
Ask HN: What OS do you run? - grover_hartmann
What OS do you run&#x2F;develop on and on what hardware?<p>Also, what&#x27;s your toolchain&#x2F;development stack?<p>OS: Arch Linux<p>Hardware: Desktop (custom build), ThinkPad T510<p>Tools: Ruby, Rails, Vim, Git, etc
======
thejosh
I've been running Ubuntu as my primary desktop since the end of 2005, tried a
multitude of other distros but always come back to Ubuntu - it just "works",
the font rendering is excellent out of the box, package management is superb,
yadadyadayada. I run XFCE, use to run LXDE but found XFCE a lot nicer.

Python/PHP, learning Go.. also learning docker.

My main PC is a Haswell i7, 512GB 850 Samsung SSD for Linux, 840 (512GB) for
Windows, 32GB RAM, nVidia 980GTX, I sometimes play games (not as much as I use
to), and the desktop is a pretty fantastic option.

I run a MacBookAir 2013 (i7/8GB RAM) with Ubuntu as my primary desktop, it's
fantastic hardware the only limitation I run into is when I need to run
everything at once (which is rare).

------
QuantumRoar
OpenSuse for work (not my choice), FreeBSD on a private server, OS X for the
laptop, pfSense (based on FreeBSD) on a firewall, Raspbian for the little
things, and I just ordered a NAS that will be running FreeNAS (also based on
FreeBSD).

Vim, Git, Intel compiler, Glasgow Haskell Compiler, Mathematica.

Python for scripting, Haskell for analytical mathematical stuff, Fortran for
high performance, Mathematica for fiddling around and sanity checks.

A total of 224 Xeon cores and 5TB of main memory.

For my private hacking I just use a laptop and whatever language seems to fit
the purpose. Also, I'm about to buy a desktop computer and I was thinking of
using Arch for that.

------
zserge
Thinkpad x120e + Gentoo is the only development machine I run (still looking
for a newer 12" thinkpad to replace this one). There is also ubuntu installed
in the chroot (for android firmware builds) and a few docker containers with
various OSes.

In theory I can survive with any OS/platform, since my primary tools are
tmux+vim+zsh. I use them for android development (Java, Kotlin), for web
(JavaScript, Golang), for embedded systems (C, Lua).

So the only two apps that I keep always open is a full-screen terminal and a
browser. Probably even Chrome OS would be comfortable for me :)

~~~
gh02t
> Probably even Chrome OS would be comfortable for me

I have one of those Asus Chromeboxes, can't praise them highly enough. I have
it dual booting ChromeOS and OpenELEC as a media center and never really
intended it to be used as a PC, but I still rather like ChromeOS. With Crouton
installed, it's a pretty capable little machine. I occasionally run Steam in
Crouton to use the machine as a terminal for in home streaming to my bigger
TV.

------
draven
Archlinux at home on my desktop (custom build, a bit old), with Emacs + Ensime
for Scala dev, with the usual suspects: sbt, Scala 2.11.x, Play. A Raspberry
Pi B w/ Archlinux. I tried to play with Scala on it but it's a bit too
limited. I use it for private repos and a bit of Go coding occasionnaly (with
Emacs + tramp or vim over SSH.)

OS X 10.10 on a 2014 MacBook Pro w/ Intellij at work (I hate this damn OS) and
a dozen AWS instances running Ubuntu IIRC.

------
yodsanklai
OS X 10.3.3 Mac mini (late 2012), MBP 13 (2014), at work imac 27 (2014) I use
mainly vim with plugins (notably youcompleteme, syntastic, ctrlp) for
programming in various languages. Python, C++, OCaml, Erlang, Go. I try to
keep everything synchronized with unison and git.

I like Mac OS because it works out of the box and I really hate spending time
configuring things. But mostly, I'd be fine with any OS. The only thing that
ties me to Mac OS is music recording. I couldn't get the same experience with
Linux or Windows (not last time I checked a few years ago).

~~~
RexRollman
Do you mean OS X 10.10.3?

~~~
yodsanklai
yes :)

------
bovermyer
I use Mac OS X at work and on my web dev laptop (MBP). I use Windows 8.1 on my
gaming PC. I have a Chromebook (CR-48) lying around collecting dust. Most
other PCs in the house run Windows 7.

My dev stack is... complex. I use PHP, MySQL, NodeJS, JS/jQuery, Python, and
Mongo at work. On personal projects I use Ruby/Rails, PostgreSQL, and raw JS.
In both worlds I use Sass. I use a lot of Ansible.

Go is very interesting, and may become important to me in the future.

------
davidgerard
Xubuntu 14.04. It works and stays the heck out of my way. Whenever I hear the
words "desktop" and "innovation", I reach for my revolver.

Hardware: whatever the nice thing my employer is providing. As a sysadmin, I
feel it is a deep wrongness to spend money on hardware when there are
employers for that sort of thing. Desktop is an HP DC7800 (I think) and laptop
is a Lenovo X230 (which works flawlessly with free-software drivers).

------
jaegerpicker
OS: Mac OSX Deploy to CentOS

Hardware: Mac Book Pro retina latest refresh deploy to aws/rackspace

Tools: Java, Spring-mvc, JS, node and gulp, Intellij, chrome, emacs, sublime,
tower git, kaleidoscope, Sequel Pro, hipchat, paw, zsh-ohmyzsh, iterm, Swift

Just changed positions prior to that it was the same except Python, Django,
and Go instead of Java and spring-mvc.

------
zumtar
I use an ATIV Book 9 Plus ultrabook (13.3" LED QHD+ 3200 x 1800) as my main
machine - the HiDPI screen is stunning and it is something I couldn't live
without now.

Up until a week or so ago, my OS _was_ GNU/Linux Debian Jessie, my DE was
Cinnamon and/or i3wm (depending on how I felt).

A week ago I switched to Fedora 21 as I have to get back up to speed with RHEL
for a work project. I am now using Gnome 3.14.2, and to be perfectly honest I
am pleasantly surprised with the entire experience.

Development tools: vim, gcc, python, opera-beta.

Communication tools: utox and irc.

I also run another machine that sits on a different VLAN that I use for skype,
the machine is locked down with SELinux and firewall rules both inside the
machine and on the Ethernet switch and router, I also use this machine if i
need to view any flash content.

------
gh02t
Primary workstation is a custom tower with Arch Linux. Secondary is a dirt
cheap laptop with Fedora, home server is FreeBSD. I also have a monster
headless workstation at my job that runs CentOS. Oh, I forgot... I have one of
the newish Dell Venue 8000 Android tablets too. I got one of those folding
Microsoft bluetooth keyboards to go with it and it makes a pretty capable
little SSH terminal that I can actually be productive on as well.

I mostly use Python, C++, Fortran and Haskell. For C++/Fortran, I mostly use
the Intel compilers or Clang. I do my coding in Vim, with a few plugins to add
the IDE features that I actually use. I use a mix of Kdb and Idb for debug
work, both are really awesome.

I use i3 pretty much exclusively and urxvt+tmux, with some bits and pieces
from KDE (e.g. Dolphin).

------
jjuhl
Arch Linux privately. CentOS 7 for work.

Toolchain: private; clang + gold linker. For work; GCC + gold linker. Emacs as
editor/IDE in both cases. Privately i use Scons as my build tool, at work we
use CMake. Debugger == gdb. As for languages, I do 98% C++, 2% C.

------
nitai
This is a question that comes at the right time for me.

I just went two weeks with a Asus UX305 and Ubuntu 14.04. Everything worked
out of the box. Beautiful hardware, too.

Since I run all my servers on Ubuntu LTS I really wanted to go with Ubuntu
Desktop.

However, after two weeks I'm going back to MacOS X. Reason is that I'm just
way faster with MacOS X. Additionally, and I hate to say this, but it is not
the OS alone anymore theses days.

Applications can make or break your decision. Something like Sourcetree is
awesome, Arq (for backup) is a simple no-brainer. The option to use Time-
Machine and re-install a Mac is painless. Dash for documentation simply rocks,
Slack as an independent app is very convenient, etc.

------
huehue
Home: i7-4770k, 16gb RAM, AMD r9 290x running Windows 8.1. I might be getting
an XPS 13 to replace my old laptop.

Work: i5, 8gb RAM 2015 MacbookPro running OS X.

I develop on Debian VMs (VirtualBox + Vagrant) at work and Ubuntu Server VMs
(VMWare Workstation) at home. Almost everything is done remotely, sshing into
the dev VM and running emacs there, the only exception being java stuff. Other
than VM management tools and Eclipse my client boxes don't have much
development stuff installed.

Tools: Emacs, Notepad++, Eclipse, Perl, Java, Clojure, Git, Putty/iterm2,
Firefox, MySQL, redis. I'm playing around with OCaml but I'm a total noob.

------
gtf21
\- OSX 10.10 on a MacBook Pro, 15" late 2014 (I use my laptop for everything,
work and home). \- Various servers with Ubuntu / Debian on Digital Ocean.

\- Atom, Git (Tower/Atom/command line), Node, Python, Docker

------
jsherer
Just recently picked up a Lenovo Thinkpad and immediately installed Ubuntu
14.04 LTS on it. It's quite unfortunate that the bar is set so low with Linux
laptops that the thing I enjoyed most is that everything worked out of the
box, including wifi, suspend/hibernate, and external monitors. Hopefully this
trend continues with more laptop brands so more people can enjoy the freedom
in choosing an OS that works best for them without having to worry about
whether or not standard features work without difficulty.

------
Mister_Snuggles
Work is MacOS X and Windows 7 on a Retina MacBook Pro. Windows is used for
PeopleTools, but everything else (SQL Developer, NetBeans, etc) runs in MacOS.

Home is Mac OS X on a 4-year-old MacBook Pro (which, after replacing the HDD
with an SSD, feels a lot faster than you might expect) or Kubuntu 14.10 on a
ThinkPad x131e (working Linux, cheap, and rugged were the main requirements
when I bought that). Personal projects generally involve Python or Java, so a
text editor and NetBeans are my tools of choice.

------
greggyb
Work:

OS: Windows 7+, Windows Server 2008+

Hardware: Consistently 4+ workstations and dev servers with varying
specifications.

Tools: SQL Server 2008+, Visual Studio 2012 with tweaked VsVim. Powershell,
Vim and Cygwin.

I work in BI consulting, so dev environments and workstations change with
clients.

Home:

OS: Arch Linux

Hardware: 2008 Sony Vaio (Core 2 Duo 2.5 GHz, 4G RAM, not as bad as it sounds
- I have no reason to update this machine until the RAM goes).

I don't really do development at home - just trying to learn "real"
programming. Vim, playing in Python, Lisps (Scheme and Common), and Haskell
currently.

------
mattkrea
Work: OS X on 2013 MacBook Pro (13")

Home: Ubuntu 14.10 (used on all our servers as well)

Tools: Sublime Text 3 + SublimeLinter + GoSublime and when I'm forced into
it.. Visual Studio 2013 on a Windows 7 VM

------
lordbusiness
OS: Mac OS X (But likely switching to Ubuntu soon)

Hardware: Retina MacBook Pro (But XPS 13 Dev Edition will be next)

Tools: Atom, Git, whatever toolkits necessary for my current working language.

Edit: formatting and typo

------
m-i-l
Home: Ubuntu 14.04 for both desktop and HTPC (MythTV). Both are custom builds.
Became exclusively Linux at home around 12 years ago, when I built a cheap PC
for £160, then had to pay £200 for a Windows XP licence, but couldn't install
it because the CD was covered in holograms which the ultra-cheap CD drive
couldn't read.

Work: Desktop is Windows 7. Believe it or not I'm one of a handful piloting
Windows 7 - most are still on Windows XP.

------
LukeB_UK
Work: Linux Mint 17.1 on a Samsung NP350V5C using Sublime Text 3 (and various
plugins) developing Javascript and PHP

Home laptop: Linux Mint 17.1 on an Asus UL30A (it was free) using Sublime Text
3 (and various plugins) developing Javascript and Node.js

Home PC: Dual boot windows 8.1/Linux Mint 17.1 on a custom tower. Windows is
for playing games and developing unity games, linux is the same as on home
laptop

Edit: I also use GIT across all of them

------
rogerbinns
Main system is current Ubuntu on a system assembled from parts from Frys. Core
i7 3770 with 32GB of RAM (the most the MB can take), using Intel graphics and
a 3 monitor setup. Development is mostly Python and C.

There is also a similar laptop, a Mac mini, VMs for Windows, dual boot for
Windows (games), and a large collection of various Android and iOS devices.

------
maxamillion
OS: Fedora Rawhide[0] (XFCE Spin)

Hardware: ThinkPad T440s

Tools: python, ruby, go, vim[1], git, tmux

[0] -
[https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/Rawhide](https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/Rawhide)
[1] - [http://vim.spf13.com/](http://vim.spf13.com/)

------
akulbe
Everything. OS X for the primary. Linux for 99% of the VMs. Windows, when some
application makes it absolutely necessary.

Because I'm pretty invested in the Google ecosystem, I can move between them
with ease. (using Chrome and Google Drive, and Google Apps for Work, for all
my domains)

(I also have both an iPhone 6+ and a Nexus 6)

EDITED: to mention Chrome & Google Apps

------
M4v3R
OS: OSX 10.10

Hardware: MacBook Pro (Retina, 13", late 2013 r.)

Tools: Depends on a project I'm currently working on. Mostly MacVim for my
editing needs (with a heavily modified config and a bunch of plugins: NERD
Tree, Command-T, linters, etc.), but I also use XCode from time to time for
iOS work. I do projects in Meteor, Angular JS and PHP.

------
thiht
Well I reinstalled my laptop a few weeks ago and I decided do go with Windows
10, I couldn't take anymore Windows 8.1...

Windows 10 is what Windows 8 should have been from the beginning, it's an
excellent OS.

Hardware: Ideapad, Intel i7, 6Go RAM, graphic card geforce 840m

Tools: Intellij with Java, Visual Studio with C#, Sublime with everything web
related

------
fsniper
Gnu/Linux Debian Jessie. Development vim + YouCompleteMe. Php/python/golang
whatever.

------
RexRollman
Currently, I run OS X on a 2013 Macbook Air. I also run NetBSD inside of
VMWare Fusion.

------
ccalvert
Windows 8 on the desktop, Ubuntu 14.04 on the laptop. I also run Ubuntu with
VirtualBox on the desktop. Development mostly with WebStorm (jetbrains),
Geany, nodejs, express and angular. Git ties the three systems together.

------
JasuM
Win 8.1, Arch Linux in VMWare Workstation. I mostly use the Linux in VMWare,
Windows is mostly for Excel and Photoshop.

Hardware is Lenovo Thinkpad Yoga 12".

Dev tools are vim + tmux + zsh, PHP + nginx for work and Clang + CMake for
personal projects.

------
rshetty
OS: Yosemite

Hardware: Retina Mac Book Pro 16GB

Tools: Vim, Ruby, Rails, Git, Haskell, Javascript, RubyMine.

------
bliker
HW: Retina Macbook Pro

SW: OSX for Photoshop and Illustrator, Sublime Text for C/JS/PHP plus XCode. I
also run Windows VM for all sorts of engineering software (Siemens NX, ANSYS,
LabView, Multisim).

------
seesharp
OS: OSX 10.10.3 (sometimes Windows 10 with Parallels)

Hardware: rMBP 15" (2014)

Tools: IntelliJ IDEA, WebStorm, Sublime Text

I mostly do front-end webdevelopment with AngularJS. I also use a lot of Java
and some C# for my CS study.

------
ytimoschenko
OS X on MacBook Air, OpenBSD on servers.

I use Make, Vi, and interpreters/compilers of various programming languages
(Erlang, Golang, Clojure, Perl, etc).

I also use most of generic software from OpenBSD base.

------
sayems
Work: Mac OS X

Home: Arch Linux Hardware: Custom built desktop Tools: Android Studio for
Android Development, IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate for Java Development, Web-
Development, and MySQL Workbench,

------
onestone
OS: Arch Linux with KDE Plasma 5 (for servers I use Debian or Ubuntu LTS,
whichever is more recent)

Hardware: Asus K93SV laptop

Tools: io.js, Atom, vagrant-lxc, Ansible, Docker, Git, Mercurial, Babel, ...

------
JamesBell
OS: Windows7 on a Zenbook

OS: Ubuntu/ChromeOS on a Acer C720 Chromebook

Tools: Angular, BS3, PHP, slimPHP

Agonizingly close to being able to use ChromeOS but primary client uses a VPN
that ChromeOS refuses to support.

------
wglb
Linux, moving to FreeBSD, OpenBSD on routers, Windows for some legacy
products, OS X.

Toolchain mostly lisp, bit of ruby, C, python

(My Windows NT box finally died)

------
guiambros
Ubuntu 14.04 with Gnome 3.12 on a full tower desktop, with a multi-monitor
setup. Sublime Text 3 with IPython, golang, etc.

VMWare Workstation for running Windows, when needed.

------
kevinherron
OS: OS X Yosemite (10.10.2)

Hardware: Retina MacBook Pro

Tools: Java, IntelliJ, Git, Mercurial

------
pinaraf
Debian sid, what else... On desktop, laptop, servers... Tools : QtCreator /
KDevelop for C++, Netbeans for Java, vim or Kate for everything else

------
beezle
Primary is win 8 and IntelliJ IDEA, secondary is FreeBSD on a number of
servers. There is work and personal under both.

~~~
PuerkitoBio
Work: OSX on 2012 rMBP / iTerm2, Vim+vim-go, Go

Personal: Arch Linux on Asus Zenbook UX31e / dwm, zsh, Vim+vim-go, Go

edit: sorry for the reply, that was meant as a top-level comment. I'm afraid
it's a bug in my iPad HN reader.

------
ntw1103
work: windows 7 i7,32GB ram, notpad++, netbeans, visual studio.
personal:QubesOS/windows7 dualboot on a Thinkpad T430s i7,16GB.
Netbeans,nano,notepad++. my business: pfsense for the router. servers are
running XenServer and/or Opensuse but I intend to switch some of the
infrastructure to free/openBSD.

------
woohoo7676
OS: Windows 8.1

Hardware: Dell XPS 15 (2014), custom build desktop.

Toolchain: C#/Xamarin/ASP MVC w/ VS2013, Git for SCM

------
charlieegan3
OS: 10.10.3

Hardware: BTO 2012 rMBP 2.6 GHz i7, 16GB, 512GB

Tools: Rails, Sublime Text 3, iTerm, Tower, (Spotify :D)

~~~
lion0
Was it worth it getting the 16GB of RAM? I'm thinking of getting the same
myself.

~~~
azurelogic
If you're buying any laptop for development use, it's worth getting 16 GB of
RAM if possible. You may not need much more than 8 GB right now, but
inevitably your need will increase over the next few years, and many laptops
aren't expandable anymore.

------
S4M
OS: Debian

Hardware: Dell laptop

Tools: Emacs, python, javascript, git; playing a bit with C, Clojure, Haskell.

------
Apreche
Thinkpad with Windows 7, but I develop in virtual machines running Ubuntu.

------
talleyrand
Chrome OS with Crouton running Ubuntu CLI. My favorite setup of all time.

------
enzolovesbacon
Thinkpad T400, Slackware 14.1, dwm, screen, zsh, vim, gcc, make, git.

------
robinhoodexe
OS X on my laptop. Debian on my Raspberry Pi. iOS on my smartphone.

------
sunasra
OSx(Yosemite) in Macbook pro late 2013 IDE : Intellij, Atom Git

------
eli_gottlieb
Linux Mint on a repurposed 2011 Macbook Pro, at the moment.

------
romanovcode
Windows 8.1 (waiting for W10)

Visual Studio 2013 (waiting for VS2015)

------
gabordemooij
I run CRUX Linux with OpenBox on a BTO X86 i7.

------
phatak-dev
OS : Linux Mint 17

Hardware : Dell inspiron

Tools : Java, Scala, IntelliJ, Git

------
danielmunro
OSX for local host, latest Ubuntu for work

------
ilyasjan
OS: OS X 10.10.3

Hardware: Macbook Air

Tools: Clojure,PHP,Emacs,Intellij Idea.

------
paultrott
osx 10.10 for design :: ubuntu 14.10 for development :: windows for games

