I consider myself fairly versatile when it comes to O/S selection. I have used DOS/Windows PC’s all my life, switched my main laptop to Mac two years ago, and have used numerous flavors of Unix/Linux/BSD while studying for my Comp.Sci. degree.
However, as I’m trying to improve my development environment, I’m starting to wonder if I’d be better off scrapping the Macbook for a PC with a different O/S flavor (to support a different set of tools and IDEs).
What O/S do you prefer for (web) development, and why? (prefer answers from people who have real-world experience coding on multiple platforms)
(Note: I am aware of this question discussing client vs. server O/S – what I’m interested is the whole development environment, and not limited to the ‘Windows crowd’)
It’s really going to depend on the type of web development you want to do. If you are doing PHP (or LAMP, Perl, Python, Ruby), then Linux is probably the best way to go. If you are looking at doing .Net development, then Windows would be your best bet. I think if you’re on Java, then Windows or Linux would be equally good.
For LAMP development on Linux, you are probably best going with Netbeans or Eclipse for your IDE. Personally I prefer Netbeans, but it depends on which you are more comfortable with. If you want to pay for an IDE, Zend is one of the better options. As far as distros go, any popular distro should be fine. I hear Ubuntu is pretty popular although my personal favourite is Mandriva.