A nod to Linux Mint and Virtual Box
I have went through quite a few linux distros in my time, from Red Hat to Slackware, knoppix, to Mandrake, Caldera, Debian, Gentoo (one of my favorite) to recently Ubuntu (I am also an AfterStep fan..lol). I chose Ubuntu as my main development platform of choice a few years ago because of its debian connections, the apt-get repository system is well supported, and third party repositories are easily found. (I found, while i loved Gentoo, and portage was amazing....it was slow on getting a system up and running).
For the past few months I have been trying out Linux Mint (specifically 12, though now 13 is out). I have to say I am really impressed at how clean the interface is. After Ubuntu jumped the shark with their plasma interface I was longing for a simple gnome based (though i'd even go for kde) interface. I just want to jump in, install any supporting software, hack, tinker, coded, build, commit and jump out.
Just some background, A few years ago I decided to get rid of all of my dev PCs (around 4) and just focus on one uber PC (and one storage array), with high end specs, and do all my development (at least as much as technically possible) in Virtual Machines. So I end up with a quad core i7, 24GB of ram, 3TB HD local, and a 10TB raided storage array. I also decided that all my development would take place using source control, either git or mercurial, and stored on my storage array and/or github/bitbucket.
My experience with Ubuntu was getting progressively worse. I ended up fighting the installation and the interface. Linux Mint is clean, fairly light, and fast. I need a Linux that can install in minutes. My profile is as such, when i want to tinker, I spin up a clean virtual machine (usually by installing from an ISO), give it 1-2GB of ram, and a single core of CPU power, 100GB of dynamic HD space (meaning it only uses the space needed, but tops out at 100GB, just in case of any run away processes, etc). This allows me to tinker without other software getting in the way, and my main desktop is clean for work. I have actually even toyed with the idea that any web browsing and IMing should be done in a VM.
Note: I only do this for linux/solaris development, as windows is a bit harder to deal with. One day we'll have repositories and package managers like apt-get on windows. apt-get allows me to pull down a dev environment within 20 mins. Latest patches. the works. On windows, from bare metal to working VS install (with all the nuget tooling) takes hours, and thats not including any servers needed to install. Windows 7 is much better though...
For the past few months I have been trying out Linux Mint (specifically 12, though now 13 is out). I have to say I am really impressed at how clean the interface is. After Ubuntu jumped the shark with their plasma interface I was longing for a simple gnome based (though i'd even go for kde) interface. I just want to jump in, install any supporting software, hack, tinker, coded, build, commit and jump out.
Just some background, A few years ago I decided to get rid of all of my dev PCs (around 4) and just focus on one uber PC (and one storage array), with high end specs, and do all my development (at least as much as technically possible) in Virtual Machines. So I end up with a quad core i7, 24GB of ram, 3TB HD local, and a 10TB raided storage array. I also decided that all my development would take place using source control, either git or mercurial, and stored on my storage array and/or github/bitbucket.
My experience with Ubuntu was getting progressively worse. I ended up fighting the installation and the interface. Linux Mint is clean, fairly light, and fast. I need a Linux that can install in minutes. My profile is as such, when i want to tinker, I spin up a clean virtual machine (usually by installing from an ISO), give it 1-2GB of ram, and a single core of CPU power, 100GB of dynamic HD space (meaning it only uses the space needed, but tops out at 100GB, just in case of any run away processes, etc). This allows me to tinker without other software getting in the way, and my main desktop is clean for work. I have actually even toyed with the idea that any web browsing and IMing should be done in a VM.
Note: I only do this for linux/solaris development, as windows is a bit harder to deal with. One day we'll have repositories and package managers like apt-get on windows. apt-get allows me to pull down a dev environment within 20 mins. Latest patches. the works. On windows, from bare metal to working VS install (with all the nuget tooling) takes hours, and thats not including any servers needed to install. Windows 7 is much better though...
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