I always hear people talking about how great Linux is to use for development but I am curious what computers do you use? Is it a Mac or Windows machine with multiple boot options or do you buy something custom?
For further actions, you may consider blocking this person and/or reporting abuse
Oldest comments (59)
I tried Linux but was a completely failure xD, right now I'm using Windows 10 but I'm going to try Linux again but with multiple boot with Windows
I did a custom one.
I am using PopOS! 20.04
Hey man, I'm using PopOS! 20.04 too. What about hardware compatibility with AMD drivers?
Not sure, but it seems that is as good as Nvidia, but I am not able to testing.
I built mine.
I use linux on a PC (my own build) and my VPS and one of my laptops.
None of the physical machines I've owned were bought with Linux on. I've installed various distros over the years and rarely had any problem with hardware.
On the laptop front I generally use Dells or Thinkpads which are known to be a bit more Linux-friendly than some makes/models, but I've run Debian and Arch on HPs and Sonys with very little trouble.
If you want to go fully free-software you'll almost certainly run up against issues with wifi chipsets. This is because the manufacturers don't want to let people use their hardware with free software, not because of any technical limitations. You can get by with a USB dongle in a pinch.
Most people who use Linux though don't really care too much about free software philosophy and will install a bunch of non-free stuff on it immediately. If you're in that camp, you'll probably have a straightforward installation experience and not too many hardware issues.
There are forums heaving with people who've had the same problems before and found solutions already, so that's probably not a blocker.
And you can always test an OS out against your hardware with a live bootable USB drive - this doesn't affect the existing OS unless you choose it to.
Or you can play around with the OS inside a VM like VirtualBox.
Dells and Thinkpads seem to be quite popular with developers. If I was not a Mac user I would probably get one of those two makes.
I know several devs running linux on Macbook Pros.
;-;
Through bootcamp or virtualisation? Won't be able to use bootcamp on the new ARM macs when they come out. Not sure how well the performance will be using virtualisation.
Even the recent Touchbar MacBooks are hard to get running with Linux. There are all sorts of driver problems.
My desktop computer is actually a laptop connecting to an ultra-widescreen monitor + cozy keyboard + mouse that running Linux.
I just set up an 11 year old Dell Studio 1555 laptop to bring it some new life. Windows 10 was chugging along so slow with only a Core2Duo T6600, 4gb of RAM and a 500gb HDD. It's working so much better now. It's actually pleasant to work with now and gets tasks done easily. I'm just going to open it up and give it a 256gb SSD for a little more speed. I thought about opening it up for a RAM upgrade, but DDR2 RAM is so expensive for 8gb. As far as hardware problems I haven't found any so that's good news.
Wow, I thought I was the only one to rock age-old hardware but good to not be alone.
(And yes, do get that SSD upgrade. You'll love it.)
Yes Darshak, not only do I rock this particular machine with Linux, I also have an 11 year old Lenovo Ideacentre A600 AIO with a T6600 Core2Duo and 4gb of RAM and a 500gb HDD. Now this one has an excellent screen with Full HD. I'd like to pop an SSD into that one too. You are not alone my friend. I find it a waste to recycle or throw away good computers when they still have life in the with Linux running them.
I got a Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition about 5 years ago. It came with Ubuntu by default. The battery failed this year, but otherwise a good product.
I'm not sure if they still do that offer.
I think you can still choose Linux Ubuntu as the OS.
You know if there is any subtle difference in hardware between regular XPSs and Developer Edition XPSs?
I can't say for sure, as I haven't bought a regular xps, but I don't think so.
I've been using mostly custom machines that I built myself. I also have a VPS @ DigitalOcean.
As hardware vendors often don't supply Linux drivers for their shiny new hardware, you have to find out which hardware what and what to stay away from. Therefore the best rate of success is to build something yourself or buy a new rig from a PC vendor that supports Linux.
My journey as a Linux user started a few years ago with a dualboot setup, Windows on one partition and Ubuntu on the other (in fact RedHat was the first, back in 1997, but I failed getting it to work).
As time went by, I found myself using Ubuntu more and more. Having used Windows for 25 years, moving away is a bit of a process. I think Windows 8 was the final nail in the coffin. Windows 10 is cool, but you spend waay too long time waiting for updates.
Nowadays Ubuntu is my primary system while Windows lives happily inside a Virtual Machine. That setup is rock solid. I do miss gaming from time to time. But it can't beat the freedom of having access to every bit of source code of your system (almost... NVidia only supplies their proprietary drivers in binary form)
Microsoft really made a mess with previous versions of Windows that converted many people to other OS's. Agreed Windows 10 is much better but its hard to convert people back after such a long time. Memories last forever good or bad.
Yes, they do :) They should have offered both UIs alongside each other. That would have cost them less headache and users would be happy. But, well ... it's fun to try something new. I didn't know the concept behind tiling window managers like i3 before I started using Linux. It's a godsend feature, which helps me focus.
At work a generic notebook/laptop with an intel i7 on Windows - though I wish it was Linux.
At home a custom pc dual boot between windows (games) and ubuntu (productivity).
Specs are:
i7
some ram
rtx 2080ti
3x 27" monitors
mechnical keyboard (if you type a lot, please do yourself the favor and get one)
The monitor part is easily the most important when trying to be productive. At work I got 3x 24" screens, using 2 virtual desktops - making effective 6 screens - and I practically never see my wallpaper ;(
Sounds like a cool setup which mechanical keyboard do you have? I think the Keychron K2 is quite popular.
At home I use the Razer Huntsman with optical-mechanical (purple) switches. They're super light to press. Amazing keyboard really.
and at work a original Cherry MX Board 3 with blue switches. Don't use a keyboard like this in open-space-offices 'cause blue switches are stupid loud :D
I used to love Linux in any thinkpad I had. Nowadays I use it in a intel nuc i5.