Why do web developers choose OS X instead of Linux?

Why do web developers use OS X instead of Linux?

Apple’s OS X operating system for the Mac seems to be a very popular choice among web developers. But why have so many of them forsaken Linux in favor of OS X? A Linux redditor asked about this and got some interesting answers from fellow redditors.

Michaelpb asks about web developers and OS X:

Why do so many web devs (rails, django, php, etc), who spend a lot of their time SSH’d into Linux servers and develop software stacks ported from Linux, use OS X? Answers I often hear are things like “it just works”, “I was used to it”, and “I like the hardware”. But honestly, I’ve seen OS X co-workers struggle against their OS enough by now that “it just works” reeks of confirmation bias, especially in the context of web development, when the OS X solutions (homebrew, macports) are complete crap compared to a real package manager.

For hardware, things like Dell’s high end Linux laptops definitely give MBP a run for their money, but even that shouldn’t matter, Linux runs fine on Apple hardware. More puzzling, I’ve witnessed some Linux users switch to OS X. This may sound narrowminded, but from my perspective Linux is such a logical choice for web development that my brain honestly can’t wrap around why it remains as only a (sizable) minority for web devs.

But I’m curious, what do you think it would take to see an exodus from OS X (back?) to Linux? OS X users who lurk here, what would it take for you to make the plunge to desktop Linux?

More at Reddit

Fellow Linux redditors chimed in with their thoughts:

Valadil: “I’m one of the only linux users in a mostly mac web dev shop. The sense I get from everyone else is they don’t want to play sysadmin or tweak all the things. They put 100% of their brain cycles into getting shit done. Taking a half hour here or there to google for better xbm icons for their tiling WM’s bar is not part of their day.”

Lsteph: “This is pretty much my reason. I play in Linux and work on a Mac (or work on Linux servers through the terminal). Just because I have the knowledge doesn’t mean I want to put in the effort when there are other things I’d rather be doing.”

Notunlikethewaves: A few reasons, in no particular order:

Predictable Hardware Retina displays Seriously long battery life Predictable and consistent multi-monitor support. Access to commercial apps like Excel and Photoshop (and no, LibreOffice and Gimp don’t cut it) OSX is a passable Unix Dev tools are widely available through Homebrew Access to world-class creative programs, like Ableton Live and MaxMSP (and no, PureData and LMMS don’t cut it) The desktop looks OK, not spectacular, but it generally stays out of the way and lets us get on with the work.

I spent probably 5 years with various Linux flavours for dev work. Now I use OSX with Linux servers. I’m not in any way a fanatic about OSX, and it pained me to admit it, but OSX has any Linux distro beat cold in terms of day-to-day conveniences and usability.

Sure, I’d prefer to have a pure linux working environment, but it’s not worth the heartache of figuring out why last weeks update broke my multi-monitor, again. I’ve got stuff to do, and OSX is good at allowing me to get that stuff done.

Tamrix: “Don’t forget iOS development. If anyone does that on the side.”

PSkeptic: “OS X is better than “passable” for UNIX: It is a certified UNIX OS.”

Theferrit32: “Except for they don’t implement the full POSIX specification, namely the semaphore and monitor interfaces. They only got the certification because apparently it doesn’t require them to implement the whole interface, just allow code be compiled on the platform, even if that code doesn’t work.

This is honestly astonishing to me. They have empty function calls in order to get the certification, yet if you compile your code against those functions on MacOS, no compiler errors will be thrown, your code will just quietly not work. That is the worst kind of error in my opinion.”

Kn45h3r: “Your millage can vary with OS X also. I’ve used Linux on my desktop for a long time, but I used to run OS X on my work laptop. The main reason I switched it to Linux is because after an OS upgrade it became pretty obvious that they don’t test it on anything but the newest hardware. The switch to Linux meant it went from being a buggy heap that would crash more than once a day, to something that is actually reliable.

Plus homebrew (and macports and fink) are all really poor. I’ve never understood why Apple didn’t step in and do these things right. I’d have no misgivings about buying mac hardware again, I do think is is very nicely put together. But I really do have doubts about OS X.

LphtashuFitz: “When working in a corporate environment it may also be a case of not being able to even use linux. I work for a public company, and employees here have a chance of either Windows or a Mac.”

Qudat: “Can confirm, we were not officially allowed to run linux. Ofc we could use virtualbox but that was it.”

More at Reddit

DistroWatch reviews Tails 1.3

Tails has become an important tool for Linux users seeking privacy while using the Internet. It has also gotten tons of media attention due to the NSA’s displeasure with those using it to thwart that agency’s desire to spy on Internet users. DistroWatch did a full review of Tails 1.3, and liked what it found.

Jesse Smith reports for DistroWatch:

For most people I think setting up something like Tor is probably going to be confusing and some people will make mistakes trying to add security software to their computers. Having a project like Tails means a person interested in privacy can download (or otherwise acquire) a copy of the live disc, put it in their computer and just start using it. While Tails cannot provide perfect security and anonymity, it is probably one of the best “boot and go” security distributions currently available.

I like that the Firefox web browser ships with several extra add-ons to further protect the user and provide additional guards against tracking and man-in-the-middle attacks. I further appreciate that Claws Mail makes it easy to encrypt e-mail messages, assuming we have access to another person’s public security keys. I also like that Claws Mail will warn us that parts of our e-mail message may not be encrypted, depending on our settings.

Perhaps my favourite Tails feature is the project’s documentation. The user guide is well organized and explains concepts clearly, in a way I feel most users (even less technical minded ones) will understand. It is easy to make mistakes when trying to be secure on-line and the Tails documentation does a great job of warning people about potential dangers and explaining both the features and limitations of the Tails distribution. For people who need to communicate privately on-line, I believe Tails to be a very useful tool.

More at DistroWatch

The Tails site has more information and a download page:

Tails is a live operating system, that you can start on almost any computer from a DVD, USB stick, or SD card. It aims at preserving your privacy and anonymity, and helps you to:

use the Internet anonymously and circumvent censorship; all connections to the Internet are forced to go through the Tor network; leave no trace on the computer you are using unless you ask it explicitly; use state-of-the-art cryptographic tools to encrypt your files, emails and instant messaging.

It is Free Software and based on Debian GNU/Linux.

Tails comes with several built-in applications pre-configured with security in mind: web browser, instant messaging client, email client, office suite, image and sound editor, etc.

More at Tails

Linux Mint developers try to speed up Cinnamon load times

Cinnamon is one of the most popular desktop environments for Linux. However, the Linux Mint developers are not satisfied with Cinnamon’s current load times. They are working hard to try to speed up Cinnamon and provide an even better experience for users.

Silviu Stahie reports for Softpedia:

Many of the users already have powerful processors and fast SSD drives, so the loading process is not really an issue. When you are throwing computing power at a problem, it tends to go away, but that’s not really a solution. This is why the Cinnamon developers want to improve the loading time, for the people who don’t have all that power at their disposal.

They found the culprits for the delays that were registered, cinnamon-menus and cinnamon-desktop, and with optimization that average loading time has been reduced from 12 seconds to 7. They don’t feel that this is enough and they want to do better, so that means we’ll keep an eye on the Cinnamon updates and we’ll let you know as soon as more improvements are implemented.

More at Softpedia

You can also read the original blog post by Linux Mint developer Clement Lefebvre:

A huge amount of work went into making Cinnamon load faster. Sadly, we’re only half-way there and the results aren’t conclusive yet. On one of our test machines Cinnamon is able to load in less than a second in normal conditions, but can take up to 12 seconds to load the very fist time the computer is turned on.

Investigations showed that this delay took place in cinnamon-menus and cinnamon-desktop, during the initial loading of application info (from /etc/xdg/menus, /usr/share/applications) and icon themes. Through optimization, the loading time was reduced from 12 seconds to 7 seconds average… which is a first step but doesn’t yet solve anything (“slow” and “slower” both feel “slow”).

We’re still working on this and hoping we’ll be able to drastically reduce that initial loading time.

More at Linux Mint Blog

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