I was using ubuntu on my desktop for a year and a half, and it is most definitely a capable system - these days I just don't think windows on the desktop is an option for the serious hacker - unix tools are just too damn useful, too many open source projects assume you're on a unix, and the various crufty elements of windows are just too painful to bear, no doubt a result of their (quite justifiable given their market) obsession with backwards compatibility.
Having said that, linux does have rough edges - for example, I apt-get'd bugzilla the other day, only to realise I didn't need it on that particular box. apt-remove'ing resulted in the setup asking for the (non-existent) db password, then refusing to continue when I didn't supply it.
After a bit of googling round and trial-and-error I found a solution (sudo apt-get remove bugzilla3 rather that bugzilla). Had the same issue with virtualbox for a while too, equally irritating.
Also, there are the issues that don't quite work nicely like closing the lid killing the whole system, on 2 different laptops.
Having said that, I still adore linux; it's the Millennium Falcon of operating systems and despite the (sometimes quite fun for hackers actually) various fixes and cludges you have to apply, very capable. Having tried various flavours of linux every year or so for the past 10 years, I do think the latest ubuntus are miles, MILES ahead of what came before them, and considerably fewer cludges required than in the past - if things keep on developing at this rate we might actually have a very real windows competitor.
I mostly use OS X now (though still do some stuff in ubuntu) as I want an OS that gets out of my way and looks pretty doing it, while retaining the various unix tools I desire (thanks macports!), and that would probably be the system I recommend to a hacker with cash to spend, however linux is genuinely a great option to go for too.
Cygwin + PuTTY[1] in Windows is actually quite a reasonable compromise. It takes a little twiddling, but I can get to a local bash-prompt with a single click and be hacking in emacs in no time. I find this to be about equally close to "standard" linux[2] as is OS X, although maybe that's just a factor of my inexperience.
I use OS X, Ubuntu, and Debian at home... but at work I still prefer Windows 7 for some reason.
[1] Especially if you use PuTTYcyg: http://code.google.com/p/puttycyg/ EDIT: The main thing I miss with cygwin is command-line package management like apt, but OS X doesn't have that either.
[2] Obviously subjective... I mean Debian/Ubuntu-style.
I worked with Cygwin + Putty for several years. It wasn't Unix, but it made my life tolerable. I recently changed to Ubuntu and I can't believe I could live without it.
Regarding OS X, I like it but too many under the hood things are different (maybe it's just because I'm not used to bsd). The bigger problem is that their package management sucks compared to apt-get.
I don't know homebrew but macports wasn't that great when I tried it last. Apt-get has never failed to resolve dependencies where as macports did all the time.
agreed, however it is certainly a part of using an ubuntu system. The point isn't so much the specific problem, but rather that such things are quite common in linux (though far less so now than in the past).
Having said that, linux does have rough edges - for example, I apt-get'd bugzilla the other day, only to realise I didn't need it on that particular box. apt-remove'ing resulted in the setup asking for the (non-existent) db password, then refusing to continue when I didn't supply it.
After a bit of googling round and trial-and-error I found a solution (sudo apt-get remove bugzilla3 rather that bugzilla). Had the same issue with virtualbox for a while too, equally irritating.
Also, there are the issues that don't quite work nicely like closing the lid killing the whole system, on 2 different laptops.
Having said that, I still adore linux; it's the Millennium Falcon of operating systems and despite the (sometimes quite fun for hackers actually) various fixes and cludges you have to apply, very capable. Having tried various flavours of linux every year or so for the past 10 years, I do think the latest ubuntus are miles, MILES ahead of what came before them, and considerably fewer cludges required than in the past - if things keep on developing at this rate we might actually have a very real windows competitor.
I mostly use OS X now (though still do some stuff in ubuntu) as I want an OS that gets out of my way and looks pretty doing it, while retaining the various unix tools I desire (thanks macports!), and that would probably be the system I recommend to a hacker with cash to spend, however linux is genuinely a great option to go for too.
/rambling a bit...