What is Linux and what are its top alternatives?
Top Alternatives to Linux
- Ubuntu
Ubuntu is an ancient African word meaning ‘humanity to others’. It also means ‘I am what I am because of who we all are’. The Ubuntu operating system brings the spirit of Ubuntu to the world of computers. ...
- Arch Linux
A lightweight and flexible Linux distribution that tries to Keep It Simple.
- Android SDK
Android provides a rich application framework that allows you to build innovative apps and games for mobile devices in a Java language environment. ...
- Windows 10
It is the latest iteration of the Microsoft operating systems and has been optimized for home PC performance in a wide variety of applications from serious work to after-hours gaming. ...
- Windows
A series of personal computer operating systems produced by Microsoft as part of its Windows NT family of operating systems. ...
- Amazon Linux
The Amazon Linux AMI is a supported and maintained Linux image provided by Amazon Web Services for use on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2). ...
- FreeBSD
An operating system for a variety of platforms which focuses on features, speed, and stability. It is derived from BSD, the version of UNIX® developed at the University of California, Berkeley. It is developed and maintained by a large community. ...
- Kali Linux
It is a Debian-based Linux distribution aimed at advanced Penetration Testing and Security Auditing. It contains several hundred tools which are geared towards various information security tasks, such as Penetration Testing, Security research, Computer Forensics and Reverse Engineering. ...
Linux alternatives & related posts
- Free to use228
- Easy setup for testing discord bot96
- Gateway Linux Distro57
- Simple interface53
- Don't need driver installation in most cases8
- Many active communities5
- Open Source4
- Easy to custom3
- Great OotB Linux Shell Experience1
- Many flavors/distros based on ubuntu1
- Software Availability1
- Lightweight container base OS1
- Demanding system requirements4
- Adds overhead and unnecessary complexity over Debian3
- Systemd1
- Snapd installed by default1
related Ubuntu posts
We use Debian and its derivative Ubuntu because the apt ecosystem and toolchain for Debian packages is far superior to the yum-based system used by Fedora and RHEL. This is large part due to a huge amount of investment into tools like debhelper/dh over the years by the Debian community. I haven't dealt with RPM in the last couple years, but every experience I've had with RPM is that the RPM tools are slower, have less useful options, and it's more work to package software for them (and one makes more compromises in doing so).
I think everyone has seen the better experience using Ubuntu in the shift of prevalence from RHEL to Ubuntu in what most new companies are deploying on their servers, and I expect that trend to continue as long as Red Hat is using the RPM system (and I don't really see them as having a path to migrate).
The experience with Ubuntu and Debian stable releases is pretty similar: A solid release every 2 years that's supported for a few years. (While Ubuntu in theory releases every 6 months, their non-LTS releases are effectively betas: They're often unstable, only have 9 months of support, etc. I wouldn't recommend them to anyone not actively participating in Ubuntu the development community). Ubuntu has better integration of non-free drivers, which may be important if you have hardware that requires them. But it's also the case that most bugs I experience when using Ubuntu are Ubuntu-specific issues, especially on servers (in part because Ubuntu has a bunch of "cloud management" stuff pre-installed that is definitely a regression if you're not using Canonical's cloud management products).
There is a question coming... I am using Oracle VirtualBox to spawn 3 Ubuntu Linux virtual machines (VM). VM1 is being used as a data lake - just a place to store flat files. VM2 hosts Apache NiFi. VM3 hosts PostgreSQL. I have built a NiFi pipeline that reads flat files on VM1 and then pipes the data over to and inserts it into the Postgresql database. I left this setup alone for a while, and then something hiccupped on VM3, and I had to rebuild it. Now I cannot make a remote connection to Postgresql on VM3. I was using pgAdmin3 on VM3, but it kept throwing errors - I found out it went end-of-life in 2018 and uninstalled it. pgAdmin4 is out, but for some reason, I cannot get the APT utility to find/install it. I am trying to figure out the pgAdmin4 install problem and looking for a good alternative for pgAdmin4 that I can use to diagnose the remote database connection problem. Does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks in advance.
Arch Linux
- Large Community15
- Package Manager13
- Customizable11
- Arch User Repository10
- Rolling Release10
- Bleeding Edge9
- Extensive Documentation8
- Arch Build System7
- X86_64 architecture supported6
- Can fix bugs yourself if you know how to3
- Systemd only3
- Only X86_64 architecture is offically supported2
- No Guided Installation1
- System maintenance1
- Unstable1
- Comparatively fewer offically supported packages1
related Arch Linux posts
I once used Ubuntu as my exclusive Linux distro, but then I decided to switch my primary operating system to Arch Linux.
While more difficult to install, Arch Linux offered more flexibility during the installation process which allowed me to customize my system to fit me perfectly. With Ubuntu, instead of installing everything i did want, I had to remove everything that I didn't need.
I do find Linux-based systems to be cool! However, I am confused when it comes to which Linux operating system to use. I cannot make my mind between Arch Linux and Kali Linux. Guys, give me some advice if you would be so kind.
Android SDK
- Android development286
- Necessary for android155
- Android studio127
- Mobile framework86
- Backed by google82
- Platform-tools27
- Eclipse + adt plugin21
- Powerful, simple, one stop environment5
- Free3
- Больно3
related Android SDK posts
We are using React Native in #SmartHome to share the business logic between Android and iOS team and approach users with a unique brand experience. The drawback is that we require lots of native Android SDK and Objective-C modules, so a good part of the invested time is there. The gain for a app that relies less on native communication, sensors and OS tools should be even higher.
Also it helps us set different testing stages: we use Travis CI for the javascript (business logic), Bitrise to run build tests and @Detox for #end2end automated user tests.
We use a microservices structure on top of Zeit's @now that read from firebase. We use JWT auth to authenticate requests among services and from users, following GitHub philosophy of using the same infrastructure than its API consumers. Firebase is used mainly as a key-value store between services and as a backup database for users. We also use its authentication mechanisms.
You can be super locked-in if you also rely on it's analytics, but we use Amplitude for that, which offers us great insights. Intercom for communications with end-user and Mailjet for marketing.
I've recently switched to using Expo for initializing and developing my React Native apps. Compared to React Native CLI, it's so much easier to get set up and going. Setting up and maintaining Android Studio, Android SDK, and virtual devices used to be such a headache. Thanks to Expo, I can now test my apps directly on my Android phone, just by installing the Expo app. I still use Xcode Simulator for iOS testing, since I don't have an iPhone, but that's easy anyway. The big win for me with Expo is ease of Android testing.
The Expo SDK also provides convenient features like Facebook login, MapView
, push notifications, and many others. https://docs.expo.io/versions/v31.0.0/sdk/
- On 4gb other applications less likely to run smoothly3
- The best developer tools for all devices2
- Slow1
- Best for Indonesian PC Users1
- Great is if you have 8b ram and a 128gb ssd minimum1
- Complies with JIS Standard1
- Editors choice. But not suitable on 4gb ram. Alth1
- Worst OS to run on 2GB of RAM2
- Slow, slow and slow2
- Lags really much on low end devices2
- Acts posh1
- Can't fix bugs yourself1
related Windows 10 posts
I have been using macOS for 12 years. I can't imagine switching to another operating system since I have all of my hotkeys memorized. Windows 10 has made some drastic improvements like adding GNU Bash/Linux to win developers over from unix-like systems, I just don't feel it is there yet. Maybe I'll give it a shot next time I need a new laptop. 🤷♂️
Windows
related Windows posts
We want to create a 3D web and desktop(Windows and macOS) application with a lot of functionalities. This is a 3D furniture customization application in which we give options to add, delete, scale, move, rotate objects. Something like a floor planner. We are also going to add AR and VR.
I am thinking about using Electron or Unity. Please recommend what should I choose for this purpose. Please consider that we have to develop for web and desktop (windows and mac) all platforms.
We are developing an AWS IoT app for large boats. The IoT devices have sensors all over the boat for engine oil pressure, position, water depth, fuel level, crew location, etc. When the boat has internet, we interact with AWS cloud using lambda and Amazon DynamoDB. When the boat is offshore, the captain and crew still need normal and emergency alerts and real-time sensor information. The crew might have an Android or IoS phone or a Windows or macOS PC to receive alerts and interact with sensors. We may use the AWS GreenGrasss edge computing solution and either MQTT or HTML for that function.
Question: We want to develop a cross-platform client to run on Windows, Mac, Android, IOS, and possibly Linux. We are primarily Python programmers, so PyQt or Kivy are options for us, but we have heard good things about React Native, Flutter, Xamarin, and others. We think an AWS Greengrass core on an RPI4 could communicate to the client with MQTT or a local webserver with a client web interface.
Any thoughts would be much appreciated.
Amazon Linux
related Amazon Linux posts
FreeBSD
- Excellent as Server6
- Very Stable5
- Helpful community4
- Extremely simple updates and compiles of kernel and use2
- Ports and packages system is mature and well-supported2
- Free to use2
- Easy to install1
- Supported by major cloud platforms1
- Slower to adopt non-server hardware than Linux1
- Poor support for laptops, especially wireless cards1
related FreeBSD posts
- Penetration testing tools are pre-installed7
- Has many penetration testing tools7
- Runs on both x86 and ARM platforms4
- Its just debian so it has better support2
- Outdated versions of common packages2
- Root GUI setup is a potential security hole2
- Packages are too large in size as compare to alpine2
- Wireless driver issues on some systems1
related Kali Linux posts
I do find Linux-based systems to be cool! However, I am confused when it comes to which Linux operating system to use. I cannot make my mind between Arch Linux and Kali Linux. Guys, give me some advice if you would be so kind.