I asked folks on Twitter what operating system they use to write code and was a bit surprised. (The poll is still going on if you want to see the current results).
It looks like a dead heat between Windows and Linux. I expected much of my audience to be front end developers and web developers, who primarily use OSX. Most developers I talk to regularly use OSX, so I was surprised to not see it above and beyond the rest.
So what are YOU using as a "daily driver"? I'm curious to know. Whether you're a professional developer or a hobbyist tinkering around.
It wasn't long ago people would say things like "If you want to develop with {language / platform} then you must use {Operating System}. But it seems these days you can do whatever kind of development you want in each operating system.
Windows was the laggard for many years. If you wanted to do any kind of scripting or run applications only built for Linux you were out of luck. But WSL has changed that. So I'm not too surprised to see the increase in Windows usage.
So What Are You Using to Write Code??
Let me know in the comments what you're using and why. Work or play. You can still vote on this poll for a couple days too. I'm curious.
Top comments (46)
I moved on Linux from Windows. Why? Because, my friends who works in IT industry said me that and said why Linux is so interesting in programming. And I moved on Linux. When I started it was very hard for me, but after 3 months of usage I understanded how to work in Linux and my feelings flyed to the heaven because of how cool is Linux. The Linux is WOW!
I've used Ubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu GNOME, Manjaro+i3, and now I'm very happy with Regolith (Ubuntu+i3 with a lot of default polish)
I'd love to give a BSD a try, and probably could given the tools I use are all pretty ubiquitous, but I'm too happy with Regolith to spend any time on it.
Ubuntu at work, Peppermint OS and Endeavour OS at home.
At work I want something that just works. I want the OS to get out of my way and just let me do what I need it to. I only use LTS versions of Ubuntu for this reason.
At home I love to experiment with things. Endeavour OS was my attempt to become more productive, but Arch scares me a little bit. I'm very used to the LTS stability and the rolling release just put me in the edge of my seat.
That is why I primarily use Peppermint OS at home. It makes me super productive and it's so blazing fast, wow!
MacOS at work, PopOS at home. Only reason I'm not running Pop at work is consistency with my coworkers. Even with GNU Core I don't want to risk it.
Same here. I use OSX at work, and on my laptop I ran FreeBSD for a while, and it was awesome but I ran into some snags that I didn't have time for. I had to get some work done.
I am in the middle of redoing my website completely, and while I'm a die-hard Arch Linux user, I didn't want to take the time required to put Arch back on it, so I went with Pop. It's been really good so far.
OSX for most of my work and personal computing, with a bit of Raspbian here and there 🙂
I'm on OSX because I want something reliable where I'm spending time on the project at hand rather than my environment. As a frontend developer I view designs in Sketch, Illustrator, or other design software on a daily basis, and I need to know they will work without looking all over for the least buggy binary or source repo I can find. Most of my users are also on OSX or Windows, so it's nice to be using the target platform.
I've tried various flavors of Linux (Ubuntu, Mint, Suse, Arch, RedHat) and I use them for my servers, but found them too finicky and 3rd party support was too low for what I want in a development environment. I'm open to try again though!
Hello at all, I'm using Windows 10, and several linux distros at home and for work.
Today Debian and derivatives like Antix for work purposes I use Solaris.
Working as a webdeveloper I use these systems to check the good work of apps.
I like very much linux platform and its power, solid work but windows is a big player that's coming back me some attention.
I used a bit Mac OS some year ago.
Right now, it's a combination of macOS (home) and Windows 10 (work). Most people I have met throughout my working life argued the silly OS wars of Mac OS X vs Linux vs Windows. To end the infamous debate, I simply see operating systems as a tool to develop whatever we need to do.
Thanks to using dotfiles and the use of a personal repo, switching to any OS is a breeze after a quick set up. There is always going to be an amount of tinkering in every OS because we are curious creatures wanting to see what things can do :-)
I'm using Windows since v 1.0 :)
Currently running Fedora on my laptop. I simply can't do any programming on Windows. I have tried WSL but I'm still lacking all the customization features on Linux. For me it isn't about the terminal, but rather the environment as a whole. Although I still run Windows on my desktop for gaming. I don't feel like bothering with Linux for gaming, I just want it to work.