So here it is! I have mostly finished building new “gwork” station computer. I have been messing with bios and tuning for a time, now I am ready just to get to work. I am coming from a Mac Os environment. I do full stack web development and I am ready to get my dev environment situated. Web development is going to be the main use of this machine with some design work mixed in. As well as some digital conceptual art. But I am interested in making my Dev environment in Linux, however, I am so so level one when comes to Linux operating systems and setting up a development environment in Linux. I do see a use case for me switching between Windows and Linux for some tasks. So really would like to start getting some info on appropriate Linux distributions, advice on whether I should create a dual boot, or rather run Linux off a VM or run Windows on a VM. Is WSL2 a good path for this endeavor. I Thank you all in advance for sharing your knowledge and experience with me! Currently running Windows 11. Which I have to use for some of the design programs that I use but really interested in using it for development.
To start, you should expect the experience using linux will be very different from windows. Things might not always work out of the box and may need additional effort (ask anyone the hell it is installing nvidia proprietary driver). Expect to get comfortable using the command line and reading documentation.
Fortunately for you the resources now are much better documented (as well as being easier to search with chatgpt) and interest in linux is very high. This forum has numerous threads to helping people with linux and documenting issues
Some of mine as well
If you approach linux with the mindset that you’ll need to debug issues, you can move on to picking a distro. You’ll want to pick between a stable or rolling release distro.
disclaimer that this is my experience and things might have changed since distro hopping in university
Speaking from experience/reading forum posts, Debian is typically the most stable, but might miss bleeding edge features (namely gpu drivers or mouse/keyboard firmware on laptops). Open Suse, ubuntu, Pop OS, manjaro, and fedora is in the middle where you get more frequent updates than Debian, but not as much as much as Arch. Arch is on the bleeding edge and will have frequent updates.
Having installed Open Suse, ubuntu, and antegeros (arch), I settled on Fedora. I found that its release is frequent enough that my trackpad firmware was fully supported and the distro more forgiving if I didn’t update it in a year.
I will say that I got the most comfortable debugging linux issues (using the arch wiki and forum posts) while using antergos on arch.
When trying suse on my laptop, the firmware for my thinkpad track point didn’t work. At the time I also couldn’t customize the DE (Desktop Environment) to my liking.
I use ubuntu for wsl at work, but I didn’t run it on my laptop as I did not like the cononical direction with collecting user data. Pop OS from system 76 I hear, is a fork (mod) of ubuntu that’s more privacy respecting.
I might switch off fedora given rhel’s stance on open source forks of rhel. I haven’t swapped because I haven’t had time. I might give steam os (arch based) or a arch fork another shot since the steam deck experience is pretty good and I’m more comfortable debugging issues. Chatgpt and llms have been very helpful in researching common error outputs.
WSL2 is a great way of testing the waters. I’ve heard of an analogy that mechanics driving boring reliable commuter car and like working on project cars. It might be the same for developers.
The main advantage of wsl2 is that you can treat it a project car, you can still get to work if the fuel pump is dead in your project car.
You can fall back to windows to research answers. I had a couple times where I borked the graphics on my laptop/desktop and got stuck on the command line needing to search errors on my phone or laptop/desktop.
Furthermore, If you enjoy the experience of learning how to debug linux errors or find wsl2 limiting for your use cases, you can install linux on a secondary drive and work on it. If you want to go the full project car route where you are building the engine, transmission, and steering system you can get gentoo.
Doable, but certain programs (such as games) may need a graphics card to passthrough see the guides on this forum.
Personally I use linux for my daily browsing and windows whenever I want to game or stream.
Adobe CC is not supported on linux. Figma has a electron app but running it on linux is not a first class experience.
so check software compatibility before you switch Operating systems.
i am not a creative person check out inkscape and gimp. (it’s not the best i prefer corel). but it works for my needs eg. functional presentation layouts and basic web design.
Wow, such a wealth of information! Thanks soooooooo much! Going through the posts and reading your suggestions helped me come to a path. I think I will start with the Ubuntu distribution, and run it through WSL2 for a trial run, as well for my graphics and creative related stuff. It seems that it would be to be nice not having to turn my computer off and waiting for my computer to reboot. I will get started.
yeah, that was one of my thoughts for running Linux using WSL2 or a dual boot system, Using Windows for creative and gaming and Linux for development work.
Wendell wrote a good guide that has wsl setup
I did track this resource down and have been reading through it, well documented and easy to follow. Thanks for providing a quick link to this resource. I got all my graphic related stuff setup last night. Planning to start tackling Wsl2 setup this evening. I will definitely be using Wendell’s guide.