Top 7 Reasons Why Professional Software Developers Must Use Linux
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The Most Popular Operating System in the World Today?
If you ask an average desktop computer user 10 years ago, what OS do you use, he would say Windows. It was the world’s most common Operating System for over three decades. On the desktops and laptops the vast majority, 80%, would use Windows, despite a hefty price. Reason — Ease of Use. You can plug any device into a Windows OS USB and get it to work through Plug’n’Play. But today, everything has changed.
The dominant OS is now Android, it’s free and open source. And there is no shortage of devices using it. This automatically implies several things:
- The value that Microsoft offers in Windows is now available for free for mobiles.
- Because of a Google Play Store as of today consisting of over 3 million apps downloadable and used in various ways, Microsoft Windows is now no longer relevant in the mobile space.
- Windows could be classified as a non-essential expense — when buying a new tablet or a mobile.
That was the way things were going. But then came Windows 10.
The Convergence Trend
Before Windows 10, Microsoft had different offerings for different platforms. It had Windows Phone, Windows 8.1, Xbox, and other offerings. But Microsoft played a masterful move by converging these separate architectures' kernels into one unified and smaller kernel, that of Windows 10.
So all that makes us conclude that Windows 10 is a fantastic offering. It solves many problems, and finally, we have a unified architecture for all platforms and architectures. Right?
The Role of Linux
The first graph above showed that Linux had roughly 1% of the desktop user’s market share. But that is not the full story. Be prepared for a surprise — Even Microsoft uses Linux today! And Windows 10 is integrating Linux into its own native offering. If you thought Linux was a plaything for developers and nothing more, just look at the statistics below.
Linux Statistics
(from https://hostingtribunal.com/blog/linux-statistics/#gref <- I strongly recommend that you read this article as well, it is absolutely awesome, well-written and well-researched and well-presented, a rare combination)
100% of the world’s top 500 supercomputers use Linux.
23 of the 25 top websites in the world use Linux.
Every major space program uses Linux, including one of the SpaceX vehicles Falcon 9.
96.3% of the world’s top 1 million servers run on Linux.
90% of the public cloud workload runs on Linux.
90% of Hollywood’s special effects are made on Linux.
What we see publicly is that 85% of desktop computers run Windows, and Linux has a 1% share of the desktop computer marketplace. But as the statistics above prove, Linux is the king of operating systems worldwide. However, for the naive user — Linux as an OS can sometimes be a pain to use. There are many simple things like plugging in headphones that require manual driver installations, adjustments, and tweaks to your system. But if you are a developer, you absolutely must learn Linux. And techies love/adore/prefer Linux. Here are the top seven reasons why.
1. Bash, CLI, or Shell Scripting
Linux has a scripting language built into it that makes running the system a piece of cake. Bash, or Bourne-Again Shell, is an absolutely omnipotent tool that can be used with various executables to automate every task that has to be done to your system.
In Windows 10, if you want to perform maintenance on your server, you have to go through several mouse clicks, choices, and dialog windows. It takes time, can be multicasted but requires effort and energy.
In Linux, all we need to know for all your needs to tinker with the system can be approached as one-line commands that you execute once and forget about. Then we have piping, passing the output of one command to another, It is so powerful that there is very little you cannot do with it.
Caveat 1: Windows Powershell
Windows PowerShell is a direct copy of the old scripting languages of Unix, Linux and its variants’ shell commands into Windows. PowerShell has access to the entire .NET ecosystem as well as Microsoft Azure if you have it. In that sense, Windows PowerShell is more powerful than bash, at least feature-wise. So one major advantage that Linux has is trumped. However, they are used in different use cases. The best option: Please, please — learn both!
Caveat 2: Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)
If you can’t beat them, join them. How do you beat Linux once and for all? Why — include its most popular feature into your own proprietary system, a direct copy and replica of the Linux version. WSL and especially WSL 2, allows you to use bash in Windows 10! Beautiful move, Microsoft.
But Linux still rules the Command Line Interfaces (CLIs)
Why? Because now .NET, Windows Core, Windows Powershell, and Azure are available on Linux as well! We can use all the advantages of both at the same time. And no surprise that thus, Linux runs over 90% of the Server OS platforms in the world in 2021.
2. Free As In Forever, Runs on Old PCs
Linux costs 0$. Absolutely free. No charge. Free download. Completely free, except for one or two distros like Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) charge for it. And guess what? Linux OSes on servers are also free! And this at a time when Windows Server 2019 costs a whopping 6,155 USD for the DataCenter Edition. Windows 10 Pro for business costs 199 USD.,
We have Linux just getting better and better. And Windows and hardware manufacturers are playing a game with the end-user. Make the software require higher-tech specifications so that hardware companies can sell faster and better (more expensive) tech, in a never-ending upward journey.
What about the millions across the world who have never even seen a laptop? What about Asia, Africa, South America? Can we not donate our old hardware to those countries rather than get them recycled? And will Windows 10 run on a 1 GB RAM with 50 GB HDD? No.
They can use older distros of Linux instead!
Linux has the potential to be the savior of millions across the world by offering legacy distributions like Ubuntu 10 for countries that can’t afford Windows.
In this sense, Linux has a powerful role to play in making computing available for the whole world. I just hope the major computing companies like FAMGA can see it and do what is necessary, what is socially rather than economically correct. (in your dreams, dumbo! In fact, the time is ripe for an outreach towards the economically disadvantaged because the tech companies will never do it since it’s not profitable! The enlightened public citizenry will have to volunteer to do it.)
3. Cloud Computing
Linux operates 90% of the cloud computing systems today. Not only does it not force updates down your throat, but it can also be patched easily. Linux, simply put, has fewer malware tools and viruses running against it compared to Windows.
There are lesser cyber attacks, and of course, the cost takes the entire story in one shot. The price of a Windows Server on AWS — 100 machines — is a whopping 65,305 USD per month! In contrast, running Ubuntu instead of Windows — again, 100 machines — with Compute Saving enabled — is 2,715 USD per month! Who would possibly want to go for Windows Server?
(Source — AWS Pricing Calculator — https://calculator.aws/#/)
System administration is much easier. Attacks are fewer. Cost is free. There is no competitor to Ubuntu Linux in the cloud computing arena, in Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, and even Microsoft Azure!
Think about it. The very company that sells Windows Server does not use it for its own Cloud Computing Service. Microsoft Azure uses Ubuntu Linux! Quite simply, no competition.
4. The Developer Mindset
I have been using Linux on and off for the last one year, ever since one compulsory update of Windows left my laptop bricked. I have tried just Linux Mint and Ubuntu, but I am a fan. As a developer, I have the ability to swap components of the OS as I prefer (I used Ubuntu, Cinnamon, Wayland, Xfce for the desktop environment, and completely fell in love with Xfce.) I am also an amateur violinist and singer and I wanted to uninstall Ubuntu and use Ubuntu Studio for recording and mixing, but then discovered Ubuntu Studio can be installed over Standard Ubuntu (Focal Fossa 20.04 LTS) without having to change anything!
Now I cannot say using Linux has been easy. But I can say it has been fun. as a developer, you relish challenges and problems and are ready to sit for long periods of time with just one error. And these days we have become Google-based developers (Google the error message received and fix according to Stack OverFlow), especially for new technology. You have to prepare for a grueling test of your intellectual capacities. The process of making Linux run my audio hardware has been very like debugging software. It requires a very similar mindset. One prepares you for the other.
And there are hundreds of fantastic online forms such as AskUbuntu.com and Stack-Exchange-like communities which welcome new users and seem to have answered just about every question that can be possibly asked about Ubuntu Linux, at least. There is so much support online. There are hundreds of thousands of questions that have been asked and solved! And most fixes require copying a single line or three lines of code from the Internet and running them by pasting them into the Terminal. Presto - an instant fix! Online support rocks!
5. Support For Artificial Intelligence, High-Performance Scientific and Distributed Computing
There is absolutely no competition here. For scientific and high-performance computing and all AI platforms, Linux reigns as the supreme leader. In fact, many frameworks for AI and HPC run only on Linux. If you are a data scientist, you will need 8 GB RAM for serious data processing. A Linux distribution could do the same work and more with just 2 GB of RAM. With regard to that, if your budget is constrained, Linux is the best option for you. Some of the most popular AI and scientific HPC computing products available for Linux today include
- TensorFlow & Keras (Deep Learning from Google)
- PyTorch (Deep Learning with transparent GPU support)
- DL4J (Distributed Deep Learning on Spark and Hadoop)
- H20.AI (a fast, scalable, and distributed machine learning framework)
- IBM Watson (A comprehensive full-featured AI package from IBM)
- Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit (ML, DL, NLP tool from Microsoft)
- Apache Spark (MLLib and Apache Mahout provisioned as necessary)
High-Performance Computing (HPC)
Traditionally HPC clusters and supercomputers tend to use Linux. The major factors are cost (free!), footprint (very lightweight compared to Windows), availability of free software, and ease of use.
6. Reliable Updates
Traditionally Windows upgrades are an all-or-nothing experience. Either you succeed — or there’s the power cut and an entire computer gets bricked (this happened to me, which was why I switched to Linux. But I stuck with Linux because it was fun to use).
Linux upgrades are hassle-free, uncomplicated, always work, and have never caused my software any kinds of compatibility issues except when building enterprise AI software.
It is also under your control. That single decision from Microsoft to make updates compulsory has turned away more people than the company can afford. You have 10 minutes for a presentation to the board of directors and the chairman, and the automatic restart and updates kick in. What the heck, dude!
7. Thousands of Free Software Available
On Ubuntu, there is an app for everything. All right, some apps require recompilation, adjustment, and troubleshooting, especially audio hardware which is simply plug-and-play on Windows. There is a tool for everything. And thousands of Ubuntu apps work perfectly fine out-of-the-box. Windows restricts you a lot to paid versions. Unless you have deep pockets, switching to Linux would be your best option as a developer. And did I mention — there are multiple app stores, multiple libraries, and multiple platforms? You are spoilt for choice!
Conclusion
Dude. If you want to be a developer, with the latest technologies and the hottest tools on the market, then, please, please switch to Ubuntu. If you’re trying Linux for the first time, I would recommend Linux Mint. If you are a security professional, I recommend Kali Linux. If you are a multimedia guy I recommend Ubuntu Studio. Many other distros have their own use-cases. If you want to work in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, and many other related areas of development, Ubuntu Linux should be your OS of choice.
Linux architecture is beautifully layer and modular. The abstractions between modules are well defined. So, for the coding grandmasters:
P. S. For the Elite GrandMasters of the Art of Code
You already use Linux. Try to rewrite parts of the source code of your operating system and test your customized operating system in a virtual machine like VirtualBox. In the US, learning Operating Systems means building an OS from scratch. Hardware. No harm to learn that, either! Write your own OS. And customize even more. Maybe add try to add Jarvis to Ubuntu? Now that would be a popular project!
Finally…
And just as in everything else, focus and you will have the best time of your life ever! The joy is not the destination but the daily journey. Practice mindfulness. And live a life expressing compassion to the poor. As always, I think you’re awesome, every one of you. Love you all!
Peace! And thank you for your reading this article!
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