Why unix based operating systems are better for developers.

Author: Justine Ivan Gueco | 4 min read | Published: 2025-11-02 | Updated: 2025-11-07

Unix better btw

Introduction

Ever since using Linux during my sophomore year in college (2022), I’ve been using it since then as my daily driver. The first distro I used was Ubuntu and eventually switch up to Linux Mint, because my Dell Latitude E6530 can’t handle the bloatness of Ubuntu and Gnome DE. I was suprised on how good and easy to use Linux, just open up the terminal and there you can install your desired tools/applications, that’s it so easy right?

Example:

sudo apt install neovim docker docker-compose asdf

This example command installs neovim, docker, docker compose and asdf. Looks simple and easy right? All your development needs are already installed, and if you want to update them, it’s easy and manageable too. I’m aware that there’s also a similar workaround in [redacted], if you are curious feel free to check them out.

Well this is not just one of the reasons why I fell in-love with Linux, as I mentioned my laptop is very old, its Dell Latitude E6530. I barely can ran [redacted] there anymore, hence why I switched up and use Linux as my daily driver. It’s like having a freedom of things like what you can install and can uninstall, I don’t want an operating system shoving some unnecesary features down my throat. As I’m writing this, [redacted] have dropped support for [redacted] 10 to focus on their glorified [redacted] 11, hooray! Too much bloat and unnecessary features like AI, hell yeah!

Imagine buying a new laptop then suddenly you are not eligible for [redacted] 11 because your laptop lack TPM 2.0, secure boot capabilities and is part of 8th-gen Intel or 2nd-gen AMD Ryzen CPU. But don’t worry Linux got you covered!

Reasons to switch to unix based operating system

  • Great package management
  • Supports old and crappy laptop (linux)
  • Great community support
  • Good for VPS (spin up a Virtual Private Server using Linux)
  • Easy to customize (dotfiles, window managers etc..)

Reasons not to switch to unix based operating system

  • You love gaming
  • You don’t care about package managers
  • You love microsoft

The good news is gaming is now slowly becoming possible in Linux by using Proton and hopefully in the future, every game can now be run in Linux. But there are also possible solutions if you don’t want to leave [redacted] is by dual booting both of them. While in Macbook series, [redacted] can only be installed on Intel based laptops, as far as I know its possible to dual boot both MacOS and [redacted] at the same time.

While on Apple Silicon laptops, you only have MacOS as your possible operating system but the good news is MacOS is part of Unix family! If you are coming from linux, you already know how to use MacOS as its full potential. Did I say MacOS is the only possible operating system in Apple Silicon laptops? Well you can also run asahi linux on Apple Silicon based laptops, and hopefully in the future it fully supports everything.

My thoughts

Personally just use anything you are comfortable with. It doesn’t matter if its window or linux, as long you get the job done, nobody cares about what you use. As I’m writing this, I’m currently using MacOS with M1 Pro (2021) and I’m really really comfortable on the ecosystem as I came from Arch Linux (i use arch btw) and Hyprland as my daily driver. I honestly miss using tiling window managers but i got fed up customizing my dotfiles instead of me being productive on daily basis. Tiling window manager is also possible in MacOS but it doesn’t just hit right compare to when I’m using Arch Linux.

Thank you for taking your team on reading this silly blog of mine, I hope you have a great day :) cheers!