What OS do you use for development?

#webdev #discuss #productivity #os

Do you mainly develop on single OS or multiple OS on separate machines?

If you work with multiple OS on a single machine, do you prefer to use dual boot or virtualization tech like VirtualBox, WSL, etc?

Oldest comments (116)

Adrian Emil Grigore • Sep 23 '20 • Edited

I run two VPS-es. An OpenBSD and a Void Linux one. I connect to them from a Windows computer.

peter279k • Sep 23 '20

I use Ubuntu, a Linux distribution a lot.

Afshar • Sep 23 '20

I am using Ubuntu, but it not very easy. The team is using Windows. Some of tools they use does not work properly on Ubuntu. Some others does not exists in the Ubuntu.

Louis Low • Sep 23 '20

Make the Windows software run hybrid on Ubuntu by using Virtualbox and or WINE. But I never find any difficulty looking development tool for Linux.

Afshar • Sep 23 '20

You make me less frightened. Almost all people around me are using Windows. Sometimes I feel a bit isolated. I use LibreOffice while people use Microsoft Office. People use MS SQL Management Tool while I have no other choice than SQLCMD in command line. This list is more longer.

Sanket Agarwal • Sep 23 '20

You also use office.com if you want Microsoft services.

darrentmorgan • Sep 23 '20

Yeah I agree with this. LibreOffice just doesn't cut it for some of the things I need to do. Office online is actually really good.

Mike Bybee • Sep 25 '20

If you need virtualization, KVM is more performant than Virtualbox. It's worth a little extra study to set it up, especially if you have an extra graphics card that can take advantage of GPU passthrough.

Louis Low • Sep 25 '20 • Edited

I would like to try on KVM one day. The GPU passthrough is an attractive feature to me. But Virtualbox works fine, the VM no lagging or choppy graphic on Adobe PS/AI. Just these two Windows softwares I have been using.

Nishchal Gautam • Sep 24 '20

For database, use jetbrains datagrip on Linux systems

bimlas • Sep 23 '20

I used Windows 7 + Kubuntu dual boot, but it was very cumbersome to have to switch between operating systems due to different features. I’ve also tried Linux running in VirtualBox for a short time, but it’s not effective in any way (it eats up a lot of resources, I don’t even get everything working in it, etc.).

Now I use only Linux Mint XFCE for work and dev (I realized that not only Windows but also KDE is redundant for me), Windows only for gaming with non-Linux friends.