Long time OSX user. Great for web development.
Poll: What is your primary operating system
421–430 of 472 posts
Re: Poll: What is your primary operating system
#422Every day, I start up a computer running OS X. Then, I proceed to fire up virtual machines for two Linux distributions, Windows XP, and Windows 7. I occasionally play around with a headless system that I have running FreeBSD. Then I may power up my iPod Touch to test recent changes to my mobile site. I also do a significant quantity of work while I am logged into a remote debian server via ssh. I doubt that I am the…
I use something like: "OS X is my host operating system. I develop on Linux."
This is my case - whether it's a Linux VM or on the cloud, the server OS is Linux.
For my desktop, OSX provides the best combination of spatial window management (you can drag-drop nearly anything - esp. text without wiping the clipboard buffer), terminal friendliness, and MS Office (yes, Excel is still better than alternatives). Lots of hidden gems and a sustainable indie dev market.
I don't play much more than the occasional Nethack, so my need for Windows is pretty limited.
Re: Poll: What is your primary operating system
#423Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would just like to add that there is a valid reason why Linux or the *BSDs are superior to Windows or OS X - they are Free. As in Speech. And I'm sad this doesn't even warrant a mention.
Maybe I'm the only one... But as a professional developer working on everything from device drivers, embedded systems, up to your average LAMP stack and other web frameworks the "Freedom" of the operating system is worth exactly bupkis to me, ziltch, zero, nada. There are a whole host of reasons to use one OS over the other but this "Free as in Speech" is simply not a very good one. I'm far, FAR, more concerned about…
Productive in the short term or the long?
I'm decrepit enough that I remember the bad old days when proprietary OSes had a lock on things. I remember the number of times I ended up fucked because I couldn't look at the source of some crucial component, couldn't change it, and could only plead with a vendor to unbreak their stuff. And the standard response to my pleas was, "How many more units will you buy if we change that?"
I'm way more productive now thanks to the open source movement. My minor problems often turn out to be somebody else's big deal, so they end up fixed as if by magic. And if not, I can dig in myself, or hire someone instead.
No thanks to people like you, of course. But I owe a great deal to people who made the "irrational" choice to adopt an open platform and make it the most productive choice.
Re: Poll: What is your primary operating system
#424OSX vs Linux vs Windows vs XXXXX, I don't care a bit about it. I'm happy to see that people here use Linux more than windows :D
Re: Poll: What is your primary operating system
#425Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe I'm the only one... But as a professional developer working on everything from device drivers, embedded systems, up to your average LAMP stack and other web frameworks the "Freedom" of the operating system is worth exactly bupkis to me, ziltch, zero, nada. There are a whole host of reasons to use one OS over the other but this "Free as in Speech" is simply not a very good one. I'm far, FAR, more concerned about…
Well said. I agree. I work in a 99% Windows IT shop, therefore Windows is the OS that will help me get the most work done in the shortest amount of time. I run Fedora and FreeBSD virtual machines in my spare time, but for most of the day, I need to get things done and Windows 7 helps me accomplish the tasks set before me.
Dennis Ritchie said the universities he works at give him Windows computers and he installs cygwin immediately so he can get things done.
Re: Poll: What is your primary operating system
#426I used Windows for over 10 years and moved to a Mac in 2009. There is no way I am going back anytime soon. Amazingly, I only realized the problems with Windows after using the Mac for a while and then switching back to Windows for a day to fix an urgent issue. The usability issues lit up like lights on a christmas tree. Here is what happened. I tried to install a tool on Windows, which required an updated version of…
Your .NET problems are my java problems on OSX.
Yes it's the same, no it's not easier in any way. I get all kinds of alert boxes and inane dialogs in OSX. I develop all day on a mac and it's constantly annoying, as much or more so than windows7.
Re: Poll: What is your primary operating system
#427For desktop use I'm migrating back to Windows after having used Ubuntu almost exclusively for the past five years. It's a shame, because Ubuntu was soooo close to surpassing Windows from a "I just want to get stuff done without mucking with the machine" standpoint. But then Windows got much better with version 7 and Ubuntu took a nosedive into crazy UI fantasy land. The final straw was when text started randomly disa…
"Ubuntu took a nosedive into crazy UI fantasy land" Is that really your reason why you ditched linux???? It is so easy to install a different UI. Nothing is so clean and consistent as window maker or any other of the extremely lightweight UIs linux allows to use. Compared to that: whenever I start up Winodws (XP) in vmware to get my tax stuff done, I am horrified by all the messages that pop up (repeatedly), antiviru…
First off, occasional forays into Windows VM is always fraught with windows and AV updates - you can delay them if you're only in for a few minutes, but...
That evenutally got me to dust off an old netbook, use it as my windows "server" that faithfully wakes on LAN, and just keep that in the cupboard access through remote desktop (Microsoft makes a great OSX app for this).
Every week the machine wakes up, backs up (to image), fires off a bunch of updates, potentially reboots, then goes back to it's aquiescent sleep state.
The RDC is generally faster and has the upside that crazy activity on Windows stays on it's own hardware, and I don't have a crazy 60GB file that's clogging my backups - the netbook has it's own backup.
Re: Poll: What is your primary operating system
#428Every day, I start up a computer running OS X. Then, I proceed to fire up virtual machines for two Linux distributions, Windows XP, and Windows 7. I occasionally play around with a headless system that I have running FreeBSD. Then I may power up my iPod Touch to test recent changes to my mobile site. I also do a significant quantity of work while I am logged into a remote debian server via ssh. I doubt that I am the…
OT question for you: I'm a developer that does a lot of web development, from Perl to RoR. When I end up starting more than 1 VM with 4 GB RAM, my computer literally dies with Mac OS X. Now this is all with VirtualBox, which I suspect isn't the best all around VM application. For some reason I feel that it is the crappy memory management with OS X that is killing me. Other than getting more RAM do you do anything spe…
Why such intensely large VMs? I've gotten by with 256MB appliances that then get their source deployed into big iron on-site, or into the cloud.
Re: Poll: What is your primary operating system
#429Anyone would use OS/400 like me?
Re: Poll: What is your primary operating system
#430There are probably a large number of people that should've put iOS or Android but just aren't aware of it.