[Spyro7]

Every day, I start up a computer running OS X. Then, I proceed to fire up virtual machines for two Linux distributions, Windows XP, and Windows 7.

I occasionally play around with a headless system that I have running FreeBSD. Then I may power up my iPod Touch to test recent changes to my mobile site. I also do a significant quantity of work while I am logged into a remote debian server via ssh.

I doubt that I am the only developer with this type of daily routine. I actually do think that this poll is pretty nifty (and I checked off OS X), but I think that it is still worth observing that the term "primary operating system" just doesn't quite carry the same weight as it used to.

[Argorak]

I use something like: "OS X is my host operating system. I develop on Linux."

[girardy]

Depending on how you use it, OS X can feel a lot like Linux. If you're spending most of your time in Terminal and Emacs, usually ssh'ed into a server, then your technical answer will diverge pretty far from your "real" or metaphysical answer.

[Argorak]

I work for multiple clients. After messing a few years with "I need a postgres for this one, a mysql for this one and sometimes, things just break on the live server because Mac OS X is almost linuxlike", I switched to a fully virtualized development stack and haven't looked back since. So the answer is not metaphysical, but true.

[jiggy2011]

I have tried similar to this but always find the experience of running desktop software on a VM to be lacking.

Just things like resizing windows or minimising things becomes clunky enough that I prefer to just native boot into whatever I plan to use.

[Argorak]

I can't comment on that. I don't develop anything that requires a GUI on the machine. I just ssh into the machine and do my thing there. All editing/browser viewing is done on the host.

[r00fus]

This is my case - whether it's a Linux VM or on the cloud, the server OS is Linux.

For my desktop, OSX provides the best combination of spatial window management (you can drag-drop nearly anything - esp. text without wiping the clipboard buffer), terminal friendliness, and MS Office (yes, Excel is still better than alternatives). Lots of hidden gems and a sustainable indie dev market.

I don't play much more than the occasional Nethack, so my need for Windows is pretty limited.

[silasb]

OT question for you: I'm a developer that does a lot of web development, from Perl to RoR. When I end up starting more than 1 VM with 4 GB RAM, my computer literally dies with Mac OS X. Now this is all with VirtualBox, which I suspect isn't the best all around VM application.

For some reason I feel that it is the crappy memory management with OS X that is killing me.

Other than getting more RAM do you do anything special? What VM software and how much RAM you running.

[Argorak]

First, even if its the answer you ruled out: get a machine with lots of RAM. Don't care about the rest, even an SSD is not that important, just cram as much of RAM into the machine as possible. 8GB would be good, 16 is better. Make sure that the OS has enough space to shuffle memory.

Use tiny VMs. Most development stacks do actually fit in 512MB, as long as there is nothing else running. Pay attention about which parts of your dev stack do actually consume the memory. In my case, it's mostly in-memory databases. Sample those for smaller datasets, its good practice anyways. If its still not enough, use odd values like 700MB. Rule memory leaks out (this is one of the big advantages of small VMs: memory leaks are easy to find).

Also, use one VM per project. Unless projects are tiny, putting 2 in one VM only replicates the problems of your host-system.

Finally, I also use VirtualBox with Vagrant and am quite okay with it.

[silasb]

This is what I'm thinking, I'm kinda spoiled at home with both my main box and my VM server each having 8 GB.

You do make a good point about the extra cruft that isn't needed for a VM. I should actually know this as I have several LEBs on the web and optimize them highly for low memory usage. I guess personal time < work time.

[matwood]

More RAM, period.

Going from 4GB to 8GB on my mbp made a huge difference running VMs. Also, get Fusion. For working in VMs all day Fusion has worked better for me over VirtualBox.

[moystard]

You should try out Parallels then, as I find it much snappier than Fusion. After having tried Virtual Box, Fusion and Parallels, I kept the last one as it provides the best experience of the three imo.

[r00fus]

Why such intensely large VMs? I've gotten by with 256MB appliances that then get their source deployed into big iron on-site, or into the cloud.

[kstrauser]

> my computer literally dies with Mac OS X. Now this is all with VirtualBox, which I suspect isn't the best all around VM application.

Asked and answered. I like VirtualBox - the price is right for when I just need to run an app or two on rare occasion - but it certainly isn't the most stable or least OS-crashing VM I've ever used.

[TylerE]

What's your machine?

More RAM would certainly help, more CPU cores (real cores, not hyper-threaded "virtual" cores) will too.

[silasb]

I have a Quad Core i5 in my iMac with 4 GB RAM, boss doesn't wanna spend the money to upgrade :( Need to convince him otherwise.

[hackermom]

What is this "crappy" memory management of OS X that you speak of? When it comes to memory management, OS X is definitely among the best from my 14 years of experience with modern operating systems. For what it's worth, I regularly run two VMs in VirtualBox totalling just over 2gb of guest RAM allowance, on a 4gb machine running 10.6.8, and I don't suffer problems with this. Users of 10.7 claim that it's a wee bit hungrier than 10.6, though I still can't recall the last time I saw anything else than "Swap used: 0 byte" in the Activity Monitor.

[silasb]

I can't seem to find the blog post about the memory architecture in Mac OS X, but it was rather recent, under 8 months ago some guy blogged about the crappy memory management that was used in OS X and why he ended up switching platforms.

I have yet to try 10.7 stuck on 10.6 until the boss allows us to upgrade. This will probably be my next big upgrade before anything else.

[mitsche]

Yes.

I use OS X for browsing the web, web-development, graphic design, video editing, and writing.

I use Windows 7 for music production and playing video games. At some point I want to start dabbling in game development, in which case I'll probably go with Windows for that, too.

I ssh into various Linux servers privately and at work. In my spare I sometimes play around with Linux distros on my desktop just to learn about the current state of affairs. I usually can't see any advantages in it over OS X other than the fact that's it's free software and that it runs on cheap hardware. I keep being curious though.

I don't use any virtual machines because I dislike the sluggishness and I don't really need them.

Sometimes I wish I could get by with only one OS without feeling crippled in some respect. My dream setup would probably be an OSS system that's great with multimedia stuff and has about a 99% adoption so hardware would be supported really well.

But that thought depresses me because it reminds me of the state reality is in, so I try not to have it.

[drewcrawford]

> I use Windows 7 for music production

I am fascinated by this claim. The last time I looked at Windows for music production was a long time ago, but back then CoreAudio beat the pants off of ASIO for real-time work. Is that not still the case?

What software do you use? Two packages that I use heavily, Logic and DP7 are mac-only.

[mitsche]

I use Reaper by Cockos. I make rock music. I have previously used Cubase and Sonar.

Regarding ASIO vs. CoreAudio performance: http://www.dawbench.com/win7-v-osx-1.htm

There are a few freeware plug-ins I use that are Windows only. If I could afford to buy Altiverb 7 right now, which is OS X only, I'd probably switch to OS X (at least till Altiverb came out for Windows).

[conradfr]

I use Reaper on Win7 as well. It is available on OSX though.

Mac is a better platform for audio but the difference is getting smaller.

It's true that they are a lot more freeware (vst) plugins on Windows. Great one like http://varietyofsound.wordpress.com for example.

[mitsche]

How is Mac a better plattform for audio? This is not a rhetorical question. I keep hearing this, and some say it's because of CoreAudio. But so far I haven't been able to find a thorough explanation that's not based on biased assumptions.

The Variety Of Sound stuff is what I'm missing on OS X. I use those a lot.

[saturdaysaint]

Many musicians say this because Windows systems can, for a variety of reasons from hardware drivers (certain Firewire chipsets and motherboards) to bloatware, become very glitchy and finicky when it comes to low-latency recording. It's very difficult to predict if new hardware will work or not and it can be very time intensive to troubleshoot when the problems arise. Unless you buy from a music PC specialist, you're unlikely to encounter sympathy from support desks.

Alternatively, every Mac comes with Garageband and is built from the ground up for reliable recording - if you buy a system and you hear glitching in recordings (which I've never heard of), you can take it to the Apple store and have a technician troubleshoot the problem.

I don't think most PCs face this problem (although prevalent hardware like HDMI ports is often problematic for smooth audio recording), but musicians tend to recommend Macs because the certainty that it will work out of the box has a lot of value.

[replax]

Out of curiosity, since you sound not like a fanboy of any particular os and just want to use one: What keeps you using osx over windows for browsing the web, webdev and graphic design? Are there any special advantages or is it just software which is not available for win?

[mitsche]

Graphic design: not many. Just little things, like the great desktop zoom, the nifty screenshot shortcuts, simple access to special characters. Nothing that Windows couldn't do without some modifications, just maybe not as nicely. Also, I spend most of my time in OS X anyway, and I don't want to boot into Windows just for quickly creating or editing a file in Illustrator or Photoshop.

Browsing the web: font rendering. I don't like Windows' aggressive hinting and the one dimensional anti-aliasing. Some non-standard fonts I find not only ugly, but unreadable on Windows.

Webdev: Unix underpinnings, Rails. Text rendering, again. And I feel like I'm a lot faster at switching apps and searching for stuff on OS X. But that's probably just habits I've built over time.

Overall, OS X gets in my way the least. That's why I would choose it if I had to choose just one OS. But I don't, so …

[matwood]

That used to be my routine at my old job. Fire up WinXP and Win7 VMs to do .net development and other client work.

My new job doesn't require interacting with Windows at all so I work in OSX/sshed linux sessions all day.

[adamkhrona]

Same here, as a developer of a cross-platform library, this is the only configuration that works for us. By restricting virtualization of OSX, Apple has effectively forced most developers to use this configuration.