Recently I decided that I wanted to switch from Windows 10 to a Linux distro as my primary operating system. Mainly because I've always found that the dev environments are a lot better on Linux (personally) and that I have a lot more freedom to mess around with the OS.
But the hardest decision was which do I chose? Linux is an
Open source, meaning anyone is free to commit code and obviously create their own operating system. Personally I went with Linux Mint (Cinnamon) for my new OS. But I still had other options in mind.
I made a table to showcase what I took into consideration, hopefully it may help you if you switch to Linux.
| OS | Environment | Purpose | Based on | Expertise required |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mint | Cinnamon, MATE, XFCE, KDE | General | Ubuntu, Debian | Low |
| Debian | GNOME, KDE, XFCE. LXDE (many more) | Community based, server, general use, other distros | N/A | Medium |
| Ubuntu | Unity | General | GNOME (Recent return) (Parts in Debian) | Low |
| Manjaro | Cinnamon, Enlightenment, XFCE, GNOME (+ others) | General | Arch | Medium |
| Arch | Cinnamon, GNOME, KDE | General use, server | N/A | High (pain to install) |
| Fedora | GNOME, KDE | General, testing sandbox | Red Hat | Medium |
| CentOS | GNOME, KDE | General, server | N/A | High |
I looked into quite a lot of Linux Distros before coming to my conclusion, these are the key factors I took into consideration before selecting. Before selecting I suggest you have a look at This website it allows choosing a distro based on your preferences and usage a lot easier.
In addition if you're dual booting it can be a pain in the ass to switch your OS every time in the BIOS. A friend of mine has shown me the rEFInd project it presents a customizable interface on boot to allow you to select your chosen OS.
Happy deving!
Latest comments (78)
Arch is definitely NOT a pain to install. It's been over-hyped by those who simply don't understand Linux. Additionally, any desktop environment can be installed on all of these distros, and limiting each machine to one is inaccurate.
Some years ago I used Ubuntu, I have used MacOS to and forth and nowadays I mostly use Debian... After seeing this table I think I'm more and more gravitating towards higher expertise systems. Well for now Debian feels nice and familiar for me, but maybe I should try Arch one day.
Debian is my go to for any basic installation. My personal laptop is Arch and the one from my employer is Cent OS. Debian and Cent OS are hard to mess up. If there is a package for it Debian probably has it in the repos but might be a few versions behind. Also, check out tiling window managers like i3 for more productivity.
Interesting, most of the distros listed (with exception of a couple) have worked perfectly from install, granted I've had to install the packages I need but that's obvious. WiFi, Bluetooth and 4k screens haven't been an issue. I currently work on a tower machine based of AMD architecture, I haven't yet looked into replacing my Macbooks OS. Is it only laptops you've found to have issues with?
There was a time when I was in the university I tended to format my laptop every 3 days testing Distros, eventually I realized that I always ended up going for ubuntu based distros because it suited me better, but also I realized that I ended up dual booting Windows 10 all the time, I sorted tons of mistakes and errors when it comes to partition and dual booting, it was a fun ride, specially when exams were close.
Now days I use Windows 10 with Powershell instead of cmd, that improved greatly how I worked on my dev envs, also thankfully many of the tools I used have vastly improved and they work as close as possible in linux and windows, so I don't have any problems/differences on my Linux machines and Windows machines.
I do use Linux too, I use Ubuntu budgie, which is a really neat distro with what I always use under the hood, when I don't use Ubuntu budgie, I use Manjaro, which is complicated sometimes when it comes to my dev setup, because many tools expect a debian/ubuntu based OS (though Manjaro does have an amazing community ensuring that stuff just works on it)
I've made the switch from macOS to Ubuntu 18.04 (for development only). I'm not an open source purist though. I still use proprietary tools like Intellij IDEA Ultimate, Dropbox and Spotify -> I do consider Spotify a dev tool... ;)
I chose Ubuntu because they have made the switch to Gnome which is my fav GUI. Also it just works well out of the box with the hardware I have.
While I like Apple, I came to realize that GNU/Linux gives you more freedom to pick your favorite OS using your favorite hardware.
PC-BSD was very interesting. But everytime I tried it, it didn't boot to the gui. Because of that I sticked with Linux.
I opted for Linux Mint Debian with the MATE desktop environment. :)
I've been a Linux user since 2016, started off with Mint, but I never could find a distro where I could stay more than a month or two...
Until Bionic was released this year, and I'm happily using Ubuntu MATE since then...
For any newbie user I'd definitely recommend UM, and then MX Linux...
I found MX very very well crafted and prepared, with Debian's reliable stability- the most complete distro I've ever seen and tried...
If I had another machine I'd definitely run that...
I'm using OpenSuse since 2002 !! Very good distribution, you should try it.