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Comment by ozim | Hacker News Reader

I am mostly windows dev and that is the thing for me with linux, you do it three times to get anything running. Maybe I do not spend enough time with linux but on the other hand I do not have time to do stuff three times to learn. In current work I have mac laptop... Suffice to say everything works out of the box even on windows our office VPN is doing weird things while on mac it just works.

Maybe I am too old for it, when I was 12 I had time to put linux on my pentium 100 then switch processor to amd and wonder that it worked becuase motherbord was still designed for "pentium" but now I just need stuff to work.

So I am not going to spend time on RC and convince my boss that this is latest shiny thing we should do our big project in. Just like the guy from boiling ocean...

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As a linux dev I find the opposite. Everything I use works out of the box on Linux and everything on Windows needs config and fiddling -- and that config seems to always end up involving a GUI that I can never remember my way around.

I guess what I am trying to say is that our experience with different systems impacts how productive we are with them.

I wonder how it goes with the type of things I install. I suppose I am maybe trying to play with "fancy" stuff on linux that is not easy to install like .NET core. Because to install HTTP/SSH/FTP servers and configure is also quite easy for me. Do you try to install some unusual things on windows maybe as well??

I've never deployed on a windows server I'm thinking of my dev box here.

I just install what I think of as standard dev tools. I guess they are not standard on Windows. Hence my pain... I pretty much would have to install cygwin to get something I'd be close to comfortable working with -- at which point a virtual machine is just easier (and then I can install the same OS as on the server I'm deploying on anyway).

Whereas I guess for you .NET core is a standard thing and it is (still) not a standard thing on Linux. Hence your pain.

Yes for new windows since 7 you do not have to install anything besides visual studio. All .NET framework is already in windows.

This is Microsoft's fault for the way they're doing .Net Core, not Linux.

They have a ridiculous installation script with hardcoded distros in it instead of simple packages or hell, even an AppImage.

You might not do that. But your Ops guys, for very good reasons, might say: "only *NIX in prod".

At that point, you could develop on Windows or Mac, but at some point you will have to get acquainted with Linux.

For servers Linux is at least as nice if not nicer than Windows. Just don't start tinkering like you did when you were 12 :)

Windows, OS X, RHEL all those are operating systems; Linux is not. It might seem pedantic, but one must suggest distro's: CentOS(Use RHEL docs), Ubuntu(I recommend Ubuntu Studio for Desktop), Debian, Fedora, GNU/Linux/.*. I might even be as progressive to name freebsd, pc-bsd, RaspBSD.

But sorry, I'm just unwinding a bit on HN, after work.

I'm curious, what exactly is it that makes you recommend Ubuntu Studio for the desktop?

Well to be honest I'm in Windows 10 on Ubuntu Studio. My work platform is OS X and a lot of tmuxing.

I actually don't have a primary OS anymore because with c9 I can have a sane env over https.

> Windows, OS X, RHEL all those are operating systems; Linux is not.

I'd consider "Windows" to be a family of related operating systems (but usually referring to the "Windows NT" OS). "Linux" as well, using the name of the kernel to refer to a family of different OSes built on top of it (while excluding others, in its common use).

I use Mac, Windows and Linux and they're all a friggin' mess now.

Huh? What are you doing three times? Installing the SDK is incredibly easy. Using it in docker is literally as easy as `docker run -it microsoft/dotnet`.

>the thing for me with linux, you do it three times to get anything running

Meanwhile, I just spent a few hours editing reg keys and firewall rules to enable a Windows Jenkins worker when it takes about 30 seconds to add a Linux worker via SSH.

I have the opposite experience when it comes to software development. 9 times out of 10 the Linux/Unix instructions for compiling some software from github will be short and concise, then you look at the windows instructions and they want you to set a whole bunch of environment variables, link that here, move that there, and the documentation for everything highly technical is sparse. Then when something doesn't work it's sometimes very hard to find out how to get it to work. You search on stackoverflow, and all you find are the answers from people on Linux and they don't apply to your Windows system.

Also, IME almost every new language targets Linux/Unix before it targets Windows unless it's some proprietary language/made by Microsoft. Example: for a long time you couldn't even get 64bit versions of Rust for Windows while they were available on other platforms for a while.

It's getting harder to deny: Even MS has added a Linux ABI to attract developers (I'm not interested though). Lots of people on Windows (and OS X) even go through the trouble of running Linux virtual machines just for a dev environment.

What I usualy see is "Install packages A,B,C" ok it is easy fire up Ubuntu VBox type "sudo apt-get install A". All goes well then I install package B and then it turns out apt-get for my Ubuntu has only some older version. No problem I find that i can install package B in newer version from someones PPA. This one works but when it comes to package C it turns out that it is only compatible with package B v.2 but with A v.1.3 and package B v.2 needs package A v.1.4.

Then I give up, because I am not going to fiddle with it for hours just to find out that package from PPA does not work becaue I have not copied it to correct directory and I have not changed permissions to correct ones.

Ok I can setup ftp/http/ssh on linux server with apt-get and changing configs, no problem. But If I have to add some aditional stuff it gets messy very quick.

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