My development environment moved to Ubuntu [big change]

A couple of days ago, I have installed Ubuntu 13.04 on a spare drive for a spot requirement. I have been so pleased by it, that I decided to dual boot it on my main computer, alongside with Windows 7, to keep it handy. This choice has been motivated by the five general purpose arguments bellow. This is also motivated by a current robotic project based on ROS, for which the stable version is only available on Ubuntu.

1 – SPEED

First of all, I’ve been surprise to see how fast it was, even on an external hard drive. When you switch from Windows to Ubuntu, you notice it strongly. To be fair, I have clearly more programs running in the background. And of course, the boot process is really really faster.

2 – TAILORED FOR CODING

Then, after a couple of hours coding a Python piece of  program, I found it so convenient for this kind of activity. I have just used gedit and the console. The basic text editor highlights the syntax.

Ubuntu 13.04 coding Python with gedit and a simple console

3 – DROPBOX IS THERE TOO

I’m used to work with dropbox for coding. All my sources are stored on a dropbox folder. In case of crash, I still have the lastest version. Dropbox is readily available through the Ubuntu Software Center.

4 – THE CONSOLE IS FAR BETTER

Especially compared to the Windows one. The Linux console is not just far better, it far far far … far better. You can resize it, configure it as you want, use several tabs, and the history is kept between sessions. Working without it is like a rainy day.

5 – MULTIPLE DESKTOPS

This is a feature that I like very much. I have always used it on MacOS, I miss it on Windows. I have one desktop for the browser, one for a full screen program, like an IDE or a photography software, one for small screen application (console or text editor). And of course I constantly switch between them (Ctrl + Alt + arrow).

Ubuntu 13.04 using multiple desktops

DRAWBACKS

They are some disadvantage through.

The first one is that Ubuntu is shipped with a particular flavor of Java dubbed IcedTea and not the Oracle JRE or JDK. There are some legal issues behind that. Not a big deal, except that the Oracle version is required for running Android Studio. Moreover, the Java plugin is not installed by default.

Ubuntu 13.04 IcedTea configuration screen

Another unpleasant issue is the font management. The font size is not consistent. For example, in eclipse, the text looks too big:

Ubuntu 13.04 editing a Java code in eclipse

The panels are therefore less readable. On the contrary, in Chromium, the font is sometimes too small:

Ubuntu 13.04 editing a post in WordPress with Chromium

I have never noticed this on Windows before. The font size and display are always perfect.

Any interesting hints on Ubuntu to share? Feel free to post a comment bellow!

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