How many of you use a Linux distro as your primary desktop OS? • Hacker News Board

Re: How many of you use a Linux distro as your primary desktop OS?

#11

Post by blazing_grey » Tue, Nov 11, 2014, 11:12 PM UTC

Right now I'm on Arch Linux because it feels like a good balance of bleeding edge packages/flexibility/power-user elitism (meaning it caters to my desires as a software engineer), and large installed base causing there to be packages or some other support for most things (e.g. there's a PKGBUILD available that bends Valve's .deb distribution of Steam into a Pacman (Arch's package manager) package).

Rather than post a wall of text about the advantages I get, I'll link to a talk on the subject I recently did: http://lsh.io/plugtalk

The two big problems I find with non-Linux OSes are 1. lack of a good POSIX-style userspace or sufficient OS features to install one; and 2. welded-on, monolithic GUI layers - MacOS and Android are both nonstarters for me because they force me to use their very inflexible, very badly designed window managers (among other issues, but that's the one that's really unfixable due to the fundamental design on both OSes).

Re: How many of you use a Linux distro as your primary desktop OS?

#12

Post by S4M » Tue, Nov 11, 2014, 11:22 PM UTC

a) Linux Debian here.

b) Advantages I see using Linux on the desktop: I got fed up with the Windows UI when I switched to Linux couple of years ago, and I kept it because of the power of the command line and the possibility to change the Desktop Manager - I got to try Mac OS at work but couldn't stand it. Also it's really convenient to have on my desktop the same OS as my servers.

c) I would go back to Windows if I had to do something with Microsoft Excel - I find Open Office and LibreOffice to be quite limited compared to what Microsoft offers.

Re: How many of you use a Linux distro as your primary desktop OS?

#13

Post by temuze » Tue, Nov 11, 2014, 11:23 PM UTC

I have a dual boot Windows/Ubuntu computer. Now that Netflix supports the newest Chrome on Ubuntu, I only use the Windows computer for games. Google Docs solve most of my document related needs.

Re: How many of you use a Linux distro as your primary desktop OS?

#14

Post by parkie » Tue, Nov 11, 2014, 11:33 PM UTC

I use fedora as my primary OS.

I Love it, I maintain a few linux ( CentOS ) servers aswell as write alot of node/php/python/ember code that runs on those servers.

Advantages

a) flexibility and lightweight nature

b) very similar OS to the servers i maintain

c) memory usage ( laptop )

d) i prefer the package managers.

whilst i could perform the majority of my tasks on a mac... i dislike the

a) UI

b) package manager

c) defaults given ( keyboard shortcuts aswell as scrolling ones )

d) lack of flexibility

(note: i havn't really had a good play on a mac so all my listed disadvantageous would most likely be easy to resolve )

Re: How many of you use a Linux distro as your primary desktop OS?

#15

Post by robgibbons » Tue, Nov 11, 2014, 11:44 PM UTC

I use a Samsung Chromebook 2, with a chroot environment running xfce. This allows me to do all of my development tasks on a sub-$400 laptop, with over 8 hours of battery life.

I've worked at Apple, and I love Mac OSX, but the expense of owning a Macbook far exceeds any additional returns I would get by using one professionally.

Re: How many of you use a Linux distro as your primary desktop OS?

#16

Post by thethinker1032 » Wed, Nov 12, 2014, 12:01 AM UTC

I use Gentoo.

I like the level of customization it gives you, plus I ( this may be subjective) find it way more stable then Arch. I love the Portage package manager, and the low memory footprint (besides compiling).

Re: How many of you use a Linux distro as your primary desktop OS?

#17

Post by dil8 » Wed, Nov 12, 2014, 12:03 AM UTC

a)Archlinux

b) Love the package manager and user repository(AUR). Also the configurability to make it exactly how I want it. No bloatware that comes with the initial install. Great community and wiki.

c) As others have said, I sometimes find limitation with Libre and Open Office when compared to MS Office.

Re: How many of you use a Linux distro as your primary desktop OS?

#18

Post by psgbg » Wed, Nov 12, 2014, 12:09 AM UTC

1)I use Arch Linux.

I love it. It's flexible, it's powerful, it's configurable. I use it for programming in Linux (just a little) so having bleeding edge it's welcomed. I do not play much, but for the little games I play it's excellent if not wine is all I need.

Also I use Debian A lot. But not as my principal OS. I usually install it in PCs set some servers if needed and then ssh all the way.

Also I have some VMs, sometimes for experimenting (freebsd, some Linux distributions).

2)For the advantages of Linux: Probably the distribution software, but FREE SOFTWARE, that's the principal reason. If I could have installed all the libraries, have a posix system, system drivers, a good compiler and the usual desktop apps and Free Sotware then I'm done (Notice I don't have a problem with a NON FREE(LIBRE) OS if is affordable and comfortable enough)

Unfortunately I have issues in Freebsd with drivers, the distribution system in Mac Os X is meh (of course you have macports and homebrew) but again drivers. Windows has all the applications you want but it's unfriendly in the distribution software and no Posix. Then 8.1, I could install 7 but at this moment I don't have a reason.

3)So for the last part, no Linux it's the way to go.

Re: How many of you use a Linux distro as your primary desktop OS?

#19

Post by AdamWoods » Wed, Nov 12, 2014, 12:21 AM UTC

I guess you could call it dual-primary - I'm quite evenly split between Fedora and Windows.

I like Fedora because my work runs RHEL on its VMs and it is easy to have the two set up similarly. I like the package manager and the overall configuration of packages. The workflow is good and I love the power of a proper CLI.

Windows: For games (there's just not enough for Linux yet despite Valve's push), Visual Studio, Office (Libre/OpenOffice just doesn't quite work as well IMHO) and the Adobe suite.

Re: How many of you use a Linux distro as your primary desktop OS?

#20

Post by tluyben2 » Wed, Nov 12, 2014, 12:23 AM UTC

robgibbons wrote: post #15

I use a Samsung Chromebook 2, with a chroot environment running xfce. This allows me to do all of my development tasks on a sub-$400 laptop, with over 8 hours of battery life. I've worked at Apple, and I love Mac OSX, but the expense of owning a Macbook far exceeds any additional returns I would get by using one professionally.

Yep. For almost everything I do I can use the Samsung Chromebook (2012 model) actually which is under $200 if you look. It is light, long battery life, Linux 'installation' (Crouton uses the ChromeOS kernel, you're not installing a total distro) is a few minutes work and always works with all hardware supported (because ChromeOS does). Besides the bad ARM support of some software (missing GHCi...) it is perfect.

I use my macbook for iOS coding next to it when needed.