{"id":12,"date":"2003-12-18T17:41:11","date_gmt":"2003-12-18T22:41:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marcusvorwaller.com\/blog\/index.php\/best-os-for-web-design-and-development\/"},"modified":"2003-12-18T17:41:11","modified_gmt":"2003-12-18T22:41:11","slug":"best-os-for-web-design-and-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcusvorwaller.com\/blog\/2003\/12\/18\/best-os-for-web-design-and-development\/","title":{"rendered":"Best OS for Web Design and Development"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this article, I’m taking Linux (Debian and others), Macintosh OS X (Panther) and Windows XP and comparing them to find the ideal operating system for web design and development. After using Windows, Macintosh OS X and Linux (in various incarnations) each for extended periods of time over the last 4 1\/2 years, here is what I’ve found.
\n
Linux<\/strong>
\nAdvantages<\/i>: The obvious advantage to developing on Linux is that you’re working on the OS that you’ll probably be running your site on. It’s nice to be able to save locally and view your content on a local webserver. This is also possible in Windows and OS X so it’s not necessarily a major advantage but it’s nice. <\/p>\n

\nOther advantages of Linux are that it has great text editors (Quanta, Kate, gEdit to name a few) and there is no lack of FTP tools. In my mind, that’s about it as far as advantages go.<\/p>\n

\nRead on for disadvantages of Linux and my insights on OS X and Windows.<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

Disadvantages<\/i>: The biggest disadvantage of designing for the web in Linux is the utter lack
\n of good graphics software. Sure, there’s the Gimp<\/a> which
\n isn’t a bad piece of Open Source software, but in all honesty it does not compare
\n to Photoshop<\/a> or even Fireworks<\/a>. For one, it’s lacking any “save for web” feature
\n to make optimizing images a quick and easy process. That alone is enough to
\n make me choose photoshop over the Gimp, but there are a host of other disadvantages
\n to the Gimp which I won’t go into here. You can now run Photoshop in Linux
\n using Codeweavers
\n Crossover Office<\/a> but in my experience, Photoshop does not run nearly as fast
\n under Crossover Office or as well as it does using it on a native platform.\n<\/p>\n

If you’re looking for vector graphics software, you’ll also come up empty
\n handed. I do 99% of my layout work in Illustrator<\/a> or Freehand<\/a> and
\n there is nothing even close on Linux. SodiPodi<\/a> and a couple others may be contenders
\n later on down the road, but right now they are far from being serious competitors
\nto either Illustrator or Freehand. <\/p>\n

\nMacintosh OS X (Panther)<\/b>

\nAdvantages<\/i>: One of the principal advantages of using a Mac to design is
\nthat the GUI of OS X promotes good design. You may disagree, but I feel that
\nworking in such a clean, polished environment helps you clear your mind and focus
\non design. I personally have changed the theme of OS X to the iPod
\ninspired theme<\/a> using ShapeShifter<\/a> to
\nremove some of the bright colors OS X has by default making the OS X experience
\neven better.<\/p>\n

Exposé. Exposé makes working with several applications (which
\n is very common in web development) a breeze. It even makes working with the
\n Mac version of Photoshop tolerable. Many of the Mac users I work with love
\n how there is no "gray box" behind Photoshop for OS X. Personally, I like<\/em> the
\n gray box on the PC–it blocked out all the clutter of the desktop and other
\n app’s while working on graphics. In addition, double clicking it quickly
\n brings up the "Open File" dialog and by minimizing it, you quickly clear your
\n desktop. <\/p>\n

Another advantage with OS X is that it has a native SSH client. I love being
\n able to open the Terminal and ssh to the server without having to use Putty.
\n This is also (obviously) available in Linux. In addition to SSH, Apache, PHP
\n and MySQL run well on OS X (probably better than on Windows) <\/p>\n

Disadvantages<\/em>: I use Dreamweaver
\n MX 2004<\/a> and Flash
\n MX 2004<\/a> quite
\n a bit. On the Mac, the interface to both of these programs is not nearly as
\n nice as on a PC. On a PC, using the numerous panels and palettes necessary
\n to use both of these programs is almost effortless. On the Mac, I find myself
\n constantly rearranging them. While both Dreamweaver and Flash allow you to
\n save your panel layouts, using the programs in OS X is not as efficient as
\n using them on a PC. I also miss the tabs you have on a PC when working with
\n multiple documents. In addition, I have found Flash MX 2004 to be much less
\n stable on OS X than on a PC, with semi-frequent crashes of the sort where the
\n entire program just disappears. <\/p>\n

Windows XP<\/strong>
\n Advantages<\/em>: I’ve already mentioned several of the advantages to Web
\n Development on a PC (Dreamweaver\/Flash interface advantages, Photoshop "gray
\n box" etc.). In addition to these, there are a few other things that make designing
\n on Windows nice. <\/p>\n

Browsers. This is a big one. The majority of Internet users use Microsoft
\n Internet Explorer on a PC. It’s essential to be able to test your sites on
\n IE, whether or not it’s the browser you use (I prefer Firebird<\/a>)
\n and IE on a Mac is significantly different from IE on Windows. <\/p>\n

FTP clients. I’ve had much better luck with using FTP clients on Windows than
\n on either Linux or OS X. Maybe it’s that I haven’t searched hard enough, but
\n I haven’t found anything that I like better than (now discontinued) Leech
\n FTP<\/a> and FileZilla<\/a>. Both
\n are free, fast and fully featured. <\/p>\n

In Windows there are also dozens of great text editors – from basic<\/a> to advanced<\/a>,
\n many of them free. <\/p>\n

Disadvantages<\/em>: Well. Say what you will, and your comments are welcome,
\n but there really aren’t many disadvantages. If cost isn’t an issue (and it
\n almost always is), most good software is written for Windows. With
\n Windows XP stability isn’t an issue anymore (hasn’t been for me anyway). You
\n can run most web servers you can run on Linux or OS X on Windows, Apache being
\n the most important, (though I’d never consider using Windows as a server).
\n The only thing left to complain about is the proprietaryness (is that a word)
\n of Windows and Microsoft, but as far as the OS itself, in a strictly utilitarian
\n sense, there isn’t much to complain about. On the server side of things, I’m
\n 100% for open source software and I use it exclusively there. On the desktop,
\n it’s a different story altogether. <\/p>\n

Conclusions<\/strong>
While web development is possible, even enjoyable,
\n in all three OS’s, I’ve found Windows to be the best all around. Really, what
\n it comes down to is the available software and it’s ability to run well on
\n the OS in question. All three are very stable operating systems with all the
\n necessary server side tools to work with. However when it comes down to the
\n availability and usability of software, Windows still can’t be beat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this article, I’m taking Linux (Debian and others), Macintosh OS X (Panther) and Windows XP and comparing them to find the ideal operating system for web design and development. After using Windows, Macintosh OS X and Linux (in various incarnations) each for extended periods of time over the last 4 1\/2 years, here is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-software"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/ppj2P-c","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcusvorwaller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcusvorwaller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcusvorwaller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcusvorwaller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcusvorwaller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marcusvorwaller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcusvorwaller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcusvorwaller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcusvorwaller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}