ZSH too. Worse than that is -- and this has been one of my strongest pet peeves -- "using curl/wget to pipe scripts over http(s) to sh" There was an article about this on HN recently and the author said, "Friends don't let friends pipe to sh" so true! Is it laziness or pure stupidity? How many actually read the script first? If this mechanism becomes commonly acceptable, these new nix users are going to create an economic boom for security professionals. I honestly don't know a single SysAdmin who would ever do this. I am glad others actually have a clue and are speaking up about how dumb it is. Sadly, many open source projects and their talented developers are using this approach and perpetuating it. I won't name names.

zython 10y ago

what about gitkraken as an intuitive git client. better than sourcetree and tower by far IMO

ohstopitu 10y ago
Gitkraken is pretty nice! That said, it seems to have some issues every now and then (for example, I had to increase an Inotify watch limit). * You can't seem to re-order the UI - which would have been great! * Auto save working copy as a stash when switching branches (Sourcetree does this) And finally, I had read an HN thread about it having some vague issues with it's agreement (but I have not read the agreement so I don't know about any specifics).
- kevinherron 10y ago
  I've had to increase the watch limit for Intellij IDEA too. I think it's common for applications dealing with a lot of files at once.

joshstrange 10y ago

If you are working with code (re: git) I find the JetBrains products built in git to be all I really want out of a "GUI git client". I drop to the CLI for some more complex stuff but basic push/commit/merge I normally just stay in the IDE.

dave_sullivan 10y ago

Yeah, agreed. Even though I use linux every day (and have been a linux user for nearly 20 years), I've always needed a windows box too. One with lots of ram, solid single core performance, and a nice gpu. I need windows for: MS Office (I still can't stand libre office), adobe suite (mostly photoshop, but also AE, Premier), 3ds max, zbrush, all the games. I think that's it though, I think I have solid linux alternatives for everything else. There are occasional one offs with Windows where some application I need works in Windows but not linux. This can just as easily go the other way (cool little app only for linux). I have no problem with linux on the desktop and use it every day, but I have a windows box right next to it sharing the same mouse and keyboard with synergy. It's been the most practical solution for me.

babuskov 10y ago

I have been using Linux on desktop since 2002. 1. git-gui and gitk do the job just fine. I never felt a need for anything else. I have no idea what Tower or Sourcetree does, but doing stuff with git is less than 1% of my development time, so really fail to see what I could be missing? 2. I developed some cross-platform gui programs using wxWidgets and wxFormBuilder was fine. Not Delphi level of WYSIWYG but did the job quickly. 3. What's that, care to give an example? The reason I switched to Mac after 12 years on Linux was because I got tired of having to fiddle with the system. It's nice when you have a lot of time or while you are learning a new OS, but these days I just want things to work out of the box. I was seriously considering Windows at one point, but then I got a Mac Mini to develop some iOS stuff. Initially, I set it up as dual boot, but I spent more and more time in OSX and finally just stayed there all the time. Installed software I was missing and done. I wish Linux all the best luck and I'm still using it on servers, but I'm not sure it can reach that level of Things Just Working(tm). Windows has a huge number of payed developers to make it happen. Mac has locked themselves down to just a couple of types of hardware and manage to do the same with less people. It seems to me that Linux tries to cover the widest possible hardware range with comparatively smaller team - and many developers don't care about UX that much. I know, because I developed some open source programs, and I'm guilty of that as well.

sqeaky 10y ago
I think the "Just working" argument is too subjective. Ubuntu just works, unless you have some specific hardware that is too obscure or new. Then one day someone starts expecting you use files from some obscure source and you need an application that isn't on Linux. Windows just works, until you need to re-install because of virus and need to track down drivers. Then you realize the version of office was some weird OEM license and need to figure something else out. I am sure Mac OS X has problems too but I haven't used it much. All these things are so advanced that they just work... until they don't for you.
- lelandbatey 10y ago
  Mac OS X just works until one day the UI locks up and App store updates hang, and the computer becomes an unusable brick because nothing can be read from the disk after the non-replaceable SSD because it died (happened to me two weeks ago). Everything just works until the awful built in media management applications corrupts your media collection/destroys their metadata. Everything just works till their terrible disk format results in an undetectable error that slowly corrupts your files until even most of your backups have been quietly corrupted. Everything just works till the UI for resolution becomes permanently scrambled and doesn't allow you to switch away from Fischer Price mode on the retina MacBook you use for development. Using Apple computers has thoroughly disabused me of the notion that there is anything in the world that "just works" for anything but the most hilariously trivial use cases. It's a flawed platform just like all the others.

ramy_d 10y ago

on the topic of a nice GUI git client, what do people have to say about git kraken https://www.gitkraken.com/ https://www.gitkraken.com/? It is cross platform for win/mac/linux

zbuttram 10y ago
I use it pretty much every day and it's very nice, especially for free. They've had their fair share of bugs, but patches come out pretty quick. Still interested in looking at Tower's new Windows version at some point, but I have a feeling I might stick with GitKraken on all platforms.

FT_intern 10y ago

Where's the video games tho. Linux could get huge market share from gamers who want to get their geek on.

ohstopitu 10y ago
I would love to add video games to that list but I have not looked into the data for game distribution - Steam claims that it has over 1000 games for Linux but Microsoft also claimed it has millions of apps for Windows Phone and that didn't help it get wide adoption. I will probably look into various factors (support for the latest hardware out of the box, game libraries, support for Linux by popular games from day 1 etc.) but from the last time I had looked into it (back in 2013), Linux was definitely not "gamer" friendly - (Everything from drivers, random bugs and game libraries). The reason I added those points to that list is because, in my opinion...those are easily achievable in the next 5 years (but that's definitely not the case for games at the moment).
- sqeaky 10y ago
  > Steam claims > Microsoft also claimed One of these groups is honest and has publicly checkable sources. I can confirm just by opening steam that there are more than 1,000 games that support Linux. Most of them are indie games released for the the 3 PC platforms, there are a fewer larger titles, but the biggest names are avoiding Linux and sometimes even Mac OS now. So while Guacamelee, Braid, Dustforce and Kerbal Space program work on all three, Doom and GTA 5 don't.

clarry 10y ago

Maybe there are developers who really just want more stuff. But I think there are people who would prefer it more if it were simpler and better documented, more stable, etc.

JonoBB 10y ago

1. SmartGit works perfectly on ubuntu

ohstopitu 10y ago
I've used Smartgit and I still use it as my daily client but in recent updates it seems to have issues (Eg. git log seems to crash it) Furthermore, one of the biggest issues I've had is the fact that it does not have a tree view for it's files - instead it lists files and directories separately.

budward 10y ago

TLDR; Laziness creates bad habits and bad habits perpetuate bad decisions, and crappy software and hipsters wearing skinny jeans create security nightmares. --------- The fact that the OP said "MS Office" on linux just makes me cringe. Why put bloated closed-source software like that on your linux box? The very fact of entertaining the idea of this as if it is acceptable, screams, "grab the clue stick!" Since Ubuntu and Mint came along (and other plug & compute distros), they allow users to run linux without understanding their OS/Tools at a basic and fundamental level. I'd like to see all these Ubuntu users take a trip to the mid 90's and even complete an install. Problems weren't solved by Google search or Stack Overflow, they didn't exist. If you had an issue, you either figured it out by reading/patching source, IRC, or mailing lists, what open source project didn't run majordomo? When asking questions on IRC, you were more likely to get help if you had some semblance of a clue as to what your tool did and how it did it. At the very least, it was expected that you read through the man pages, provided pastes of any error and of course articulated your questions in a reasonably intelligent way. The days of OS wars are seemingly over, that is not that point at all here. People use what they want to use, I get that. However, thinking nix would be better if it had support for"MS Office" ..to suggest such is antithetical to the most basic principals of open source. I'm not at all saying that people who use Ubuntu are not intelligent, but I am saying that many newer users are lazy and as a result can be a detriment to their systems, as well as others in the community. Whomever started with this "sudo su" stuff and spread it around just proves my point. They obviously have not read any sudo related documentation. Of course Ubuntu's default configuration for sudo is less than ideal, but a little time spent RTFM (can't remember the last time I heard someone say RTFM) they'd see that there is no need to use "sudo su" whatsoever. There is a much cleaner way to accomplish the same thing using sudo. It's lazy and dumb period. Makes me wonder if these users even know anything at all about their shell, and I net these users use ZSH too. Worse than that is -- and this has been one of my strongest pet peeves -- "using curl/wget to pipe scripts over http(s) to sh" There was an article about this on HN recently and the author said, "Friends don't let friends pipe to sh" so true! Is it laziness or pure stupidity? How many actually read the script first? If this mechanism becomes commonly acceptable, these new nix users are going to create an economic boom for security professionals. I honestly don't know a single SysAdmin who would ever do this. I am glad others actually have a clue and are speaking up about how dumb it is. Sadly, many open source projects and their talented developers are using this approach and perpetuating it. I won't name names.