Topic: Unix/Linux distros

[Dumah]

So what are you all using these days and why?

I use Ubuntu on my laptop and home pc. On my work laptop I have to use Windows 7 but use VirtualBox on it. After another nasty bug arising this week with my Ubuntu 10.4 (seem to have been very unlucky with this over the last year) I've changed the image I work on in favour of Fedora. That seems to be pretty decent at the moment but I always wonder on what else I might be missing out on and its quicker to ask than try them all.

[ober]

Dirty penguin fucker...

Sorry, I haven't had a reason to go the Linux route for about 5 years.

[webwhy]

Sorry, I haven't had a reason to go the Linux route for about 5 years.

This honestly surprises me, Ober.  So you run your PHP sites on a Windows Server?

I have since ditched linux on the desktop, which I believe is ONLY good for development machines, in favor of a Mac.  I don't think I'm going back.  While there are things I miss about Ubuntu specifically the package management, Mac OS X make up for it in other ways, namely polish.  It's just as good as an Ubuntu machine for Java and Ruby development. 

Our servers are all linux.  We mainly run Ubuntu, and we have since 2006.  Before that we were primarily Debian.  We have two CentOS boxes in our staging environment since we sometimes have to support our software on RHEL and CentOS.  Ubuntu is the clear winner for us, and as of now we wouldn't consider anything else.  It's perfect for our application.  I honestly haven't thought about OS on our servers in years.  Ubuntu is usually a given, the only option.

BTW the reason we've never considered Fedora:  They don't provide a clean upgrade path between releases.  You have to reinstall the system.  The Ubuntu release schedules make sense, and there is a clean upgrade path between releases.  Ubuntu also has a lot more packages available

[Mike]

At home I don't run Linux.  My laptop is a Mac.  At work I use ubuntu desktop with the two other boxes running FreeBSD.  Are servers are FreeBSD which is why my mini servers are also FreeBSD.  I originally tried PC-BSD but it just didn't work well when I had to upgrade a lot of the components (like MySQL from 4 to 5).  So I went to Ubuntu.  So far so good.

Originally my main box at work was a Mac but it was a PowerPC and when I kept running into walls trying to install packages that turned out to be for Intel Macs only I pulled down some of the spare computers and beefed them up.

[Dumah]

Sorry, I haven't had a reason to go the Linux route for about 5 years.

This honestly surprises me, Ober.  So you run your PHP sites on a Windows Server?

I have since ditched linux on the desktop, which I believe is ONLY good for development machines, in favor of a Mac.  I don't think I'm going back.  While there are things I miss about Ubuntu specifically the package management, Mac OS X make up for it in other ways, namely polish and stability.  It's just as good as an Ubuntu machine for Java and Ruby development. 

Our servers are all linux.  We mainly run Ubuntu, and we have since 2006.  Before that we were primarily Debian.  We have two CentOS boxes in our staging environment since we sometimes have to support our software on RHEL and CentOS.  Ubuntu is the clear winner for us, and as of now we wouldn't consider anything else.  It's perfect for our application.  I honestly haven't thought about OS on our servers in years.  Ubuntu is usually a given, the only option.

BTW the reason we've never considered Fedora:  They don't provide a clean upgrade path between releases.  You have to reinstall the system.  The Ubuntu release schedules make sense, and there is a clean upgrade path between releases.  Ubuntu also has a lot more packages available

Much as I kind of hate the idea, I might start to think about using a Mac....It seems to have great support for python (main language these days) and stability is what I'm after here...

I run a few ubuntu servers (10.4 & 8.4) and dont have any problems with them: they are rock solid and easy to work with...its the desktop that's giving me trouble here. I just seem to be running into these random bugs all the time: yesterday it just started spawning nautilus processes until it choked. This looks like a fairly well documented bug to do with gnome and drawing the desktop but the usual fixes dont seem to work and I just cannot be bothered at the moment to dig deeper.

I had a fedora image so jumped onto that to continue work. I wasnt aware of the upgrade path so I guess my involvement with it wont go on for long!

[Dumah]

At home I don't run Linux.  My laptop is a Mac.  At work I use ubuntu desktop with the two other boxes running FreeBSD.  Are servers are FreeBSD which is why my mini servers are also FreeBSD.  I originally tried PC-BSD but it just didn't work well when I had to upgrade a lot of the components (like MySQL from 4 to 5).  So I went to Ubuntu.  So far so good.

Originally my main box at work was a Mac but it was a PowerPC and when I kept running into walls trying to install packages that turned out to be for Intel Macs only I pulled down some of the spare computers and beefed them up.

Another vote for Mac...I guess I need to start thinking seriously about it!

[Perspective]

I use Mac at work(school) and at home. My netbook runs Ubuntu Netbook Remix.

>While there are things I miss about Ubuntu specifically the package management,

have you tried darwin ports or fink? They bundle a lot of linux packages for mac.

[Mike]

Eh?  I like my Mac laptop but for my work desktop I do like Ubuntu.

[ober]

Sorry, I haven't had a reason to go the Linux route for about 5 years.

This honestly surprises me, Ober.  So you run your PHP sites on a Windows Server?

Whoa whoa... that's blasphemy.  Of course all of my servers are running Linux (Redhat at work, FreeBSD for personal hosting).  Actually, there is one exception.  I'm porting a .NET application at work to PHP so that currently resides on Windows Server 2008, I believe.  Once the conversion is complete, which includes moving to Oracle instead of MSSQL, I'll be on Redhat for that one as well.

I was referring to my daily computing.  My work laptop is Windows 7, and my personal laptop and desktops are both Windows Vista.

[hans]

I've been running Ubuntu for my work and home machines for a while now (and even have my father on it). Although I'm in the camp that if money didn't matter and my work was going to provide a laptop, I'd go Mac. Reasoning is that you basically get all the stuff I love about *nix but you also get most of the things that work on Windows (like IE, Safari, iTunes, etc). This is important for developing since I do mostly web/mobile stuff and the Windows world requires me to run a VM in Linux which is slightly annoying. So it's more a matter of efficiency. But since all of the server run either CentOS or Ubuntu, the majority of my work is perfectly fine using a Linux as a Desktop as well. If I could say screw it to supporting IE and other crappy browsers, I wouldn't care about using a Mac. But honestly as much as I love Linux, Mac is simply a better dev machine for the time being.

I'm not a big fan of Apple in general though as I believe they're just like M$ (maybe even worse but with better PR). But I do have to concede that it's probably the best option out there for a do-it-all machine.

Damn how I wish Linux could come up with a really good Windows emulation layer or something.

[webwhy]

have you tried darwin ports or fink? They bundle a lot of linux packages for mac.

i currently use mac ports, but i don't like it.  i don't like waiting for supporting software to compile   I would prefer to deal with binary packages if possible.

[Dumah]

I'm toying with the idea of buying a Mini Mac on ebay just to try it out. Is this a bad idea?

Haven't tried a Mac in many years. Virtual images available seem hacked and i dont fancy the bother or trying them.