I wanted to know what everyone’s’ opinion is on the matter I have weighing heavily on my brain: Is Linux a good platform to start using if you are a computer science major? I suppose this question is rather loaded and ambiguous, so I can potentially try to diffuse it. I primarily mean from a programming aspect, but it seems that Linux also has high demand in enterprise situations–contrary to what day-to-day PC use would lead you to believe. I suppose those are the two primary reasons for me asking the aforementioned question. Leave your answers below, I am happy to read every opinion. If my suspicions stand true, then which distro do you guys recommend for someone in my position? I primarily will be programming in C++.
For less troubleshooting and actually getting work done: Fedora.
I skipped to that because I use Fedora Workstation on my workstation at work. I manage servers, build simple websites, and monitor other users’ workstations. I guess building a website is as close to “programming” as I get. Code is code in a way. I use Atom personally which I enjoy as an IDE. https://atom.io
Fedora is the most “easy-mode and still up to date” distro I’ve found. It’s server edition even has a headless plugin that gives access to a lot of cool things with what is essentially no setup. Just has to have a network connection.
It’s probably best to familiarize yourself with the main flavours of operating systems to find which one suits your needs best. Linux has a lot of good development and debugging tools but you can find a lot of those same tools on macOS as well as on Windows in one form or another.
For web development in particular I’d recommend mac/linux but it really does just come down to personal preference, the tools you need and whether or not they are available on the os you’re using.
As for what distro I’d recommend, Debian derivatives such as Ubuntu and Linux Mint are usually what people suggest for beginners but Fedora is just as beginner-friendly and in my experience more reliable, however, mileage may vary.
I mean at this point, in my opinion, the os doesn’t really matter depending on what you do. If you just wanna bash out some C and Ruby you could do that anywhere. If you wanted to learn linux and be ahead of the game a little in terms of how server stuff works? Yeah maybe. It is purely based on whether you want to dump time into it or not and if your job requires you to use it.
Now I’m a fay to day linux user. I have done everythingnjn linux for 9-10 years now. I can say that its not a problem to use but I also know how the basic stuff works. I use arch. I like the AUR and I like the package manager and that the kernel is always up to date. I specifically use Antergos so that all my crap is all packaged together all nice and neat. Then I just install my apps and go.
You have other things to concider, potentially, in linux if you are a new user. Do you want to be the most up-to-date or do you want a rock solid installation? How often do you want to do updates? What Desktop Environment do you want to use? If you can answer all that for yourself and want to leap in, sure. You would do fine then.
Now your Q on comp sci stuff specifically… mmmm. In my college our comp sci teachers didn’t take linux seriously. They completely thought that android wasn’t linux and that Red Hat on their servers was BSD. That may not mean anything to you now, but my point is that they never did the work into learning about it, ever, so i had a rough time doing all my classes. If you are in college ask your prof about stuff and see what he has to say.
My code teacher knew about linux and a lot of the tools in it, but he was too lazy to even teach the class he had let alone think about what tools I could actually use. So, I put windows 7 on my pentium M laptop because it was the only spare machine I had and tried to do the class.
I failed. But not for lack of trying. We were also doing C#… Should have done ruby.
