What is your preferred Operating System for development?

OS X, Windows or Linux?

What version do you prefer? I know if I didn't say this, there'd just be people who say Windows or Linux so that's why I'm asking people to be specific.

I'm currently really liking Xubuntu. I've been using Ubuntu quite often during my placement and eventually I decided to try and dual boot my laptop with Windows 7 on it and also Xubuntu.

I recently got my first gaming PC and just installed the Windows 10 preview edition (very nice, much better than 8 btw!) for gaming and Xubuntu for development.

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Reply 1

Async

As long as I have my IDEs, I don't really care too much on the OS.

Reply 2

kelvinscor

Hi there,

As a dev, I think you might want to have both (to test your program in different OSs).

But to answer your question, I will give you my insight from company hackathons that I have attended.
- Most employees from Pearson and Facebook uses MacOS (Maybe because of it's Unix nature)
- Windows are 2nd favorite (I am using windows)
- Have never seen anyone using Linux

Your decision mostly comes down from what Programming language and/or IDE are you using.

For example, C# and Visual Studio (definitely windows).

Reply 3

thatllbeme

Definitely Linux, unless I'm doing something that's Windows-specific (C#, mainly...). My current dev environment is an Ubuntu/Fedora dualboot with GNU Emacs, but I keep Win7 on a spare hard drive to boot in to for gaming.
I use Linux for a couple of reasons: stability and speed (Windows is like a really drunk snail in that regard compared to Linux), accessibility of tools (I can run Python from the shell!), and sheer ease of development - working in the terminal is much easier than messing around in a GUI a lot of the time. I think once you set up a work environment that suits you, OS doesn't really matter, but I prefer Unix/BSD-based systems because I'm more comfortable working in them.

Reply 4

estel

Yeah, depends what I'm doing. For lots of web stuff these days it's nice to have a good shell, but for all the IDE stuff it either doesn't matter, or the IDE is platform specific anyway. My main work machine is a Mac.

Reply 5

Push_More_Button

For languages that are cross platform (C/C++, Java, Python, etc) it's gotta be Linux. I've always used RHEL/CentOS/Fedora but now I'm having to get used to Ubuntu.

Reply 6

Joseph Stalin

I run dual monitors now, with Windows 8.1, for all my development. But if I'm pentesting/hacking I run Kali Linux in a virtual machine on my windows OS.

Reply 7

bigboateng

Not windows. I current use Linux but gonna get a MacBook soon. I love programming on os x, the font looks awesome

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Reply 8

matty9

Thinking about it, I feel like switching back to Ubuntu, I went back to windows so I could mostly game I guess, but a Linux is the way to go for development. But Windows for things like game development and .NET languages.

Reply 9

bigboateng

Original post by matty9

You can always dual boot windows and linux. Linux/OS x is definitely the best os to program on, installing modules or packages is really easy if you have terminal

Reply 10

matty9

Original post by bigboateng

You can always dual boot windows and linux. Linux/OS x is definitely the best os to program on, installing modules or packages is really easy if you have terminal

Yeah agreed, I always duel boot them but the last time I did and stopped using Ubuntu I tried to delete the duel boot and my computer could never boot :s-smilie:

I would recommend using a VM too :smile:

Reply 11

Potally_Tissed

Windows. Primarily because neither the development tool nor the server instance for the software I work with will run on anything else. And also a bit because I really don't like Unix all that much.

Reply 12

MrDare360

I use Windows because of my video games but if I didn't game I'd be on Arch Linux which would probably be running Gnome or XFCE.

I know I can dual boot but I prefer not to have to reboot my computer just to play some games then reboot again to continue working.

Reply 13

FalseOverride

Tried Linux for a while and that was good with most libraries I required, then I moved over to OSX and much prefer that right now. I find Windows a hassle to work with in terms of development.

Reply 14

GiantKiwi

Use all 3 on a daily basis. As my preferred IDE is not platform specific, I can easily flit between them dependent on the derivative purpose at hand.

Reply 15

username1050473

I dual boot arch linux with Windows and I've set up a shared data partition with ntfs-3g so permissions are shared between the two OSs. Linux is definitely the nicer operating system to develop and work at because of the shell and pure customisation. If it wasn't for the fact that I develop for the universal windows platform I'd be on Linux permanently.

Reply 16

Cal97g

On my Ultrabook I solely boot Linux, on my Desktop I dual boot cos dem gamez.. if I want to actually get anything done I use Linux.

Reply 17

CodeJack

Windows, simply because I'm used to it and I have the best workflow with it.

Just updated to Win10 and so far, no real difference between Win8.1 dev wise.

Reply 18

illegaltobepoor

Puppy Linux. Simply because its so simple to use.

Reply 19

undead345

Linux purely because of its efficiency and speed being supreme to Windows. But I have Windows dual booted because while Linux is REALLY REALLY useful, it doesn't get EVERYTHING done :wink: