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

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

#61

Post by LarryMade2 »

Ubuntu (looking into Mint)

After having perfectly good documents/programs/hardware getting obsoleted by Microsoft, Apple and other private entities through the years. I switched to OSS, Took years to get proficient again but I have a lot less worry that one day X is just not going to work anymore.

If you can get some adequately advanced one that exists only as firmware that will be static for the rest of my life, that would be a compelling reason for me and a lot of other developers to switch - or at least adopt as a serious platform for development.

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

#63

Post by ishbits »

Fedora is my primary desktop. Been using it since Fedora 7. Used Ubuntu prior to that, and RedHat prior to that.

For work and play I run unix-type apps, that target Linux systems, so I've always found it better to be running on something close to what you deploy on. Sure you could use VMs, but its still not the same, you don't learn as much about Linux that way.

Over the years I've moved away from Linux laptops and now use a Mac laptop. Mainly to make my life simpler - who knows, maybe Linux on the laptop is better now? But 99% of my time working is on the desktop, and sometimes its nice to have access Mac apps.

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

#65

Post by logn »

davidgerard wrote: post #21

Xubuntu, because it stays the hell out of my way. Things running in it: Firefox (personal browsing), Chromium (work browsing), a buttload of terminals, KeePassX. I hope Xfce never pulls a GNOME/KDE and just keeps refining version 4 forever. When I hear the words "desktop" and "innovation", I reach for my revolver.

I also use Xubuntu and have no complaints. It's stable and unobtrusive. Xfce is the desktop for people who don't like to think about their desktops. As an added bonus, Xubuntu is the same underlying version of Ubuntu that my production servers use.

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

#66

Post by davidgerard »

logn wrote: post #65
davidgerard wrote: post #21

Xubuntu, because it stays the hell out of my way. Things running in it: Firefox (personal browsing), Chromium (work browsing), a buttload of terminals, KeePassX. I hope Xfce never pulls a GNOME/KDE and just keeps refining version 4 forever. When I hear the words "desktop" and "innovation", I reach for my revolver.

I also use Xubuntu and have no complaints. It's stable and unobtrusive. Xfce is the desktop for people who don't like to think about their desktops. As an added bonus, Xubuntu is the same underlying version of Ubuntu that my production servers use.

That last is our ironclad excuse for running Ubuntu rather than the corporate install of Windows 7 ;-)

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

#67

Post by robgibbons »

tluyben2 wrote: post #20
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 us…

The biggest drawback as you mentioned is the ARM support. I found I wasn't able to use SVN when the occasion arose, but otherwise there has been no reason to regret going with this Chromebook.
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