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Linux on the Desktop as a Web Developer

nolanlawson.com

21–30 of 78 posts

Re: Linux on the Desktop as a Web Developer

#21
Does anyone else find these sort of articles strange? "Windows on the Desktop as a Developer" feels like the unique/odd case to me.

Perhaps I'm just getting old, or I'm stuck in a specific social group?

I don't mean to belittle the author at all, Linux just feels like an absolute default to me nowadays for a developer, in the late 90s that may not have been the case, sure.

Re: Linux on the Desktop as a Web Developer

#22
Just my 2c: I've been happily developing web apps and gaming on Linux (via windows VM) for the past 4-5 years and dread the thought of switching to Windows or Mac. I'm fortunate in that I run my own business so I get to choose all of my tools and tech. Haven't come across any workflow show-stoppers but I'm not working with legacy apps or systems so YMMV.

I like using as little resources for the base system as possible so I'm using Arch with awesome (WM).

For all my gaming needs I use vfio passthrough to reserve my GPU for my windows VM and get 90-95% native performance in the latest titles.

Re: Linux on the Desktop as a Web Developer

#23
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux)? After many years on Mac and then Linux, I switched to Windows and it's actually fine.

I worked on Windows for two decades and tried WSL1. Windows is not super annoying but as a developer all my tools were actually Linux native or cross platform so one day I just cut the middle man and switched to Linux. It wasn't such a big leap but my productivity definitely increased. WSL is nice when you don't have choice. Linux is actually the optimum choice for most developers.

Absolutely agree with your last two sentences. WSL is a nice stop-gap but I'd much prefer the real thing.

Re: Linux on the Desktop as a Web Developer

#24
I switched to Ubuntu about 6 months ago and have been shocked at how well it works. It's actually good, not just barely-workable-if-you-are-a-zealot.

I keep a Mac around for when I need to run Xcode or Photoshop but that's about it. And I boot into Windows when I want to play games.

Re: Linux on the Desktop as a Web Developer

#25

Does anyone else find these sort of articles strange? "Windows on the Desktop as a Developer" feels like the unique/odd case to me. Perhaps I'm just getting old, or I'm stuck in a specific social group? I don't mean to belittle the author at all, Linux just feels like an absolute default to me nowadays for a developer, in the late 90s that may not have been the case, sure.

I use Linux as my daily driver, and I would agree that unlike the late 90's, it's a fully viable option, for sure. Absolute default for everyone, though? Doesn't seem like it. Not sure if that's what you were saying or not, but Windows is definitely still the frontrunner by pure usage.

  Windows: 47.5%
  Mac OS: 26.8%
  Linux-based: 25.6%
  BSD: 0.1%
From the 2019 Stack Overflow Developer Survey: https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2019#technology-_-...

Re: Linux on the Desktop as a Web Developer

#26

I’ve been using Linux (Debian) on my work laptops for over a decade now but corporate IT is finally forcing me to switch to Mac for bullshit policy reasons. It doesn’t help that Zoom is buggy and the VPN client we are forced to use is Mac/Windows only. :( I wouldn’t go back to Windows for any reason short of a massive salary increase.

For work I've got an Arch-based desktop and a MacBook Pro 15". I'm almost exclusively on my desktop (lots of CPU horsepower and tons of RAM) and I use Zoom about 5-6 hours per day. I used the Zoom 4.x binary as well as now the 5.x binary versions that they offer. The experience has been solid for calls, sharing my desktop, etc. I'm curious what kind of issue you experienced.

I also agree about not going back to Windows. If anything, I'm really close to dumping my MBP and getting an XPS 13" 9300 and going full Linux.

Re: Linux on the Desktop as a Web Developer

#27

I've been using a Dell 13" Ubuntu 4K laptop hooked to a 43" monitor as my main work web development system for a year and a half. All of my co-workers use Macs. Pros: compared to Macs using Docker is very performant especially when sharing the host file system for development and once I found Regolith ( https://regolith-linux.org/ ) I don't think I could go back to a normal windowing system. Cons: non-Electron cross-…

Do you mind to share the model of your 43" monitor? I'm looking for a setup like yours, but I'm not really sure which monitor fits the purpose. Thank you!

Re: Linux on the Desktop as a Web Developer

#28
post #9

I’ve found it much easier than Windows. Can never get power shell to do what I want. Eg the other day a google QuickStart guide required setting a .sh as executable. Couldn’t figure that out. Been trying to install WSL2 for a month+ now. So now I’m just dual booting

WSL2 will be available in the Windows 10 May 2020 update that should be released end of May.

I tried during lockdown WSL and was impressed by the ease of use and how fast it started but there are a few quirks.

It is not a full featured Linux OS at your disposal. I tried the Ubuntu 20.04 LTS for instance and systemd did not work preventing from starting services with systemd (there are some workarounds), I couldn't mount FUSE filesystems (lack of modules) preventing from mounting SSHFS, gocrypts volumes.

I don't know if these issues will be fixed in WSL2.

Re: Linux on the Desktop as a Web Developer

#29
I'm a backend developer but after switching for Windows to Mac (and from C# to Go) about 8 years ago, I recently (in the last 6 months) adopted an almost exclusive Linux-only approach. My MBP has been great but ever since the Touch Bar and finicky keyboards that kept needing repairs from authorized retailers, I started looking more and more at Linux. All the production code runs in Linux and, while Docker on Mac is pretty good, it's pretty heavy (VM) compared to actual Docker on an actual Linux device.

So finally after taking a hard look at all the software I was using on a day-to-day basis including some JetBrains tools, Sublime Text, Slack, and a few others, I finally decided to go for it.

The only thing where the experience isn't working for me as well is 1Password. The Linux flavor (1Password X) is getting better and better all the time, but it's not quite as polished yet as 1Password.

To anyone looking to make the switch, go for it.

Re: Linux on the Desktop as a Web Developer

#30

Like OP, I switched to a Dell XPS from Mac. First with the pre-installed Ubuntu, then Xfce + Debian and now Debian + i3. It comes with headaches. Ubuntu (16)'s window handling was sometimes buggy for me. Xfce was fast and worked very well, but I wanted something with better multi-monitor support and even more minimalistic. i3 fits that bill nicely. I would not want to go back to Windows, Mac or Ubuntu for that matter…

Did you mean Ubuntu 16 (from 2016)?
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