I’m interviewing for a software dev job currently (it’s in the initial stages). If things work out, I’d absolutely prefer a work laptop with Linux installed (I personally use PopOS but any distro will do), a Mac will be second choice, but I absolutely cannot tolerate Windows, I abhor it, I hate it… (If all computers left on earth have Windows I’d either quit this field or just quit Earth).
Sometimes it’s possible to tell if they use Windows or not, for example, jobs with dotnet/C# are most likely using windows, but not in my case.
Anyways, is it too weird to ask what kind of laptop they provide to their employees? And to also specifically ask for a Linux (or anything but windows) work laptop?
Why don’t you just state your preference is Linux? I wouldn’t worry about it to much until you get though the job screening process but if they are getting close to offering you the job it can’t hurt to state your preference. Don’t be demanding of course.
I’ve always asked when talking to the person in charge (not HR, they don’t know jack): “Which OS do you use and are you open to Linux?”
Had to turn down multiple jobs that were Windows/Mac only. They deployed web apps to the cloud aka linux and refused to develop on linux 🤷
Last I remember, according to the stackoverflow dev survey 40% of devs used Linux at work. Don’t be afraid to ask.
I don’t ask for, I demand a Mac.
Your IT dept tells jokes about you regularly
Fine by me if that’s true. We Mac users are also the only ones at the company who don’t have managed computers and can do whatever we want with it.
It’s shit to work with Windows as a web developer. I did that for too many years and hated every second.
We found the graphics designer.
Ah, you “work” in “marketing”?
I’m a software engineer. My entire team develops on Mac because we have to develop for Mac.
Web developer :) I’m doing pretty good and if a job doesn’t offer Macs I can find another one. So why should I accept Windows?
Most jobs I’ve had in the last 15 years have asked me if I want a Max or Windows PC. I’ve had Linux boxes at most of them as well, but not as the primary machine.
I wouldn’t work a windows exclusive job, it’s a deal breaker for me, so I’d definitely ask. I work in an all Mac shop that does enterprise cloud architecture.
@carl_dungeon @flakpanzer Personally an apple job would be even lower on my list than a Windows job (which is already a deal-breaker to me)
Agreed. The average Windows laptop has three critical redeeming qualities, over a similar Mac:
- Ease of live booting into Linux
- Ease of dual booting into Linux
- Ease of reimagine to Linix
Or at least WSL so you’re testing on a LinuxKernel.
Yeah. Joking aside, WSL wins over Mac, for me. It’s not perfect, but it’s closer.
If you value getting paid I’d highly suggest not tampering with any computer that isn’t yours.
@MajorHavoc Plus it can even be quite ecologically good, the parts are not serialized so you cannot replace them yourself, it almost feels as if you own it (especially once you own the software on it)
Why? Having used all three, currently using all three in some capacity…I’d put them in order of Linux, Mac, then windows. At least with Mac you have a *nix like system with things like zsh, coreutils, homebrew, and iterm2. You can even set up tiling window managers.
Not to mention they are fantastic pieces of hardware and if you are doing any dev work with AI/ml the metal cores are sweet.
I KNOW I’m gonna get A LOT of hate for typing this, but if a MacBook is cheaper than the laptop you want, you should get a MacBook…
If the laptop I want is more expensive that a MacBook its because it has some serious hardware or very specialized feature set. If you want an average spec machine save the money and just get it instead of MacBook
What does that even mean?
The Apple M_ processors are great for performance to power usage ratio (and peak performance in general), so a MacBook is a good choice of laptop (even to run Linux on it).
Linux is currently not available on Apple silicon as anything other than a half baked alpha build with a ton of essential stuff missing. Not even remotely ready to be used as the primary OS. And that’s on the M1. It’s even worse on the more recent chips.
I run Asahi Linux on the M1, and it’s been working great for the last six months or so.
Edit: I wouldn’t necessarily recommend buying one to run Linux at the moment, for one thing they’re overpriced, but I was clarifying why the original comment would have suggested an M1.
No way. Even if you try to run Linux on it, the keyboard is a mac mangled keyboard.
You’re better off leaving it on MacOS, which is still better than Windows but not by much
I would not ask at the interview… I’d wait until after you’re hired…
I’m not a programmer; but a system administrator. 4 Linux and 250 windows 1 Mac; In our org. I’ve run off a MBP for 17 years now. And not had any push back when I requested it, just said I’d prefer a then 15” now 16” MBP.
Good luck
I assume MBP is short for the Mac book pro. Anyway I personally wouldn’t be the first person to want a Mac as they don’t have all the great of virtualization support.
It’s not weird, but be ready to be turned down for the job if they’re a Windows shop.
i asked for Linux, they said sure… and gave me a windows laptop.
i asked thecnical support “we only supply windows laptop”
It’s a normal thing to ask in an interview, I ask the same every time, so far I’ve always gotten one, after all most things I work with require Windows machine to have WSL anyways, so might as well cut one layer.
That being said it all comes down to how you ask it and how valuable you are, if a junior said “I only work with Linux, either you give me a Linux box or I won’t take the job” you might be cut from the race by HR before any person who even understands what you’re asking gets to see you because you’re being inflexible. If on the other hand you’re a senior and go through the interview and at the end when you get to the questions ask what’s the policy for OS on work machines, you’re much more likely to get the answer you’re looking for. That is unless you’re working for a Windows specific program, which obviously will need a Windows box, and not many companies are willing to give you two PCs.
But dont count 2 pcs out of the race, in most cases your salary is way more expensive than the nicest laptop they offer.
Yeah, but companies always skimp on IT, be it infra or something as basic as laptops.
For sure, in fact I do have a Windows box besides my main Linux laptop from the company I work for. But this is because I work most of the time with Linux but there’s one specific thing that needs to be done on a Windows box. Luckily for me they have been very accommodating in that regard, but I could see a different company saying I would only get a Windows machine since it can do all of the flows.
I agree it’s more about who, when and how you ask than the ask itself.
Honestly run if you can run a bunch of VMs on a Linux host. That way you can be very flexible and have multiple test environments.
In my experience most non-Microsoft organisations use Mac’s for development but deploy to Linux in production.
It’s rather insane because this of course creates lots of subtle differences between Dev and prod, although not as many as if dev was a Windows box.
To answer your question though - just ask in the interview what the deal is so you know what you’re in for.
If you deviate from the norm (i.e request a Linux box when everyone else is using MacOS) you’re always going to be the guy with issues that nobody else has.
If the company has any kind of standard mobile device management - it probably won’t work on Linux.
This will trigger the security team and probably the IT team because there’s always this outlier device that can’t run the standard VPN client or can’t have DNS config pushed to it or the Linux version of some app has bugs that don’t surface on the Mac version
Those differences between Dev and prod are usually mitigated by containers to be fair.
Im Linux all the way, but saying the difference from Windows to prod is bigger does not take wsl into account. It is way more near linux production environments than Mac.
Thanks for saying that. I have no idea why that gets overlooked so often.
As much as I like to shit on Windows, WSL is ingenious and many dev tools integrate it nicely.
I really don’t get why Apple doesn’t offer anything in that direction, where devs are a big target audience for them and they already ride the POSIX train.
I develop C# dotnet on Linux. It’s fine but normal “I’m the only Linux user” issues apply such as case-sensitive filenames.
I develop C# on Linux, but I run the full VS inside of a Windows 10 VM.
Rider works pretty well also if you’re allowed to put add Linux support to projects. The Edit and Continue is not as nice though, even though support for it on Linux got merged into dotnet 8.
FWIW I get along pretty well with a virtualbox vm running on my employer provided windows machine. Performance is good and virtualbox even supports multiple displays pretty well.
You do need to square things with corporate IT and security though. Some places really lock their systems down. I’d ask about how “developer friendly” their security policies are.
Virtual box is very slow compared to something more native. I prefer KVM on Linux if I can get it and I’m pretty sure Hyper-V is going to be faster even though it is a tremendous pain in the ***
Last 3 jobs I’ve worked at, I made it sure they understood I needed a Linux laptop to work. They all offered MacBooks (and I made the mistake of taking the MacBook once), but as long as it’s a good company (i.e. no removed IT department) they’ll allow it
What is a removed IT department? Like contracted out?
Lemmy.ml treats their users like children and naughty words get redacted inbound and out.
It’s not weird, you can ask the recruiter or even the developer doing the interview what is the work environment (i.e. at the end, “do you have any question for me”). It’s a perfectly valid question.
You don’t have to go into details and go into a flamewar about Windows, at most just mention that it’s not your preference.
I think it’s better to avoid talking about how you “absolutely cannot tolerate”, “hate” a given platform because that in itself could be a red flag to some interviewers. If you feel this way about Windows, maybe you’ll feel this way about frameworks/libraries that has already been picked and be a pain to work with.
This is the right answer, especially if you can’t afford to not take the job.
