I don't want to come off as a linux-elitist but it's simply amazing how much easier my job is on linux. A good example recently was setting up some libraries for a C++ program I was writing to show to my class. Most of them were using Windows and visual studio, took about 15 minutes to download all the headers and libs, and show them how to configure a VS solution to link them. Not too big a deal but on linux, it only took about 30 seconds to pacman and gcc -l the lib. Little things like that keep me interested in linux as a dev tool.

What's wrong with being a Linux elitist? Linux is fucking great.

@Letmecode im partial to xfce myself! Really fast and can be exploited to look really nice. KDE is a similar option if you dont mind the QT luggage but it looks pretty good too. Course I can never stay on one desktop environment for more than a couple months at a time...

Never liked XFCE for some reason. Not because it isn't good, just because it "itched".

I prefer real lightweight Desktop Environments such as fvwm-crystal (Dev box at home), LXDE (laptop 1) and i3 (laptop 2).

@Letmecode maybe give tiling a shot? Xmonad or i3.

@Letmecode If all you want to is get up to speed on ArchLinux, you can try ArchAnywhere, it's just the basic Arch ISO with a terminal step-by-step script.

I was used to use XFCE too, but lately, does not matter which distro I use, or what I can configure, UI font seems blurry.

So, to avoid wasting time, I switched to others DE. My personal favorite is KDE5, but lately I've been using Gnome 3 and works pretty neat.

@Letmecode If you don't want to set up the Arch installation and some basics all by yourself I can recommend Antergos. The installer will give you the choice which DE to install. You can choose between MATE, GNOME, KDE and some others. If you're used to Cinnamon from Mint you can install that too. Installing software etc. Is in some cases as easy as typing pacman -S the Arch apt-get install equivalent but in a few cases it requires slightly to much more work. Some software I could easily install on Debian based distros I couldn't get to work at all on Arch. I think this pretty much sums up my experience with Arch so far. If your willing to spent some time to set things up all by yourself Arch will be fine for you but if you're lazy as me I guess Mint would be the better choice. I personally think that Arch is not superior enough to justify the time I have to spent to set things up but that's just my opinion. Hope this could help you ☺️

@Letmecode oh you know Haskell? Then it's a no-brainer.

I don't get it. Why do people use VS on Windows, when there is CodeBlocks and Dev C++ available? They're solely based on gcc, and even gdb support.

@starrickcrwford With the people I showed, it's mostly the mentality of "this is the only thing and any other thing is worse because everybody uses this thing"

Meanwhile I'm at the front using emacs and vim and they think it's some dark magic lol.

In fairness, visual debugger is pretty dang good. Whenever I find myself on windows I do use visual studio's compiler through command line just so I can use the debugger.

If they think vim and emacs is dark magic then I'm sorry to say this, but your class is dumb af. Also, please tell me the class you teach is a high school one. I don't think I can handle a CS major not knowing about vim...

I love my i3 setup on lightdm with my custom webkit theme

@starrickcrwford 400 level college graphics course, teaching opengl for the _actual_ instructor because I've done it before.

@Notebookdeviant KMN