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Ask HN: What is the best Linux distro for a development laptop?

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Re: Ask HN: What is the best Linux distro for a development laptop?

#31

Post by btschaegg »

theboywho wrote: post #25

"what's the best X" is why most programmers waste their time shasing a myth. There is no best thing for all, it all depends on the individual. A better question would be "what's a good enough X" And then go from there to best suit your needs. A generic best X simply does not exist out of a context, and the contex is usually personal.

As a conventional conversation starter, maybe. But I found questions like these to spawn interesting discussions on platforms like HN - which is in the end, what we're here for, right? :)

Also, anyone commenting here about their personal favorite will most likely comment on why that distro is their favorite, which should at least be enough for OP to inform himself further.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best Linux distro for a development laptop?

#32

Post by th0br0 »

probinso wrote: post #8

I'm going on 9 successful years of fedora. I spent 4 years switching distributions ever couple months until then. I think its probably different for everyone.

I've been running Fedora Rawhide on my two systems for the past two years. It's surprisingly stable.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best Linux distro for a development laptop?

#34

Post by andrewvijay »

You could have mentioned what kind of development you do. Cause image JavaScript developer and I write go/rust sometimes. These things run great in Ubuntu for me. Also I think so Ubuntu has the highest market share among devs so choosing it can be a better option.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best Linux distro for a development laptop?

#35

Post by btschaegg »

RossBencina wrote: post #29

I see a lot of folks here recommending Arch. I got the impression that it might not be as stable or secure as say, Debian or Ubuntu. But I've found it hard to find reliable up-to-date info on this -- so I'm not sure whether it's just FUD. Can anyone comment on the current situation? Can you set Arch to automatically update with security patches only? Or is it an "updates include patches plus new bugs too" type situat…

As far as I'm informed, it's the second type only. You can't even fetch specific package versions (Pacman keeps old packages around if you ever need to downgrade to a previously installed version, but that's it). Of course, I could be missing something there :)

So yeah, you probably won't be using it for a web server or the like, but I wouldn't imply from that that Arch is to insecure to use as a dev machine.

As far as bugs go: There's a testing phase/repo for new packages, so it's not really likely that an upgrade will do much damage (and as I said, you can still downgrade if necessary).

Re: Ask HN: What is the best Linux distro for a development laptop?

#36

Post by kelnos »

Regarding your important points:

- All modern distros can run virtualized systems. You just need to install your favorite virtualization software (VirtualBox, qemu, VMWare, etc.).

- No distros have good battery management, at least not really on par with Windows, and certainly not on par with macOS. This is just the unfortunate state of affairs with the Linux kernel. Some of it is due to lack of focus on improving that aspect, and much of it is due to the difficulty of programming power management modes for various bits of hardware (a decent amount of this stuff isn't well-documented, or documented at all, depending on manufacturer). Using "powertop" (on any distro) can help you figure out the things that are eating into your battery and can help you reduce usage. TLP, a set of tools for configuring your system better for longer battery life, can also help, and should be available on most if not all distros.

Personally I run Debian (stretch) as on my main dev laptop, and it's been working well for me for years (well, jessie before stretch existed). I used to run Gentoo years ago, but got tired of long compile times. The flexibility of compiling or not compiling certain features into software just turned out not to be all that useful for me.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best Linux distro for a development laptop?

#37

Post by demonshreder »

RossBencina wrote: post #29

I see a lot of folks here recommending Arch. I got the impression that it might not be as stable or secure as say, Debian or Ubuntu. But I've found it hard to find reliable up-to-date info on this -- so I'm not sure whether it's just FUD. Can anyone comment on the current situation? Can you set Arch to automatically update with security patches only? Or is it an "updates include patches plus new bugs too" type situat…

Arch Linux doesn't have 'security patches only' option because they exist for older versions. All updates are just updates. You can however restrict a particular package from being upgraded and manually update it.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best Linux distro for a development laptop?

#38

Post by yomly »

lbruder wrote: post #10

I'd go for Mint. The only system that never disappointed me and always just worked. Second place would go to Debian "stable", old (== problems with Wifi) but rock solid.

I love cinnamon so that's a big plus on Mint but I didn't love being stuck on an old version of Ubuntu and all the associated core packages/drivers. I had some hardware issues that were fixed by using a more recent version (now on Fedora).

I'm by no means a seasoned Linux veteran though so just explaining that YMMV.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best Linux distro for a development laptop?

#39

Post by wyclif »

owaislone wrote: post #11

Ubuntu, Arc and may be Fedora. No need to look past these 3 unless you feel a bit adventurous.

Yeah, I came here to say this. Ubuntu (esp LTS) if you want "mostly just works, I don't want to spend time maintaining/configuring it", Arch if you're more adventurous and nerdy. Fedora if you are a "just works" person but are doing it on a ThinkPad.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best Linux distro for a development laptop?

#40

Post by btschaegg »

btschaegg wrote: post #18
amcrouch wrote: post #15

It's a matter of tools. All distro's are basically very similar but come with different desktops and package managers. I spent many years jumping around Debian and its derivatives but then I found Arch and it just felt right. I love the package manager and the fact I can control what I have installed. With a 9 cell Thinkpad battery and some cleaver settings I can last all day. I have to admit that these days I tend t…

When it comes to tooling, I found the packaging strategy of Arch to be pretty invaluable, too: - Pacman is a great package manager (esp. when compared to e.g. ´yum´). - The Arch User Repository ( https://aur.archlinux.org/ ) has a large list of additional packages maintained by the community. - The PKGBUILD format used by the AUR is easy to read and essentially just generates Pacman packages you can install alongside…

Another aspect of the AUR that I skipped: The way Pacman packages are set up, it's possible for multiple packages to deliver a certain functionality.

This allows for a great number of AUR packages (the ones ending with "-git", "-hg" or the like) that essentially download/compile a bleeding edge version from the according source versioning repo (e.g. on Github). If they're correctly set up, the system will recognize them as a replacement for another package, that might even be in the main system repos.

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