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I've recently started to lose interest on having my work environment as Windows 10 for development in general. The continuous updates and programs which Windows somehow starts without my order is ridiculous, and since the latest Windows 10 update (1803) my fans are in consistent speed due to some heavy work which Windows scheduled without my concern, so I'm beginning to merge to a Linux environment.

I've investigated some Linux distributions and the one I was passionate about the most was Ubuntu, which by itself embodies simplicity. Even though I sympathy with Ubuntu, my interest is focused on the Ubuntu derivative projects such as Lubuntu, Xubuntu and Kubuntu.

I have collected information about the comparative RAM and disk usage of Ubuntu, Lubuntu, Xubuntu and Kubuntu from watching this YouTube video.

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So for development in general (software, web & app) which project do you guys consider the best? Here is a list of IDEs and code editors that I use on a daily basis:

  • Netbeans/InteliJ for Java development
  • Atom/VS Code/Webstorm for web development (JavaScript, NodeJS and frameworks)
  • Sourcetree for Git usage & management

I would like to point that I'm looking for a fast environment without big usages of memory, which I will dual boot on my laptop, which is not that old but in comparison to recent laptops it starts to become outdated. Here are some specs my laptop is currently using:

  • Intel Core i7-3537U (2 cores/4 hyper-threading)
  • 4GB RAM
  • 500GB HDD
karel
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lubuntuvsxubuntu
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4 Answers4

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Ubuntu MATE is the equivalent of Xubuntu in lightweight system requirements, but it is better than either Lubuntu or Xubuntu because MATE desktop environment has true HiDPI support in 18.04 and later. Every aspect of Ubuntu MATE 18.04, its themes, its applications, its icons and its toolkit assets have been updated to take advantage of HiDPI. This is a great feature for web development.

karel
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  • Hello @karel

    First of all thanks for the quick answer and opinion relatively to the distributions. For me every environment should have an intuitive interface, but I don't rely on big "flashy" themes,I just like to feel comfortable on what I'm working, which is one of the reasons I have an eye for Lubuntu. But the HiDPI feature you mentioned has kinda worried me relatively to UI & UX integration. Should I dispend this feature for a lower usage distribution? Because in terms of RAM usage, Ubuntu Mate uses more than 300mb than Lubuntu, and sligthy more 80mb than Xubuntu (based on Youtube

     – lubuntuvsxubuntu Jul 10 '18 at 21:35
  • *based on youtube video review (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyNVpWyVP-M) – lubuntuvsxubuntu Jul 10 '18 at 21:36
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    Try it and see for yourself. You can have multiple desktop environments installed on the same operating system and choose which desktop environment to use each time you login. – karel Jul 10 '18 at 21:39
  • didnt know about that! currently experimenting on a Virtual Machine, thanks for the heads up – lubuntuvsxubuntu Jul 10 '18 at 21:49
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It might be difficult to know the answer without testing.

  • You can 'Try' them live or persistent live booted from a fast USB 3 pendrive or USB 3 connected SSD (without touching the internal drive).

  • You can do the same or similar test with installed systems in the same kind of external drive(s).

    After such tests you will know, what works best for you, with the tools that you want to use. It might also be good to have several flavours in a multiboot environment to test what is developed in your favourite desktop environment.

  • I should also say that there are four light-weight Ubuntu family flavours,

    • Lubuntu - ultra light
    • Ubuntu Budgie - medium light
    • Ubuntu MATE - medium light

    • Xubuntu - medium light

      All of these flavours are light enough for your computer. I would say that it should work well also with standard Ubuntu and Kubuntu, even though their desktop environments need more 'horsepower' and RAM to work well compared to the light ones.

  • I suggest that you use versions with long time support, LTS. The most recent one is 18.04 LTS (the LTS versions are released in April during even years, so 14.04, 16.04, 18.04 ...). Standard Ubuntu and Ubuntu Server are supported for 5 years, and the community flavours for 3 years.

    The other Ubuntu family versions are released in April odd years and in October every year. They are supported for 9 months, a very short time.

sudodus
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IMHO for pure development anything goes since you spend most of your time in an IDE anyway.

However, if you happen to manage/configure servers (or VMs in your PC) and run code on them in the picture, I find the seamless integration of file management tools of KDE very efficient. Once you have established SSH access, you can navigate/move/rename/edit remote files as if they were on your local machine. I also find the KDE "activities" rather useful.

xenoid
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I've been using Xubuntu for the last 8-9 years for web development and i'm happy with it. Low on resources and the stock software is simple but pretty solid. It can be customized to be pleasant to the eye, for example with Numix Theme.

I will recommend you upgrading to at least 8gb of ram, it's not strictly necessary, but it will make your life easier, specially if you plan to use VMs and/or Docker. Also, it's the cheapeast upgrade that you can make with a big improvement in performance. A sdd drive for the boot & root partition (even a small one) is also a nice adittion, using your current drive as secondary in a caddy. That's my setup.

As people pointed out, go for a LTS release. That will let you keep your custom setup at least for 2 years with security support.

Apart from that, one of the difficulties moving from windows is the software, in your case most of the listed software is cross-plataform, except for sourcetree which is only for mac/windows. There are some altertives like GitKraken or git-cola.

bistoco
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