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Ask HN: Linux family vs. Mac OS X family for Development?

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Re: Ask HN: Linux family vs. Mac OS X family for Development?

#21

Post by smt88 »

Someone1234 wrote: post #19
smt88 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nicer GUI/UX is subjective. I find that the OS X GUI kills my productivity, but others may feel the opposite. Linux is highly configurable, at least, so you could get near-perfect OS X UI on a Linux machine. As for the hardware: I'm running Ubuntu on my MacBook Pro laptop, and it runs great. It boots much faster than my clean Yosemite install. In fact, Yosemite's performance was abysmal compared to Ubuntu.

This is a little off topic, but how is the battery life on your Macbook Pro when running Ubuntu? Last I looked Ubuntu ran fine, it just cut your battery life in half (actually both Windows and Ubuntu cut your battery life in half, when ran natively/bootcamp, and not via VM). So has that improved at all. It certainly hasn't on Windows on a Mac (the Apple bootcamp drivers are really unoptimised).

Battery life is about the same, but it was never great (13" 2013 MBP with HDD).

When I'm using my laptop (at a client, in a meeting, at the airport) I always have a power outlet, so my productivity is much more influenced by the OS than the battery life. Your lifestyle might be different.

Re: Ask HN: Linux family vs. Mac OS X family for Development?

#22

Post by sreenadh »

factorialboy wrote: post #14

For development, Linux for sure. OS X just annoys the hell out of me. The MBP hardware is good, but for the last few years there are some very good high-end Linux laptops as well. I personally use the Dell XPS 15: http://amzn.to/1EOPJtB

When I checked the link, it showed that the laptop comes with Windows. How is the driver support for Linux(esp. fan)? Which flavour are you using?

Re: Ask HN: Linux family vs. Mac OS X family for Development?

#23

Post by ptype »

vladimir-y wrote: post #18

I am also curious what are objective reasons to use OS X (apple laptops) over Linux for code developers? For code developers Linux is better, it's free and open, all sorts of trendy things more convenient to test and use on Linux, there is everything could be configured (and you will have to configure everything :)) Even for not code developers but picture/3d it's better to use laptops with pro graphic cards (FirePro…

Because time 'configuring' is time not coding...

Re: Ask HN: Linux family vs. Mac OS X family for Development?

#24

Post by loumf »

I am an iPhone dev primarily so I have to use OSX, which I am fine with.

I also do webdev in Django and that's fine too, but sometimes OS X likes to play with my python and mysql versions (especially on OS upgrades) -- since I don't have to do this every day (or even every month), I often spend the first few hours of a new task with it trying to figure out how to fix them.

I haven't switched to using vagrant for all server dev, but if I had to do it a lot, I would put my dev environment inside vagrant and isolate it from OS X. I deploy to Linux anyway, so there's no point in making it work on OS X.

Re: Ask HN: Linux family vs. Mac OS X family for Development?

#25

Post by vladimir-y »

ptype wrote: post #23
vladimir-y wrote: post #18

I am also curious what are objective reasons to use OS X (apple laptops) over Linux for code developers? For code developers Linux is better, it's free and open, all sorts of trendy things more convenient to test and use on Linux, there is everything could be configured (and you will have to configure everything :)) Even for not code developers but picture/3d it's better to use laptops with pro graphic cards (FirePro…

Because time 'configuring' is time not coding...

Actually some significant configuring is required only for non standard features, standard features usually are available of the box at least for popular Linux distributive (ubuntu, etc). Today, Linux is available variety, and for housewives as well.

Re: Ask HN: Linux family vs. Mac OS X family for Development?

#27

Post by factorialboy »

sreenadh wrote: post #22
factorialboy wrote: post #14

For development, Linux for sure. OS X just annoys the hell out of me. The MBP hardware is good, but for the last few years there are some very good high-end Linux laptops as well. I personally use the Dell XPS 15: http://amzn.to/1EOPJtB

When I checked the link, it showed that the laptop comes with Windows. How is the driver support for Linux(esp. fan)? Which flavour are you using?

It's very good. I'm making this comment from a Dell XPS 15 purchased last week.

I go rid of Windows 8 and installed Debian + XFCE.

Everything just works, no hardware driver hacks.

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