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I am a novice application developer. I wanna to use Linux and try it out. But I've no idea of Linux distributions and what they are capable of. I've heard about Ubuntu, Linux mint, fedora.

But what is the best Linux distribution and what would you recommend for developer?

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2 Answers 2

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I'd download VMWare Player, or VirtualBox, both of which are free, and then go to each of the distro's websites and grab their VM iso dowload and try it out. Nothing to lose doing it that way, as you'll soon see which you prefer. If they don't offer a VMX version for VMWare, you can simply use easyVMX to roll your own from their regular downloads.

Ubuntu is always a good starting place, as it is designed to be user-friendly towards new linux users. There are also flavors of Ubuntu with different GUI's, such as Kubuntu and Xubuntu. But remember, underneath all the fluff, most Linux flavors are all the same and so your skills will transfer.

What do you develop? If you're doing web development and just need a LAMP stack, most Linux distros are simple to get up and running. As a Linux novice, I'd have you go with Ubuntu again, solely because of the amount of documentation and tutorials out there for you to learn from.

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  • I do web development (ASP.NET) and also application (JAVA).
    – Casper
    Jun 16, 2012 at 14:46
  • what do you think of Fedora?
    – Casper
    Jun 16, 2012 at 14:47
  • I would advise you to start with Ubuntu, since it's more user friendly, and yes, there is askubuntu.com :) Jun 16, 2012 at 14:48
  • +1'd. But I would mention VirtualBox as well. It's always nice to give a choice :) Jun 16, 2012 at 14:49
  • Certainly, edited to include other options. VMWare is just my personal choice of course.
    – Paul
    Jun 16, 2012 at 14:51
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Since you are a developer, in my opinion you should consider to develop and test your software on popular distros. Maybe the DistroWatch ranking could help you to decide. Anyway Debian is a good distribution to develop software... you have also the opportunity to familiarize with .deb packages, a very popular format for all the major linux distributions (which are also Debian derivatives) like Ubuntu, Mint...

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