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Ask HN: What is your Dev OS in 2022?

by mikewang on 11/14/22, 1:04 AM with 36 comments

• by slater on 11/14/22, 1:21 AM

  You'll get a hundred different answers, but yeah, just get a Mac.

  Yesyes, it'll cost more upfront, yesyes it has its own quirks, yesyes Apple bad boo hiss etc. etc., but still - to your last point: a long-lived dev OS, combined with nigh-untouchably-good hardware integration (note: integration, not 'the fastest thing nvidia/amd pushed out of the factory last week')?

  Get a Mac. M2 Macbook Air is amazing:

  https://www.apple.com/macbook-air-m2/

• by scrapheap on 11/14/22, 8:38 AM

  You do know that you don't have to use the system version of python don't you? You can always install a newer version and then select which one you use for which task.

  If you want the system packages on your OS to jump up to new versions as time goes by then you want to look at a Rolling Release distributions (e.g. Arch).

  Alternatively you can use Debian with either Stable, Testing or Unstable as the source rather than a traditional named version (Note: research this before trying it so you understand the risks that you are taking).

• by GianFabien on 11/14/22, 3:47 AM

  I abandoned Ubuntu several years ago. I'm finding Debian 11.5 (Bullseye) robust and reliable. Python is v3.9.2. which new enough for my purposes. You can of course, download and install v3.10 or v3.11 and configure pyenv.

  I would love to use a Mac, but I'm wary of Apple's consumer oriented locking down of features. When I worked for some large corps, was issued with Windows laptops - compared to Debian it was a nightmare.

• by mellowagain on 11/14/22, 9:33 AM

  Crystal Linux. It is a arch based OS which means you get to take advantage of the huge amount of packages in the AUR with the added benefit of being easy to install and sensible defaults.

  It comes with amethyst (`ame`) as AUR helper pre-installed, which is also in my opinion the best AUR helper out right now (and it's written in Rust!).

  Automatic BTRFS snapshots before package upgrades have saved my butt once already and I couldn't live without them.

  100% recommended

• by klardotsh on 11/14/22, 5:17 AM

  I personally use a combination of Void and Alpine Linuxes on all of my systems, which I realize is a perhaps far-off-the-beaten-path nerdery option, but I thrive in power user environments that invite me to tinker, and couldn't see myself using much else (short of Gentoo, which I left to reduce my tinker time a bit, or a BSD)

• by abdrehman on 11/14/22, 7:27 AM

  KDE Neon. I love KDE Activities I setup a sperate activity for my main job, freelance work and Personal Usage(Non work related). I have seprate Desktop Folder for every activity and Wallpaper. Each Desktop have shortcuts to applications I use for that envirnment.

  Also I love Debian 11. Thinking to install KDE with it but I dont have time...

• by sergiotapia on 11/14/22, 3:46 AM

  Moved from an M2 Mac to using a Windows 10 Desktop beefcake PC and use VM Ware Linux Mint 22 cinammon install. Works flawlessly and I have zero patience for linux jerking around so you know it's good. Everything just works out of the box including resolution etc. I have two monitors and it just works.

  I don't miss Mac at all.

• by fulafel on 11/14/22, 7:18 AM

  You are heading for a dead end if you are looking for long lived releases and updating the system Python. Stop using the system Python, or use a distribution with frequent short lived releases.

• by vasirian on 11/14/22, 6:03 AM

  Fedora i3 spin.

  My i3wm config has survived over a decade and has provided a consistent UI/UX across various distros. Fedora is stable across version upgrades and stays out of the way, just like i3 does.

• by akulbe on 11/14/22, 5:34 AM

  Windows 11 w/WSL 2

• by unintendedcons on 11/14/22, 4:52 AM

  QubesOS with the right VM for the dev job at hand.

  Feels good, feels right.

• by AOsborn on 11/14/22, 7:30 AM

  MacOS Monterey. Rock solid, does everything I need.

• by smackeyacky on 11/14/22, 6:47 AM

  For C#, android or embedded development debian 11 or sometimes Pop!OS.

  For my paid job doing node and python, windows 10. But I wish it was debian.

• by rubyist5eva on 11/15/22, 3:42 AM

  Alma Linux 9.0 for development, Ubuntu for day to day stuff. I have 2 different workstations with dedicated purpose.

• by kasperlitheater on 11/14/22, 9:23 AM

  I’m using Fedora 36 KDE. It’s a custom image I built myself that has all the things I need installed and configured.

• by 4t8dds on 11/14/22, 9:00 AM

  Yeah, I use Mac locally. But remotely, I use some, ubuntu, centos. But mostly, I found FreeBSD is so stable.

• by tsingy on 11/14/22, 7:00 AM

  I use a minimal installation of Fedora with i3 window manager. My 10 year computer can not thank me more.

• by jareds on 11/14/22, 1:15 AM

  Windows 10 with WSL2.

• by wara23arish on 11/14/22, 5:35 AM

  Ive been using PopOs, no complaints thus far.

• by ParetoOptimal on 11/14/22, 4:25 PM

  NixOS unstable and flakes for everything.

• by josephcsible on 11/14/22, 1:32 AM

  Kubuntu 22.04.

• by yonisto on 11/14/22, 5:59 AM

  Windows 10.

• by aprdm on 11/14/22, 4:41 AM

  Ubuntu !

• by xavier_ on 11/14/22, 1:12 AM

  Buy a Mac

• by PaulHoule on 11/14/22, 1:10 AM

  Windows 10

• by fbrncci on 11/14/22, 1:30 AM

  Windows 10 + WSL2