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Joseph Torres
6,282 PointsWindows or Linux for development??
I keep reading and seeing on Youtube and on the web that Linux is better for development in general than Windows. Is there a better distro for development? Should I hop on this as I may be asked to in a future development job?
1 Answer
Krahr Chaudhury
Courses Plus Student 139 PointsWhile it does depend on what you are developing, it's definitely worth doing some development on or at least using Linux.
Where I work, I do Java development on Windows, but I deploy the web applications on linux servers (which I guess is being used because it costs less (distro itself is free) in comparison to a Windows server (not free)) which requires knowledge in UNIX commands on the console.
If you're doing development with Ruby on Rails, Unix/Linux systems are supposed to be a lot easier - I've come across so many config problems with gems doing it on Windows (and yet I continue using Windows and persevere).
On the other hand, if you're looking to be a developer for something like C#, .NET, Xamarin, it would make sense to use Windows as Microsoft Visual Studio is the primary IDE.
Joseph Torres
6,282 PointsJoseph Torres
6,282 PointsThank you so much for your reply. Perhaps I shouldn't get so wrapped up in this yet however I know it's important. What is your preferred Linux Distro for development?
Krahr Chaudhury
Courses Plus Student 139 PointsKrahr Chaudhury
Courses Plus Student 139 PointsIn my very personal opinion, unless you're going to specialize in linux server administration or rely on you tweaking hardware performances (because configuring drivers for your PC hardware like graphic/sound cards can be annoying in some distros), I don't think it matters too much which one.
That said if you go with popular distros like Debian (particularly for servers), Ubuntu, Mint, you're bound to find good support from the community.
I've used a distro in the past called Crunchbang (#!) mainly because it simply looked cool (it was also very minimalistic so ran much faster on my late Netbook than Windows 7 did).