5 ms·

Why not use Linux? Same price point advantage, and even better than mac for development because you can develop on the exact same distro you will use for your

Why not use Linux? Same price point advantage, and even better than mac for development because you can develop on the exact same distro you will use for your server.

grover_hartmann 9y ago
Indeed, some advantages I can think of with Linux. * Containers (LXC, systemd-nspawn, Docker, etc. and native virtualization with QEMU/KVM), Apple doesn't even come close here. * Use the WM/DE of your choice. * Superior package management (pacman, apt, dnf, flatpak, etc). * Use the distro of your choice. * Use the latest GNU software unlike some crippled bash version like in Mac. * Decide if you want bleeding edge or not. * Use any hardware you want (older or new, Linux doesn't care and it will still perform well even with older hardware). * Get more performance with Linux.[1][2] * Freedom.[3] * Privacy, security and transparency. * Peace of mind, never be forced to upgrade your hardware or software. Your hardware is yours and you can use it until it literally breaks. You control your computer and not the other way around. IMO, GNOME 3 and i3/sway are way nicer than the GUI on macOS, and you can use all the same development tools and editors on Linux today, tmux, Vim/Neovim, Emacs, Atom, VS Code, Sublime Text, etc. There are so many other reasons.[4] Feel free to mention your reasons too. I don't see what's the appeal with Mac at all, it seems like you are just paying for a logo. [1] http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=macos-sierra-ubuntu&num=1 http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=macos-sie... [2] http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=macos-10125-linux&num=1 http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=macos-101... [3] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qH3v41JmyIg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qH3v41JmyIg
- willtim 9y ago
  Great summary. I'd like to add the nix package manager to your list. It allows non-destructive updates, rollbacks, parallel installs of different app/library versions, development environments and much more.
- majkinetor 9y ago
  Most of that is supported on Windows * Docker is supported and it will get better. Nano server supports it otb. * Chocolatey is a great package manager. Others also exist. * You can use most GNU tools. * You can use any hardware you want * Performance is good on Windows * Freedom, i.e. FOSS is ubiquitous on Windows too (not as much as on Linux for sure tho). * Privacy and security is good on Windows 10. Linux desktops are honestly not that safe. Things not supported on Windows are: * WM/DE - this is not a thing on Windows * There is only 1 distro of Windows, but you can basically create your own with package manager, its just there aren't currently any OTB. There are things Windows has better: * Powershell is way better shell then anything Linux has to offer. * Games still work better and there are more supported. * More commercial tools are available for Windows. Honestly, the only difference now is the culture around it. Although I use Windows as my desktop (which is irrelevant as I live in the shell and browser 24/7, so any OS will do), i prefer Linux engineers. Server side ofc. you can't really bit the fact that linux servers are mostly free of charge. Windows Enterprise is terribly expensive.
  - openplatypus 9y ago
    Honest question Did they solve long file/path name issue? Remember Windows 7 slow FS with large file count and npm/js breaking everything due to long, nested paths.
  - dorian-graph 9y ago
    > Honestly, the only difference now is the culture around it. .. and: * Freedom.[3] * Privacy, security and transparency. * Peace of mind, never be forced to upgrade your hardware or software. Your hardware is yours and you can use it until it literally breaks. You control your computer and not the other way around. ? Some things may exist (e.g. Chocolatey), but why not use a better package manager?
  - Ecksian 9y ago
    This is asking out of honest ignorance, but what makes PowerShell so much better than other shells?
  - grover_hartmann 9y ago
sangd 9y ago
I can write code on Linux, but I cannot run my accounting/finance/photosoft software. Sometimes I need to run test on IE too. I understand the love for Linux for some people, but I would like to get things done the quickest way, of course with the quality required too.
- mcappleton 9y ago
  Its a good point. Depending on how frequently you use it, dual booting is an option though. I switched from windows because Meteor was slow as molasses and I'm very glad I made the switch. Dev stuff just runs better on Linux in my experience.
- meitham 9y ago
  I use a powerful Linux laptop, a thinkpad, and run Windows VM for any software that's windows specific. It makes me sure I can isolate these untrusted applications from the rest of my data. QubeOS is a good OS to provide these isolation techniques.
zzalpha 9y ago
For me it's all about power management: Sleep and hibernate still manage to break periodically. Higher battery consumption unless I'm willing to break out powertop and tweak endlessly. Meanwhile, the dev I do is all cross-platform Java and scripting. WSL provides a useful unix-like environment when I need it. And when it really matters I break out a VM.
- willtim 9y ago
  Sleep and hibernate have never broken for me on various ThinkPads, what hardware and distro are you using? These days tlp gives power management on Linux a good set of defaults. Powertop tweaking should not be necessary as long as you use a distro that supports tlp.
  - zzalpha 9y ago
    Sleep and hibernate have never broken for me on various ThinkPads, what hardware and distro are you using? Happened right around the switch to systemd with Debian Sid on my old T410, which by that point was probably 5 years old. IIRC, the system would resume from sleep or hibernate but the console would not recover properly, so you had to force a VT switch to get the video to reinitialize. Just a huge PITA. I agree, it had been stable for some time up to that point, but when it broken again, that was the last straw for me, and as a consequence I've stuck with Windows 10 on my Carbon. These days tlp gives power management on Linux a good set of defaults. Powertop tweaking should not be necessary as long as you use a distro that supports tlp. Could be. But I'm happy with Windows 10 on my Carbon and have no intention of switching. It used to be that Linux was on balance the better choice for my use case, being more stable (as in, fewer crashes) and more transparent, with a superior dev experience. Yes, it was always a platform for tweakers... things never seemed to consistently work quite right (hell, back around 2010, it was a miracle if sleep or hibernate worked at all). But since you could open up the hood and mess around, I was willing to live with that given the benefits. As a result, for 20 years Linux was the operating system I ran on every piece of hardware I owned. I even built a 3-tuner MythTV backend and two front-end systems for my home back when I still had cable... you can't imagine all the tweaking! But over the years the gap has closed considerably. Windows has become substantially faster and more stable, and tools like WSL have made it a much nicer dev platform. Linux is still far more transparent, obviously, but the stability of Windows 10 means that just doesn't matter that much. Meanwhile, with Linux, in my experience the need to continuously tweak and deal with random breakages continues to be a fact of life, while distros have become far less transparent through the switch to systemd, making tweaking and fixing things substantially harder (trying to diagnose those issues I described earlier was basically impossible). As a result, Linux simply doesn't offer enough value for me, at this point, to motivate the hassle. Of course, as always, YMMV. Some people have a higher threshold for this stuff (certainly I used to be a lot more willing to put up with Linux's idiosyncrasies), and different hardware, distros, etc, perform differently. So I'm not going to claim my experiences are universal. But they are my experiences.
midnitewarrior 9y ago
Because then you have two environments to maintain, your Windows OS and then Linux too. It's much easier to do everything on your Windows PC instead of building two separate environments. Bash on Windows is the best of both worlds together.
- ageofwant 9y ago
  Which is why I got rid of Windows, it has nothing to offer that I need or want, so why bother with it?

Why not use Linux? Same price point advantage, and even better than mac for development because you can develop on the exact same distro you will use for your server.

grover_hartmann 9y ago

Indeed, some advantages I can think of with Linux. * Containers (LXC, systemd-nspawn, Docker, etc. and native virtualization with QEMU/KVM), Apple doesn't even come close here. * Use the WM/DE of your choice. * Superior package management (pacman, apt, dnf, flatpak, etc). * Use the distro of your choice. * Use the latest GNU software unlike some crippled bash version like in Mac. * Decide if you want bleeding edge or not. * Use any hardware you want (older or new, Linux doesn't care and it will still perform well even with older hardware). * Get more performance with Linux.[1][2] * Freedom.[3] * Privacy, security and transparency. * Peace of mind, never be forced to upgrade your hardware or software. Your hardware is yours and you can use it until it literally breaks. You control your computer and not the other way around. IMO, GNOME 3 and i3/sway are way nicer than the GUI on macOS, and you can use all the same development tools and editors on Linux today, tmux, Vim/Neovim, Emacs, Atom, VS Code, Sublime Text, etc. There are so many other reasons.[4] Feel free to mention your reasons too. I don't see what's the appeal with Mac at all, it seems like you are just paying for a logo. [1] http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=macos-sierra-ubuntu&num=1 http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=macos-sie... [2] http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=macos-10125-linux&num=1 http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=macos-101... [3] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qH3v41JmyIg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qH3v41JmyIg

willtim 9y ago
Great summary. I'd like to add the nix package manager to your list. It allows non-destructive updates, rollbacks, parallel installs of different app/library versions, development environments and much more.
majkinetor 9y ago
Most of that is supported on Windows * Docker is supported and it will get better. Nano server supports it otb. * Chocolatey is a great package manager. Others also exist. * You can use most GNU tools. * You can use any hardware you want * Performance is good on Windows * Freedom, i.e. FOSS is ubiquitous on Windows too (not as much as on Linux for sure tho). * Privacy and security is good on Windows 10. Linux desktops are honestly not that safe. Things not supported on Windows are: * WM/DE - this is not a thing on Windows * There is only 1 distro of Windows, but you can basically create your own with package manager, its just there aren't currently any OTB. There are things Windows has better: * Powershell is way better shell then anything Linux has to offer. * Games still work better and there are more supported. * More commercial tools are available for Windows. Honestly, the only difference now is the culture around it. Although I use Windows as my desktop (which is irrelevant as I live in the shell and browser 24/7, so any OS will do), i prefer Linux engineers. Server side ofc. you can't really bit the fact that linux servers are mostly free of charge. Windows Enterprise is terribly expensive.
- openplatypus 9y ago
  Honest question Did they solve long file/path name issue? Remember Windows 7 slow FS with large file count and npm/js breaking everything due to long, nested paths.
- dorian-graph 9y ago
  > Honestly, the only difference now is the culture around it. .. and: * Freedom.[3] * Privacy, security and transparency. * Peace of mind, never be forced to upgrade your hardware or software. Your hardware is yours and you can use it until it literally breaks. You control your computer and not the other way around. ? Some things may exist (e.g. Chocolatey), but why not use a better package manager?
- Ecksian 9y ago
  This is asking out of honest ignorance, but what makes PowerShell so much better than other shells?
- grover_hartmann 9y ago

sangd 9y ago

I can write code on Linux, but I cannot run my accounting/finance/photosoft software. Sometimes I need to run test on IE too. I understand the love for Linux for some people, but I would like to get things done the quickest way, of course with the quality required too.

mcappleton 9y ago
Its a good point. Depending on how frequently you use it, dual booting is an option though. I switched from windows because Meteor was slow as molasses and I'm very glad I made the switch. Dev stuff just runs better on Linux in my experience.
meitham 9y ago
I use a powerful Linux laptop, a thinkpad, and run Windows VM for any software that's windows specific. It makes me sure I can isolate these untrusted applications from the rest of my data. QubeOS is a good OS to provide these isolation techniques.

zzalpha 9y ago

For me it's all about power management: Sleep and hibernate still manage to break periodically. Higher battery consumption unless I'm willing to break out powertop and tweak endlessly. Meanwhile, the dev I do is all cross-platform Java and scripting. WSL provides a useful unix-like environment when I need it. And when it really matters I break out a VM.

willtim 9y ago
Sleep and hibernate have never broken for me on various ThinkPads, what hardware and distro are you using? These days tlp gives power management on Linux a good set of defaults. Powertop tweaking should not be necessary as long as you use a distro that supports tlp.
- zzalpha 9y ago
  Sleep and hibernate have never broken for me on various ThinkPads, what hardware and distro are you using? Happened right around the switch to systemd with Debian Sid on my old T410, which by that point was probably 5 years old. IIRC, the system would resume from sleep or hibernate but the console would not recover properly, so you had to force a VT switch to get the video to reinitialize. Just a huge PITA. I agree, it had been stable for some time up to that point, but when it broken again, that was the last straw for me, and as a consequence I've stuck with Windows 10 on my Carbon. These days tlp gives power management on Linux a good set of defaults. Powertop tweaking should not be necessary as long as you use a distro that supports tlp. Could be. But I'm happy with Windows 10 on my Carbon and have no intention of switching. It used to be that Linux was on balance the better choice for my use case, being more stable (as in, fewer crashes) and more transparent, with a superior dev experience. Yes, it was always a platform for tweakers... things never seemed to consistently work quite right (hell, back around 2010, it was a miracle if sleep or hibernate worked at all). But since you could open up the hood and mess around, I was willing to live with that given the benefits. As a result, for 20 years Linux was the operating system I ran on every piece of hardware I owned. I even built a 3-tuner MythTV backend and two front-end systems for my home back when I still had cable... you can't imagine all the tweaking! But over the years the gap has closed considerably. Windows has become substantially faster and more stable, and tools like WSL have made it a much nicer dev platform. Linux is still far more transparent, obviously, but the stability of Windows 10 means that just doesn't matter that much. Meanwhile, with Linux, in my experience the need to continuously tweak and deal with random breakages continues to be a fact of life, while distros have become far less transparent through the switch to systemd, making tweaking and fixing things substantially harder (trying to diagnose those issues I described earlier was basically impossible). As a result, Linux simply doesn't offer enough value for me, at this point, to motivate the hassle. Of course, as always, YMMV. Some people have a higher threshold for this stuff (certainly I used to be a lot more willing to put up with Linux's idiosyncrasies), and different hardware, distros, etc, perform differently. So I'm not going to claim my experiences are universal. But they are my experiences.

midnitewarrior 9y ago

Because then you have two environments to maintain, your Windows OS and then Linux too. It's much easier to do everything on your Windows PC instead of building two separate environments. Bash on Windows is the best of both worlds together.

ageofwant 9y ago
Which is why I got rid of Windows, it has nothing to offer that I need or want, so why bother with it?