Why is Linux better for development of apps?

ljeevan · 06-18-2006, 11:22 AM

I have seen a lot of people use Linux for development (e.g, Java and C++), yet I am interested in knowing various benefits of developing open source applications on the Linux operating system. Aren't most of the tools that are made for Windows made on Linux? I have seriously considered switching to Ubuntu or Debian for the desktop. Can anyone give me some pros and cons of switching to Linux on the desktop, mainly for Java development?

Thanks!

boredandblogging · 06-18-2006, 12:01 PM

I'm not particularly sure there are a whole lot of advantages of doing java development on windows vs linux. All the big java tools and software work cross flatform (the jdk obviously, tomcat, eclipse, etc). Of course, they might be more stable on linux

ilikejam · 06-18-2006, 12:08 PM

Hi.

The big difference is in the tools available on Unix, which you don't get on Windows.

Standard toolkit stuff like 'sed' can save you a lot of time if you have changes to make over large source trees.
Going though debugging output and logs to find an error is a one line effort with 'grep'.
You can do cool and interesting stuff with pipes and fifos to help debug IO issues, or to generate test data/stress testing. The list goes on.

Dave