4 ms·

Every day, I start up a computer running OS X. Then, I proceed to fire up virtual machines for two Linux distributions, Windows XP, and Windows 7. I occasional

by Spyro7 14y ago

Every day, I start up a computer running OS X. Then, I proceed to fire up virtual machines for two Linux distributions, Windows XP, and Windows 7. I occasionally play around with a headless system that I have running FreeBSD. Then I may power up my iPod Touch to test recent changes to my mobile site. I also do a significant quantity of work while I am logged into a remote debian server via ssh. I doubt that I am the only developer with this type of daily routine. I actually do think that this poll is pretty nifty (and I checked off OS X), but I think that it is still worth observing that the term "primary operating system" just doesn't quite carry the same weight as it used to.

Argorak 14y ago
I use something like: "OS X is my host operating system. I develop on Linux."
- girardy 14y ago
  Depending on how you use it, OS X can feel a lot like Linux. If you're spending most of your time in Terminal and Emacs, usually ssh'ed into a server, then your technical answer will diverge pretty far from your "real" or metaphysical answer.
  - Argorak 14y ago
    I work for multiple clients. After messing a few years with "I need a postgres for this one, a mysql for this one and sometimes, things just break on the live server because Mac OS X is almost linuxlike", I switched to a fully virtualized development stack and haven't looked back since. So the answer is not metaphysical, but true.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  I have tried similar to this but always find the experience of running desktop software on a VM to be lacking. Just things like resizing windows or minimising things becomes clunky enough that I prefer to just native boot into whatever I plan to use.
  - Argorak 14y ago
    I can't comment on that. I don't develop anything that requires a GUI on the machine. I just ssh into the machine and do my thing there. All editing/browser viewing is done on the host.
- r00fus 14y ago
  This is my case - whether it's a Linux VM or on the cloud, the server OS is Linux. For my desktop, OSX provides the best combination of spatial window management (you can drag-drop nearly anything - esp. text without wiping the clipboard buffer), terminal friendliness, and MS Office (yes, Excel is still better than alternatives). Lots of hidden gems and a sustainable indie dev market. I don't play much more than the occasional Nethack, so my need for Windows is pretty limited.
adamkhrona 14y ago
Same here, as a developer of a cross-platform library, this is the only configuration that works for us. By restricting virtualization of OSX, Apple has effectively forced most developers to use this configuration.
mitsche 14y ago
Yes. I use OS X for browsing the web, web-development, graphic design, video editing, and writing. I use Windows 7 for music production and playing video games. At some point I want to start dabbling in game development, in which case I'll probably go with Windows for that, too. I ssh into various Linux servers privately and at work. In my spare I sometimes play around with Linux distros on my desktop just to learn about the current state of affairs. I usually can't see any advantages in it over OS X other than the fact that's it's free software and that it runs on cheap hardware. I keep being curious though. I don't use any virtual machines because I dislike the sluggishness and I don't really need them. Sometimes I wish I could get by with only one OS without feeling crippled in some respect. My dream setup would probably be an OSS system that's great with multimedia stuff and has about a 99% adoption so hardware would be supported really well. But that thought depresses me because it reminds me of the state reality is in, so I try not to have it.
- drewcrawford 14y ago
  > I use Windows 7 for music production I am fascinated by this claim. The last time I looked at Windows for music production was a long time ago, but back then CoreAudio beat the pants off of ASIO for real-time work. Is that not still the case? What software do you use? Two packages that I use heavily, Logic and DP7 are mac-only.
  - mitsche 14y ago
    I use Reaper by Cockos. I make rock music. I have previously used Cubase and Sonar. Regarding ASIO vs. CoreAudio performance: http://www.dawbench.com/win7-v-osx-1.htm http://www.dawbench.com/win7-v-osx-1.htm There are a few freeware plug-ins I use that are Windows only. If I could afford to buy Altiverb 7 right now, which is OS X only, I'd probably switch to OS X (at least till Altiverb came out for Windows).
    - conradfr 14y ago
      I use Reaper on Win7 as well. It is available on OSX though. Mac is a better platform for audio but the difference is getting smaller. It's true that they are a lot more freeware (vst) plugins on Windows. Great one like http://varietyofsound.wordpress.com http://varietyofsound.wordpress.com for example.
silasb 14y ago
OT question for you: I'm a developer that does a lot of web development, from Perl to RoR. When I end up starting more than 1 VM with 4 GB RAM, my computer literally dies with Mac OS X. Now this is all with VirtualBox, which I suspect isn't the best all around VM application. For some reason I feel that it is the crappy memory management with OS X that is killing me. Other than getting more RAM do you do anything special? What VM software and how much RAM you running.
- Argorak 14y ago
  First, even if its the answer you ruled out: get a machine with lots of RAM. Don't care about the rest, even an SSD is not that important, just cram as much of RAM into the machine as possible. 8GB would be good, 16 is better. Make sure that the OS has enough space to shuffle memory. Use tiny VMs. Most development stacks do actually fit in 512MB, as long as there is nothing else running. Pay attention about which parts of your dev stack do actually consume the memory. In my case, it's mostly in-memory databases. Sample those for smaller datasets, its good practice anyways. If its still not enough, use odd values like 700MB. Rule memory leaks out (this is one of the big advantages of small VMs: memory leaks are easy to find). Also, use one VM per project. Unless projects are tiny, putting 2 in one VM only replicates the problems of your host-system. Finally, I also use VirtualBox with Vagrant and am quite okay with it.
  - silasb 14y ago
    This is what I'm thinking, I'm kinda spoiled at home with both my main box and my VM server each having 8 GB. You do make a good point about the extra cruft that isn't needed for a VM. I should actually know this as I have several LEBs on the web and optimize them highly for low memory usage. I guess personal time < work time.
- TylerE 14y ago
  What's your machine? More RAM would certainly help, more CPU cores (real cores, not hyper-threaded "virtual" cores) will too.
  - 14y ago
matwood 14y ago
That used to be my routine at my old job. Fire up WinXP and Win7 VMs to do .net development and other client work. My new job doesn't require interacting with Windows at all so I work in OSX/sshed linux sessions all day.

by Spyro7 14y ago

Argorak 14y ago

I use something like: "OS X is my host operating system. I develop on Linux."

girardy 14y ago
Depending on how you use it, OS X can feel a lot like Linux. If you're spending most of your time in Terminal and Emacs, usually ssh'ed into a server, then your technical answer will diverge pretty far from your "real" or metaphysical answer.
- Argorak 14y ago
  I work for multiple clients. After messing a few years with "I need a postgres for this one, a mysql for this one and sometimes, things just break on the live server because Mac OS X is almost linuxlike", I switched to a fully virtualized development stack and haven't looked back since. So the answer is not metaphysical, but true.
jiggy2011 14y ago
I have tried similar to this but always find the experience of running desktop software on a VM to be lacking. Just things like resizing windows or minimising things becomes clunky enough that I prefer to just native boot into whatever I plan to use.
- Argorak 14y ago
  I can't comment on that. I don't develop anything that requires a GUI on the machine. I just ssh into the machine and do my thing there. All editing/browser viewing is done on the host.
r00fus 14y ago
This is my case - whether it's a Linux VM or on the cloud, the server OS is Linux. For my desktop, OSX provides the best combination of spatial window management (you can drag-drop nearly anything - esp. text without wiping the clipboard buffer), terminal friendliness, and MS Office (yes, Excel is still better than alternatives). Lots of hidden gems and a sustainable indie dev market. I don't play much more than the occasional Nethack, so my need for Windows is pretty limited.

adamkhrona 14y ago

Same here, as a developer of a cross-platform library, this is the only configuration that works for us. By restricting virtualization of OSX, Apple has effectively forced most developers to use this configuration.

mitsche 14y ago

Yes. I use OS X for browsing the web, web-development, graphic design, video editing, and writing. I use Windows 7 for music production and playing video games. At some point I want to start dabbling in game development, in which case I'll probably go with Windows for that, too. I ssh into various Linux servers privately and at work. In my spare I sometimes play around with Linux distros on my desktop just to learn about the current state of affairs. I usually can't see any advantages in it over OS X other than the fact that's it's free software and that it runs on cheap hardware. I keep being curious though. I don't use any virtual machines because I dislike the sluggishness and I don't really need them. Sometimes I wish I could get by with only one OS without feeling crippled in some respect. My dream setup would probably be an OSS system that's great with multimedia stuff and has about a 99% adoption so hardware would be supported really well. But that thought depresses me because it reminds me of the state reality is in, so I try not to have it.

drewcrawford 14y ago
> I use Windows 7 for music production I am fascinated by this claim. The last time I looked at Windows for music production was a long time ago, but back then CoreAudio beat the pants off of ASIO for real-time work. Is that not still the case? What software do you use? Two packages that I use heavily, Logic and DP7 are mac-only.
- mitsche 14y ago
  I use Reaper by Cockos. I make rock music. I have previously used Cubase and Sonar. Regarding ASIO vs. CoreAudio performance: http://www.dawbench.com/win7-v-osx-1.htm http://www.dawbench.com/win7-v-osx-1.htm There are a few freeware plug-ins I use that are Windows only. If I could afford to buy Altiverb 7 right now, which is OS X only, I'd probably switch to OS X (at least till Altiverb came out for Windows).
  - conradfr 14y ago
    I use Reaper on Win7 as well. It is available on OSX though. Mac is a better platform for audio but the difference is getting smaller. It's true that they are a lot more freeware (vst) plugins on Windows. Great one like http://varietyofsound.wordpress.com http://varietyofsound.wordpress.com for example.

silasb 14y ago

OT question for you: I'm a developer that does a lot of web development, from Perl to RoR. When I end up starting more than 1 VM with 4 GB RAM, my computer literally dies with Mac OS X. Now this is all with VirtualBox, which I suspect isn't the best all around VM application. For some reason I feel that it is the crappy memory management with OS X that is killing me. Other than getting more RAM do you do anything special? What VM software and how much RAM you running.

Argorak 14y ago
First, even if its the answer you ruled out: get a machine with lots of RAM. Don't care about the rest, even an SSD is not that important, just cram as much of RAM into the machine as possible. 8GB would be good, 16 is better. Make sure that the OS has enough space to shuffle memory. Use tiny VMs. Most development stacks do actually fit in 512MB, as long as there is nothing else running. Pay attention about which parts of your dev stack do actually consume the memory. In my case, it's mostly in-memory databases. Sample those for smaller datasets, its good practice anyways. If its still not enough, use odd values like 700MB. Rule memory leaks out (this is one of the big advantages of small VMs: memory leaks are easy to find). Also, use one VM per project. Unless projects are tiny, putting 2 in one VM only replicates the problems of your host-system. Finally, I also use VirtualBox with Vagrant and am quite okay with it.
- silasb 14y ago
  This is what I'm thinking, I'm kinda spoiled at home with both my main box and my VM server each having 8 GB. You do make a good point about the extra cruft that isn't needed for a VM. I should actually know this as I have several LEBs on the web and optimize them highly for low memory usage. I guess personal time < work time.
TylerE 14y ago
What's your machine? More RAM would certainly help, more CPU cores (real cores, not hyper-threaded "virtual" cores) will too.
- 14y ago

matwood 14y ago

That used to be my routine at my old job. Fire up WinXP and Win7 VMs to do .net development and other client work. My new job doesn't require interacting with Windows at all so I work in OSX/sshed linux sessions all day.