Following up on our previous discussion on
why use Linux, and learned
why Linux is ideal for development. Today, let's focus on why Linux is a fantastic system for web developers.
If you recall our previous post, we started alluding to this
StackOverflow pool, where Linux was cited as the most loved technology by developers at 83%.
There are multiple reasons for that. Let's learn about them next.
Linux is free
Obviously, one of the main reasons to run Linux is because Linux is free. As poverty (unfortunately) grows around the world, it's
important to minimize costs for users and companies. Since prices for
Windows lincenses
are really high and utilizing
MacOS, almost
impeditive for most of us, being free allows Linux to reach a much wider
audience including independent developers, small organizations taught and used
in schools, universities and research labs at a really low cost.
Robust package management
While it's true that MacOS users can use
brew to enhance their terminal
experience, and even Microsoft is building Windows a package manager (despite
20years late 😌) they are nothing more than a poor adaptation of Linux's
built-in package mangers. It's on Linux where the real experience shines since
the package manager integrates into the update system which integrates into
the shell.
Quicker access to modern tools
You'll get quicker access to the latest releases of your favorite programming
language on Linux too. Linux users frequently get earlier access to
Golang,
Rust,
NodeJS - just to name some -
without resorting to building them from scratch.
Streamlined workflow
Beyond getting access to the latest tools, developing on Linux will be a much
more pleasant experience to to the nature of the system: an awesome and
powerful shell (Bash
on most cases) accessible via a powerful window manager (GNOME
or KDE) being backed by a super
solid system with an extensible list of packages available to install at your
fingertips.
Awesome command line tooling
Developers love the command line. Using the command line is key to automate
your tasks and to opmitze tasks, resulting in huge productivity gains. Today,
even tasks that are commonly UI-based such as browsing the web, managing files
and even watching
YouTube. Web developers
can gain signifiant productivity if they embrace this workflow which's the
recommended way to building new web apps quickly with
ReactJS, VueJS,
Angular. Popular tools
and frameworks such as WordPress and even proprietary tools such as
SendGrid or
HubSpot have their own
CLIs.
Plus, tools such as
tmux or
i3, allow you to multitask
without sacrificing your productivity.
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On the left
man git, on the right: vim on top and htop on bottom
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Streamlined cloud and container integration
As Red Hat usually says,
containers are Linux. Creating your web app today requires probably a lot of dependencies, some
of which (a database server, for example) may not be trivial to install - or
may use a lot of your resources. Containers are today the way to streamline
that process as you can build complex applications with tools such
as
Docker,
Docker Compose and
Minikube.
Dotfiles
Once you get comfortable with the shell, you'll probably want to customize
it to your needs. Developers realize that they really make them productive.
Since it's common days to work on multiple machines, an elegant solution to
that problem is to
host your dotfiles in a private or public repository like
GitHub so you can quickly restore your favorite settings in any of your
development machines.
Integrated Git
Git is an essential requirement today. On Linux git is an integral part of the
workflow (of course, it was invented by Linux Torvalds, Linux creator to
facilitate the complex integration workflow of the Linux kernel). Using git in
Linux makes everything simpler as it integrates into your command line and
shell.
A powerful shell
Bash (and siblings such as ZSH and Fish) is a really powerful tool in Linux.
Developers who know it can leverage it to enhance their workflows. For
example, you could map the following three commands:
- git add .
- git commit -m <your-message>
- git push
As one operation, the following gcp command:
gcp(){
msg="More updates"
if [ -n "$1" ]
then
msg=$1
fi
git add . && git commit -m "$msg" && git push;
}
So that using it, would be:
gcp "Some commit message"
Oh, and simply typing gcp would do
all the above using "More updates" as the git commit message. Use but don't
abuse 😊.
Linux is reliable
Writing software requires a a reliable system. As you probably know, Windows
(and even Macs) are not as reliable as their companies
tell advertise. Your Linux system will rarely crash. You'll
also realize that Linux tools will be more stable than their Windows or Mac
equivalents.
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Excellent Documentation
Developers have to frequently access the documentation. Linux comes the
man tool
allowing you access to the documentation you need available regardless of your
exposure to to the internet. Just run
man <cmd>
to view documentation for the software you need:
Good for old hardware
Linux is also excellent for old hardware. For example, you can run lighter tools
that utilize less resources. Most distributions (such as
Fedora LXDE
shown below) release alternative lightweight versions optimized for lower-end
hardware.
Updated Software
Another reason why developers love Linux is because (1) they're exposed to the
cutting edge software and (2) they'll get frequent updates/upgrades. Regarding
the latter, updates on Linux are not only reliable but are more frequent than
anything you'd get on those systems. The system will be updated multiple times a
week and a new version can be available every 6 months depending on the
distribution with long-term releases available every 2 years.
Outstanding software availability
Not only installing software on Linux is simple Every Linux distribution
provides a tool to manage software with lots (literally, thousands) of apps.
Visual Studio Code,
Slack? You'll find on Linux.
You'll also find enterprise software like
Zoom and
Microsoft Teams if
you need to talk to your clients.
Networking tools
Web development is all about networking. Linux comes with powerful networking
tools, some of which you probably heard of.
Samba,
nmap,
whois,
nslookup,
ping,
curl,
ssh, among others are
natively available. There's just so much here and once you learn these tools
you probably wouldn't be able to work without them.
Cloud-native tools
Linux comes with lots of tools to use in cloud development. The most commons
are
Docker (and its
sibbling
podman) and
Kubernetes but it also
has easily installable access to tooling for
Azure,
AWS,
GCP and
devops/automation tooling such as
Ansible,
Helm,
Vagrant and more.
Support from a huge community
Linux users are spread around communities over the internet.
Being on Reddit
or on forums of your specific distribution, developers frequently share their
thoughts with similarly minded folks around the web. This helps them share
knowledge, news, learn new things and obviously, help others.
Linux is highly customizeable
Another reason web developers can benefit from using Linux is due to its
extensive customization. With the right instructions they can customize their
system as they wish resulting in a quicker setup or, in case containers aren't
sufficient, modelling their systems as per the customer's requirements.
Some of the things you can tweak in Linux are:
-
Desktop Managers: don't like
GNOME or
KDE? There's
XFCE,
LXQT,
LXDE, etc for you.
- Login Managers: how you login to your system.
- Desktop themes: configure themes, colors, etc.
- Fonts: customize your fonts, sizes, etc.
-
Shell: shell is the application that runs on your terminal and also
can be changed or customized.
-
Systems and Services: your system will have an endless list of
services to choose from.
-
Kernel: even the kernel, the main process of your system can be
customized.
Enterprise-Grade Security
Linux comes with built-in enterprise security tooling. Beyond that, curated
repositories Linux users are used to having repositories curated by the
community and available for them. That means less viruses, no adware, unsafe
or untrusted software running on your machine.
Conclusion
On this post we understood a little more why developers use and love Linux. You
too could benefit from using it today! We hope you learned something new today
and are excited to try out Linux and use it as your main system as we do!
See Also
