What is the most versatile operating system to learn how to program?

Question

8

Options
Considered

542

User
Recs.

May 6, 2022

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

The Best 1 of 7 OptionsWhy?

What is the most versatile operating system to learn how to program	Price	License	OS Family
93 GNU/Linux	Free	GNU GPL	GNU/LInux
52 macOS	-	EULA	UNIX (BSD/Darwin)
-- Haiku	-	MIT	BeOS-like
31 Windows	-	EULA	Windows NT
-- None/All	-	-	-

See Full List

6 Other Options Considered

macOS

Top Con

Most software is closed source

For people who like to use open source tools for their development work, this may be a problem. There's plenty of advantages to open source software, one of which is the ability to tinker with and customize the tools themselves that you are using. Although there's plenty of FOSS tools available for Mac, especially through Homebrew, the number of packages available is much lower than the number of packages available for any Linux distribution. See More

Top Pro

Unix system from Mac OS 10.x

As more and more servers are moving over to *nix based systems its great to not to have to use different tool sets. From Mac OS 10.x, Apple has license to use Unix kernel instead of their own kernel in previous OS like Mac OS 7, 8, 9, ... See More

JC Staudt's Experience

I absolutely deplore doing embedded development in this ecosystem. See More

Specs

License:EULA

OS Family:UNIX (BSD/Darwin)

Based On:Research UNIX>BSD>NeXTSTEP

Top Con

(Mostly) locked into to Apples hardware

There are Hackintoshs, but they aren't always the most stable platform. See More

Top Pro

Easy to use

For the most part, everything in the OS just works and is highly easy to use. See More

FascinatingKulla's Experience

I absolutely deplore doing embedded development in this ecosystem. See More

Top Con

Limited hardware

Usually, the hardware that can run this can't be upgraded. See More

Top Pro

Official platform and easiest for you can use for iOS development

cosmo's Experience

macOS is, by far, the most locked-down, clunky piece of garbage I have ever used. It's a security nightmare, and it's horribly optimized for anyone wishing to learn how to program. With regard to programming, the only operating system it beats is Windows. You're far better off using Linux or BSD if you're actually interested in learning how to program. See More

Top Con

No native package management

A comparison of package managers available for OSX can be found here. See More

Top Pro

Everything just works

Adding the free XTools gives you a great environment. See More

Top Con

Too little customization options

Top Pro

Many macOS only apps that are useful for developers

Such as Dash. See More

Top Con

Poor application support

Fewer apps run on Mac OS than on Windows. See More

Top Pro

Easy to build graphical applications

Xcode makes it very easy to develop graphical applications (Visual Studio on Windows is also very good). Libraries and tools are included and standardized. If you want to build a cross-platform graphical application though, OS X is the limiting factor, with the fewest commonly available widget toolkits. See here for a list. Other than Cocoa, the native OS X interface, if you develop on OS X with any of those widget toolkits, your program should be portable across Linux and Windows. See More

Top Con

Expensive

For the same price, you can buy a better PC with Windows or buy a much greater PC with a Linux distro included. See More

Top Pro

Good documentation and examples by Apple

Top Con

Awful package management

In order to use a worthwhile package manager, you need to install a 3rd party system like homebrew, which only lets you control a subset of the packages on the system and is separate from the App Store system. See More

Top Pro

Good package manager

Homebrew has become the defacto unofficial repo. For more information about this see slant page on Homebrew. See More

Top Con

Not open source

Well, maybe not ALL open source... https://opensource.apple.com/ See More

Top Pro

Has software that only runs on Mac

For example, Sketch. See More

Top Con

No official way to install macOS on my server

Top Pro

Very stable for development

Top Con

No vulkan support

While there is MoltenVK, macOS natively does not support Vulkan. Instead they are trying to push their eco system and Metal by deprecating OpenGL and not supporting Vulkan at all. See More

Top Pro

Powerful terminal

It's very similar to a Linux terminal. See More

Top Con

Silly modifier keys layout

The Command key is strange, Alt is where Super should be. See More

Top Pro

Best terminal ever

iTerm2 works only on Mac OS X. See More

Top Con

Bash version is obsolete

macOS comes with an obsolete version of Bash, due to licensing issues. See More

Top Pro

Easy access to lots of great dev tools

There's a large selection of great development tools available for OSX. The operating system itself comes bundled with a powerful terminal emulator, called Terminal. Additionally, Apple provides tools, like Xcode, an IDE that contains a comprehensive collection of tools for developing OSX and iOS software, for free. See More

Top Con

Very few options for running hosted, on the cloud

Top Pro

Lots of open-source software available

Because it's Unix under the fancy GUI, most open source ports easily to it. See More

Top Con

Default window manager is very poor

Quick tabbing between windows is difficult. See More

Top Pro

More commercial software and gaming support compared to other Unix systems

Adobe CC, MS Office, Steam games. See More

Top Con

Package binaries are often out of date

This can be fixed through Homebrew though. See More

Top Pro

There's a fewer configuration needed than other *NIX system

Top Con

Poor X11 integration

The most open source software does work but is very poorly integrated due apples ancient version of the X-server. See More

Top Pro

Best support for Objective-C, Swift

GNU Step can't catch it. See More

Top Con

Can't replace the window manager

You can't install a better shell, like GNOME, KDE, or i3. You're stuck with the default WM - the most you can do is run an automation layer on top of the existing shell to handle resizing/moving windows. See More

Top Pro

Just about total *nix support

Most compiled binaries can be run and/or ported with little or no work beyond an X translator and package support. With minimal work you can run the vast offerings of Unix, Linux, BSD, etc; natively without emulation. See More

Top Con

Vendor-Lock-in

You are now forced to use the Apple services. See More

Top Pro

Streamlined workflow between devices

Because this is an Apple product, there is a streamlined workflow between your computer and all mobile devices. For example, if you type an a Pages document, once you save, you can open the updated document just moments later on your iPad, and vice versa. The same goes for iMessage, (yes, you can text people with your phone number from your computer. Actually, you can text other people with apple devices with just your Apple ID, with or without a phone number, for free!) Numbers, Notes, Reminders, Contacts, and just about any other Apple workflow application. See More

Top Con

Lacks software

there are plenty of apps (esp. freeware) that exist for windows but not for mac os. See More

Top Pro

Ideal setup, out of the box

Next to no custom configuration is necessary. See More

Top Pro

Has many special tools for developers

Has support for multiple IDEs. See More

Top Pro

Based on Unix

macOS being a UNIX certified system means that you can install a lot more stuff with a lot fewer headaches than if you were on Windows. See More

Top Pro

Polished UI

The UI of Mac OS is rather unrivaled. The smooth, responsive, and cohesive UI makes the system quite joyous to use. See More

See All

Haiku

Top Pro

Only need 512mb ram

Top Con

No one uses it

It's a very niche OS that no one uses. See More

Specs

License:MIT

OS Family:BeOS-like

Widget Toolkit:Interface Kit

Programming Language:C++, C

Top Pro

It's fun

It's a unique OS that is fun and fresh to work with. See More

Top Con

Small community

It is important when developing to be familiar with tools that other developers use. You can make any utility in any language you feel like, but if it's in an esoteric language that no one can read targeting a small platform that no one uses, then it was just something you did as a hobbyist, not as a developer. This is not to say that Haiku isn't a great operating system to hack around on. Just don't delude yourself into thinking you're doing it to get familiar with tools that you need to know to be a better developer. See More

Top Pro

Development is supposedly going to begin again

Originally Haiku was a clon fromB eOS which has since been discontinued. See More

See All

Windows

Top Con

Not free and core components are locked

Windows is commerical-ware, so you have to pay for a Windows License ( or it comes with your computer), to get some features, you have to pay a premium for professional or ultimate edition ( HyperV for example); also you cannot modify the core system components, you can uninstall them, but you cannot modify them, which is a deal breaker for operating system developers. See More

Top Pro

Easy to build graphical applications

Visual Studio makes it very easy to develop graphical applications (Xcode on OS X is also very good). Libraries and tools are included and standardized. If you want to build a cross-platform graphical application, all commonly available toolkits work on Windows (See here for the high-level widget toolkits). Only Cocoa, the native OS X interface, and LessTif, an abandoned clone of Motif, aren't available on Windows. See More

SomeCallMeTim's Experience

Windows is by far the most used OS for development. All important tools are available for Windows, it's better than OS X for keyboard-driven development, and it's better than Linux for driver support. See More

Specs

License:EULA

OS Family:Windows NT

Top Con

This operating system is closed source

Top Pro

Widely used

Windows is the most-used desktop OS in the world. See More

Wesley Khoi Vo's Experience

If you development game, Windows is the best choice than other OS. This OS support multiple graphic API like: DirectX, OpenGL, Vulkan. Also third party API SDK like: PSSL (Play Station Shader Language), Nintendo, ... And support game development for mobile: OpenGL ES. Apple allows game developers to compile Metal Shading Language on Windows into Metal Library Objects that target Apple platforms without buying a Mac. Link: https://www.macrumors.com/2020/07/11/metal-developer-tools-windows/. Google allows game developers to use Visual Studio making game for Android. Link: https://youtu.be/JXQBdMNDL7k. This is the best choice of game development. DON'T hear any bad advising: "Windows is too bad for programming software", they don't know anything . I bet all money: you can find easily AAA game programmer books also recommend using Visual Studio and Windows than other tools or OSes. See More

Top Con

Minimum specs for development software is higher than other OS

Top Pro

Bash on Ubuntu on Windows

Windows 10 adds support for a unix style shell. You can now "apt-get install" programs on windows and navigate your file system just like you would on mac/linux. See More

JC Staudt's Experience

Writing code is much easier than deploying code on enterprise Windows systems. See More

Top Con

More difficult than other OS to set up a proper standards-compliant dev environment

When it comes to command line industry standards, those are dictated by unix and unix-like environments. Thus, it's slightly more difficult to setup a standards-compliant environment on Windows than on Linux (or OSX). Again, this can be mitigated by installing a Linux VM or installing Ubuntu on Windows. See More

Top Pro

Best driver support of any OS

No other OS comes close to supporting as much hardware as Windows 10 does. Because it's the most popular OS, the bulk of hardware manufacturers support Windows first, and all other operating systems second. See More

cosmo's Experience

When it comes to programming, Windows is outright counterproductive. Even if you want to write programs for Windows, you're better off using a UNIX-like system and testing in a Windows virtual machine. Windows is also, by far, the most insecure piece of software on the planet. It even comes with spyware preinstalled! This is not a good operating system, and I recommend you avoid it at all costs. See More

Top Con

Limited in its flexibility

Window managers, startup systems, and system components cannot be changed. See More

Top Pro

Tools are readily available

You can quickly start off with programming. See More

Top Con

Realtime protection (antimalware in background) makes builds slow

Compiling a project means reading and writing a lot of files. Even fast anti-virus software slows down the build time (which is almost always too long), can avoid this issue by add compiler process to white list. See More

Top Pro

Availability of .NET Framework

Windows has .NET Framework with easier to develop software like Windows Forms, Windows Presentation Foundation, Universal Windows App. With Mac and Linux, just Mono and .NET Core available, not easy to develop GUI app. See More

Top Con

Some tools maybe deprecated after some while

Top Pro

Accessibility

Window navigation and such works better than in others (linux window managers win only in better window placement support, osx looses in all aspects). Combined keyboard + mouse accessibility better than in others. See More

Top Con

Limited access API

Windows is a commercial operating system access-limited by design. See More

Top Pro

Free access to great development IDE in Visual Studio Community

Visual Studio Community just available in 2017 and before. After 2019 version, just Visual Studio build tool is free access. See More

Top Con

Update policy / scheduling is a nightmare

Pop-up to update your system that will restart it if you don't interact quick enough and will have to be in reboot mode, which can freeze your activity until the update is done. See More

Top Pro

GUI Tools instead of CLI tools

Using IIS, you can host most of web apps with it's IIS manager, which is completely GUI based; that's an advantage for beginner, if they do not wish to learn BASH or typing in commands. Also, GUI logs and GUI system settings(group security, security policies) means that it is much easier to set up a test environment. ( e.g. to change permission for a folder, you can do so in the context menu, Linux has a very basic GUI version of chmod and it's even worse in macOS). See More

Top Con

Scanning for viruses makes builds slow

Compiling a project means reading and writing a lot of files. Even fast anti-virus software slows down the build time (which is almost always too long). See More

Top Pro

Windows comes first

Windows is the most used platform in the world. If you build something and need a third-party software it will most likely run on Windows. Not because it's good, but because everyone uses it. See More

Top Con

Most software is closed source, including the operating system itself

Top Pro

Touch screen support

You still can't get touch support on a Mac. Windows has had touch for 8+ years now. See More

Top Con

Uses more resources than most alternatives

Top Pro

Bash shell

Windows has a binary compatible Bash shell to run Linux apps natively. https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-au/commandline/wsl/about See More

Top Con

Unstable and slow

Windows crashes often and is much slower if not install right hardware driver, especially at file IO. See More

Top Pro

Best hardware support

If the hardware exist it usually has a driver for windows. If you development with NVIDIA CUDA, Windows is better choice. NVIDIA driver now not working with Mac OS 10.14 higher, and NVIDIA Linux driver is so limited support. With NVIDIA driver for Windows and WSL 2 GPU, this more easier to development CUDA API. See More

Top Con

While many tools are available, hard to track down

Many tools for Windows are hosted on their own websites, meaning that the user will need to learn of them to then download them off of individual sites. This can be time consuming. A good place to start would be here. See More

Top Pro

The most solid choice for .NET development

Top Con

Not a UNIX system

Windows is not a UNIX system. Although it can install WSL then install Linux app, but WSL still header transition layer converted Linux API to Windows API counterpart. See More

Top Pro

Included free with almost new computers

At least the non-Apple variety at any rate. Some OEM has large licenses so they install Windows as a default. See More

Top Con

There are some privacy issues

SOME privacy issues? The whole OS is a security minefiled. See More

Top Pro

Has official support multiple graphic API and support multi-third parties game SDK

Windows has multi support: DirectX, OpenGL, Vulkan. And support multi third party game SDK like Sony Play Station, Nintendo. Also mobile graphic API OpenGL ES. It also support compile Apple Metal Shading Language. Google also support Android game development on Visual Studio. https://www.macrumors.com/2020/07/11/metal-developer-tools-windows/ https://youtu.be/JXQBdMNDL7k See More

Top Con

Maintenance is time-consuming

Previous versions needed to be formatted every 6 months to maintain performance. See More

Top Pro

Good documentation and examples by Microsoft

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/ See More

Top Pro

Has TortoiseSVN and TortoiseGit. Easier to use version control system

Top Pro

C++ debugging and profiler in Visual Studio is the best (Visual Studio Enterprise)

With Visual Studio newer version from 2017, you can remote debugging for Windows and Linux also. Other OS and development tool can catch them. See More

Top Pro

Cheap

You can buy a Win Pro key legally for ~ €15. See More

Top Pro

There's a fewer configuration needed than Mac and Linux

Top Pro

Free with most new computers

At least the non-Apple variety at any rate. See More

Top Pro

Best support for Visual Basic

Top Pro

Ubuntu bash shell

Windows has a binary compatible Ubuntu shell to run non-Windows apps natively. https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-au/commandline/wsl/about See More

Top Pro

Stable

See All

None/All

Top Pro

Stop being a fanboy

Top Con

UI look and feel may be non native.

If your goal is to develop something that looks like it fits in, this can be tricky with some cross platform languages (Java being a notable example, though there are libraries that can help this). See More

Wesley Khoi Vo's Experience

Stop being a fanboy of any OS. This list is very positive for Linux, but negative view for Mac and Windows See More

Top Pro

Potentially larger user base

You are not constrained to a subset of the market, thereby the opportunities to get help should be greater when only constrained by language rather than language & OS. See More

Top Con

You may still need to deal with idiosyncrasies

Most cross platform environments can't abstract away all the OS specific idiosyncrasies. For example, starting Java applications as a service is something Java cannot do out of the box. So you are left to come up with your own solution for that. NPM's scripts are not inherently cross platform, so if you use them while developing with Node.js, you may need to find your own ways to make them cross platform. See More

Top Pro

There are lots of popular languages available that are pretty much OS independent

For example, node.js, Java, pearl, Python, Ruby, HTML, CSS, Javascript. See More

Top Con

Learning how to test can be costly

Learning how to test one's code can be more complicated, depending upon the language because you may need to test certain aspects of your application on different OSes. This means more setup time as well. See More

Top Pro

You can focus on learning

Developing at this higher level allows you to focus on solving problems and learning the language rather than learning an unfamiliar OS. See More

Top Con

Write once - test everywhere

The idea behind cross-platform languages looks nice at the first glance, but in reality in the very best case boils down to an infamous "write once - test everywhere" pattern. See More

Top Pro

Can give you experience across OSes

Developing in a language that supports many OSes gives you potentially more room to grow, by giving you an excuse to try other OSes once you become comfortable in the basics of a language. See More

Top Con

Very limited language options

Top Pro

Online tools

If you are keen on just diving right into coding, there are many tools that run in your browser that allow you to get going without needing to setup anything locally. For example, codepen and coding. See More

See All

OpenIndiana

Uncanny Highly Secure:100+

Based On:Research Unix>PWB/Unix>System V R4>Solaris>OpenSolaris>illumos

DOS

Top Con

Outdated

Outdated to the point of being only used in very very specific conditions. See More

Top Pro

OS doesn't prevent you from accessing hardware and fully controlling your computer

Top Con

Very few good tools available

Even Vim will be dropping DOS support in the next version. See More

Top Pro

Can be emulated on any modern OS

Top Con

Poor networking support

Top Pro

Nothing distracts you from programming (like facebook or messengers)

Top Con

Not a modern OS

If you need to know how to run legacy software that will run on DOS (crazier things have happened, there's probably still some ancient, leviathan, software out there that requires it), go for it. Otherwise, you're practicing skills that are out of date and are using an operating system that is woefully unsecure. See More

Top Pro

Many programming languages available (C, Pascal, Basic, Assembler, Forth...)

Top Con

Literally horrible

MS-DOS is terrible -- just read about real mode. It was an almost decent solution for its time, but not anymore. See More

Top Pro

Still in heavy use

Used in millions of non-interface Environments. While Linux and others are starting to make in-roads into the embedded environment, dos is still king at the moment. See More

Top Pro

Brings back memories to older developers

Top Pro

Source code is now available

FreeDOS, an alternative royalty free implementation is available. MS-DOS version 1.25 and 2.0 source code available in GitHub (license MIT with 1.25 and 2.0), other versions is still proprietary. See More

See All

GNU/FreeBSD

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GNU/Linux

Top Pro

Range of useful tools available free and as part of distro

Tools (such as git, sort, grep, sed, awk, compilers, build tools...) are either part of core system or installable with single command. See More

Top Con

Issues with drivers if your hardware is not officially supported

Some hardware maker is not support all Linux distros or not support Linux. NVIDIA is example, their driver is too bad if compare with AMD Linux driver. Other network hardware also has a problem driver. See More

Elias Van Ootegem's Experience

The core philosophy of GNU/Linux still is: if you don't like something, change it. This inevitably means you have to get hands on with your system. As a result, the system isn't for everybody, but it does mean it's a tool devs absolutely adore. It comes with the GNU toolchain, which includes a whole range of compilers. There's a bunch of free, and very mature editors/IDE's readily available, too. Last but not least: because Linux is such a dominant force globally (servers, super computers, mobile and embedded), a lot of new development tools, languages and tech will support or even be developed for Linux. The best part: If you choose your stack wisely, it's absolutely free. See More

Specs

License:GNU GPL

OS Family:GNU/LInux

Widget Toolkit:GTK, Qt, wxWidgets

Top Pro

Powerful command line

Superior set of built-in utils that are well documented and are designed for command-line use. A big range of command-line shells and shell script languages (commonly bash) are on their own powerful enough to create simple programs. See More

Top Con

Difficult to develop for iOS and OSX devices on Linux

However, it is possible to make the process more streamlined by cross-compiling. See More

EarnestTuonetar's Experience

Linux is excellent for development. It has the lowest cost of entry. You can get a thinkpad from 2012 for $250 and install it. Since the OS is so lightweight, you can get excellent performance out of outdated hardware. A good package manager means that most installs take seconds and one cli command instead of reading the documentation. It rarely hangs or freezes on login, too. A very nice all-around OS. See More

Top Pro

Lots of options to setup a development environment

Most linux distributions have a multitude of packages available, so it's generally easy for users to setup various compilers and IDEs. See More

Top Con

If you're not an every-day user and/or are new to the platform, you will likely spend as much of your time managing the Operating System as you will learning the programming language of choice

I love GNU/Linux. I've been running it since I was in middle school, and have been a professional developer for over a decade at this point in my career. But I would never, as a default position, recommend Linux to someone if they came to me and asked "what is the best platform to learn to program on." Why? Because unless there is something inherent to the language desired to be learned that requires Linux, I don't understand why you're going to off the bat increase the learning curve for the aspiring programmer. Are the basics of the shell useful to know? Absolutely. Are *nix-based systems huge players in the web world, and programming in general? Without a doubt. But none of that is required to learn a language, and I don't find throwing as many variables at a novice learner helpful. If, down the road, the coder needs to learn bash, or setting up device drivers on a *nix system, or how to work a package manager (all useful, don't get me wrong), then I'm sure they will. But frankly it's a waste of time to throw this operating system at people who don't need it. I am not a philosophical fan of Microsoft, Linux Is My Desktop (tm), but this idea that we should just throw every young programmer onto a Linux box is ridiculous, and pushed by ideology more than it is practicality. Unless they end up deep in macOS/iOS or Windows-specific programming, chances are they will find their way to linux eventually. Many do, if for no other reason than a coder's innate love of tinkering and the attractive philosophy behind open-source projects. But let's stop with the farce. See More

iboyperson's Experience

Arch Linux is my duily driver and it works so much better then say windows or osx See More

Top Pro

Almost free and open source kernel

Linux is an OS assembled under the model of free and open-source software development and distribution. See More

Top Con

Not a system for everyone

If you're looking to have control over your system at all costs, including the effort it takes to learn the system, then look no further. If you're an everyday computer user, with no technical affinity whatsoever, move along. Linux assumes you - as a user - have some technical understanding. See More

YF L's Experience

On Linux, everything is text! I never used an IDE on Linux for my R assignments. I edited my code in EMACS and compiled it using my own Makefile. See More

Top Pro

Allows raw access to low level system operations

No matter what you do, Linux often makes it a lot easier to directly access your hardware (e.g. raw Wi-Fi data). See More

Top Con

Hard to get used to working in the terminal

It might be a challenge when trying to get used to using the terminal a lot to get around certain things See More

Wesley Khoi Vo's Experience

First of all, I am using Debian and Fedora for a while before my comment here. Too bad for game development, I love support this OS but too hard too config some C++ third party libraries. That why Steam drop support native SDK for it and move to transition layer (Proton - Windows game working on transition layer instead native program). It make us always stick with some make software example CMake. Game developers found easy to use Visual Studio and XCode than CMake. That why very limit AAA title games come to Linux. But some nice points of Linux is you can customize everything you want. Google has fully supported for Android NDK not like Android NDK on Windows (Google is partial support NDK Windows, I have some bad experience bug with it). Some game console base Linux: Steam Machine See More

Top Pro

Powerful tools

When it comes to industry standard development tools (non environments, tools!) Linux has you covered more than OSX and way more than Windows (although Win10+Ubuntu Shell is a very clever solution). See More

Top Con

Most of professional proprietary software is not available for Linux

There are often free alternatives to popular software applications; however, if you need a specific application, such as Adobe Photoshop, you may be out-of-luck (without running another operating system inside a virtual machine or dual-booting with another operating system). Also many (especially older) dedicated applications to drive hardware (like a laser cutter for example) may be available only on certain platforms like Windows or OS X. See More

Arne Babenhauserheide's Experience

You get the tools people used to build your tools. See More

Top Pro

Package managers

You can install any library or package that you need (gcc, php, node) with just a couple of commands in the terminal. See More

Top Con

If Linux came to dominate desktop, development software would become a nightmare

Because too much variants of Linux distros mean developer will support more distros. More bugs, more performance issue. Look at Android (Linux of mobile), lack of quality app, worse performance on low device, app crash too much because OEM modified firmware too much. That why iOS always has better app support. See More

cosmo's Experience

Linux is, far and beyond, the absolute best operating system for programming, particularly when it comes to learning how to program. It's armed to the teeth with completely open source software that you are free to read and modify. Not only that, but Linux has far more programming tools available for it compared to any other operating system. You can never go wrong with Linux! :) See More

Top Pro

Some distros oriented to developers or for specific platforms

There are optimized distributions based on Gentoo, ArchLinux, ... available for Arduino, Raspberry Pi and other small or specific platforms. See More

Top Con

Just have a public graphic API like OpenGL, Vulkan and mobile API OpenGL ES

Public API always never catch speed advantage API of property graphic like DirectX or Metal or PSSL. Public API just have that API after a few months, but guaranteed the stable FPS. See More

Deuxis's Experience

The most versatile operating system, ideal for programming. See More

Top Pro

Excellent documentation

There is plenty of documentation on GNU/Linux on the web and included in the distributions. See More

Top Con

Not have official IDE, always stick with CMake to compile program

You can't easy debugging and profiling a program without IDE. See More

Ajay Kumar Rawani's Experience

Awesome ! See More

Top Pro

No hidden parts

Everything is open source, and there are a lot of technical talks for every bit that will interest you as your system programming skill grows. See More

Top Con

Not secure

Linux is the least secure operating system because there is no sandboxing, an insecure kernel, and no verified boot. People who want to learn to program should use Windows or MacOS instead. See More

Top Pro

Easy to try out/install and use

Live CD distros make it simple for anyone try out first and install. Package managers make finding and installing software a painless process. Most popular desktop environments (Mate, Cinnamon, KDE, etc..) are just as easy to learn and more powerful than Windows or MacOS. A developer can get up and running quickly and easily with plenty of excellent free and open source tools. See More

Top Con

Drivers for the latest hardware might not be available

Hardware manufacturers often don't provide drivers for Linux. Drivers for the latest or less popular hardware are often missing or support only limited functionality. See More

Top Pro

Most components are open source and you can improve them

Top Con

Steep learning curve

Top Pro

Powers most web servers, mobile phones, and portable devices

This means that what one learns is relevant for more systems / devices. See More

Top Con

Low user base to develop to

Fewer use GNU Linux than other OS' like Windows or MacOS. See More

Top Pro

Nearly all single board computers' OS are Linux based

If you want to program a Raspberry Pi or any other such small computer, it'll very likely be running a Linux OS. You can not only transfer knowledge but also use it to code or control hardware. See More

Top Con

Has Mac OS development via cross compile but not official

For creating OSX applications, native environments have more suitable tools and are better suited to the task. See More

Top Pro

Compiles faster

Compiling codes in Linux is very fast compared to Windows. In Linux, compiling a "Hello World" in C or C++ takes only about 0.1 seconds! On Windows, it takes about 1 or 2 seconds just to compile a "Hello World" in C or C++. Because UNIX file system base on tree data structure, while Windows is implemented in master file table. See More

Top Con

Maintenance can be time-consuming

Top Pro

Dev tools almost always support Linux or are developed specifically for Linux

Because Linux is the main OS for WRT servers, supercomputers, mobile, and embedded systems, most tools you need to develop in this day and age are readily available on Linux. Some work even better on Linux than any other system (e.g. Docker). See More

Top Con

HiDPI support sucks

Many developers work on apps that should work on HiDPI monitors. In most distros, HiDPI simply suck on Linux, and making that work is a nightmare. See More

Top Pro

Powerful virtualization host

With virtual machines you can test your apps in different environments, including a distributed one. See More

Top Con

UX and overall user friendliness is not quite there yet

Having to deal with things such as buggy drivers, broken package managers, and application software with very poor design decisions, like unlinking a bunch of files without so much as a prompt to the user, can make Linux distributions a real pain. Such issues occur on distributions like Ubuntu and Elementary OS and even further issues can occur when trying to switch distributions, such as broken ACPI modules due to using wrong versions of the kernel. These issues just scratch the surface of the frustration that one can experience due to the poor UX of most Linux distributions. There is a good blog series by a fellow software developer, Bozhidar Batsov, which goes into more detail about these types of problems on Linux. See here, here, and here for relevant blog posts. Linux operating systems are generally stable at a technical level and good for having fine-grained control over one's system. They can also be very educational for the user during their first experience with the system. However, they are typically quite demanding in terms of time for people who expect a wide range of applications and other basic, user-oriented aspects of their operating system to just work and who don't have time to dicker with their system on a day-to-day basis. See More

Top Pro

Familiarity with Linux is often required from a developer

Top Pro

Choose any type of desktop environment (or none)

Most Linux distributions support a range of desktop environments, be it plain old X, a tiling window manager or a fully fledged mammoth desktop like GNOME or KDE. See More

Top Pro

Works great on older hardware

10+ year-old Dell laptops can run Unix or Unix-like OSes very well. See More

Top Pro

Flexibility

GNU/Linux handles desktop sessions differently than Windows. Users may customize their own sessions; in fact, a single user may use different desktop environments for different login sessions. See More

Top Pro

Lots of development tools available

Top Pro

Large percentage of Linux users are developers

Top Pro

UNIX-like

Nice, developer-friendly environment. See More

Top Pro

Hardly ever crashes

Top Pro

Most software is open source

Top Pro

Extremely fast

Can be made even faster by going GUI-free or using a lightweight window manager. See More

Top Pro

Most Linux distributions are free

Most are free and open source. But some others are not free, like Red hat Enterprise. See More

Top Pro

Follows the UNIX philosophy

The UNIX philosophy: 'Write programs that do one thing and do it well'. Since Linux itself follows this philosophy then it's very easy to start creating scripts and programs. See More

Top Pro

Awesome app store/repositories

Wonderful app store/repositories including all the packages you could want to start developing in any language. See More

Top Pro

Most likely also your deployment target

Makes testing while developing easier. According to a September 2014 study by W3 Techs, *nix based servers are used on over 2/3 of websites. See More

Top Pro

Lower chance of data loss

Linux has very few viruses. So there's almost no chance of getting infected by a virus and thus losing your data including your important programming files. See More

Top Pro

Linux culture is more about software engineering than Mac and Windows

Spirit inside. See More

Top Pro

Just works

Linux tends to just work with little to no effort or troubleshooting required. See More

Top Pro

Access to really powerful terminals

Top Pro

A wide variety of distributions available

With a lot of variety, one can use the distribution that fits the type of work best because of the many choices that are given, instead of just one. See More

Top Pro

Lower chance of information loss

Linux has very few viruses. So there's almost no chance of getting infected by a virus. That's why you don't have to worry about getting infected by a virus and thus losing your data including your important programming files. See More

Top Pro

No telemetry, unlike Windows

See All

What is the most versatile operating system to learn how to program?

The Best 1 of 7 OptionsWhy?

GNU/Linux

My Recommendation for GNU/Linux

My Recommendation for GNU/Linux

Range of useful tools available free and as part of distro

Issues with drivers if your hardware is not officially supported

Powerful command line

Difficult to develop for iOS and OSX devices on Linux

Lots of options to setup a development environment

If you're not an every-day user and/or are new to the platform, you will likely spend as much of your time managing the Operating System as you will learning the programming language of choice

Almost free and open source kernel

Not a system for everyone

Allows raw access to low level system operations

Hard to get used to working in the terminal

Powerful tools

Most of professional proprietary software is not available for Linux

Package managers

If Linux came to dominate desktop, development software would become a nightmare

Some distros oriented to developers or for specific platforms

Just have a public graphic API like OpenGL, Vulkan and mobile API OpenGL ES

Excellent documentation

Not have official IDE, always stick with CMake to compile program

No hidden parts

Not secure

Easy to try out/install and use

Drivers for the latest hardware might not be available

Most components are open source and you can improve them

Steep learning curve

Powers most web servers, mobile phones, and portable devices

Low user base to develop to

Nearly all single board computers' OS are Linux based

Has Mac OS development via cross compile but not official

Compiles faster

Maintenance can be time-consuming

Dev tools almost always support Linux or are developed specifically for Linux

HiDPI support sucks

Powerful virtualization host

UX and overall user friendliness is not quite there yet

Familiarity with Linux is often required from a developer

Choose any type of desktop environment (or none)

Works great on older hardware

Flexibility

Lots of development tools available

Large percentage of Linux users are developers

UNIX-like

Hardly ever crashes

Most software is open source

Extremely fast

Most Linux distributions are free

Follows the UNIX philosophy

Awesome app store/repositories

Most likely also your deployment target

Lower chance of data loss

Linux culture is more about software engineering than Mac and Windows

Just works

Access to really powerful terminals

A wide variety of distributions available

Lower chance of information loss

No telemetry, unlike Windows

6 Other Options Considered

macOS

My Recommendation for macOS

My Recommendation for macOS

Most software is closed source

Unix system from Mac OS 10.x

(Mostly) locked into to Apples hardware

Easy to use

Limited hardware

Official platform and easiest for you can use for iOS development

No native package management

Everything just works

Too little customization options

Many macOS only apps that are useful for developers

Poor application support

Easy to build graphical applications

Expensive

Good documentation and examples by Apple

Awful package management

Good package manager