I have been developing on a Mac full-time since 2013, but I’m rethinking how I do everything. Switching to Linux was the easiest choice.

To me, software development is becoming too dangerous to do on my main machine. Supply chain attacks and agentic AI are both hacking and data destruction vectors and need to be constrained. Given that, I decided to build a machine that was truly like factory equipment. It would only do development on it and give it very limited access.

I wanted it to be a desktop to maximize the power per dollar, and since I don’t do any iOS development anymore, there was no reason not to pick Linux.

Mac laptops are perfect for my usage as a consumer computer user. The battery life and track pad are unmatched. My MacBook Air is easy to transport and powerful enough. But, as a desktop development machine, Macs are good, but not worth the money for me. I decided to try a Framework instead, which I might be able to upgrade as it ages.

When I got it, I tried an Arch variant first, but it was too alien to me, so I reformatted the drive and installed Ubuntu. I spend almost all of my time in an IDE, browser, and terminals, and Ubuntu is familiar enough.

Having not used a Linux desktop before, here’s what struck me:

1. Installing applications from a .deb or through the AppCenter is surprisingly more fraught than you’d think. It seems easy to install something malicious through typos or untrusted developers in App Center. Say what you want about the App Store, but apps you install must be signed.
2. Speaking of App Center: its UI flickers quite a lot. Hard to believe they shipped this.
3. Generally, even though I have never used Ubuntu Desktop, it was intuitive. The default .bashrc was decent.
4. I like the way the UI looks, and I’m confident that if I didn’t, I could change it. I need that now that my taste and Apple’s are starting to diverge.
5. I still use a Mac a lot, so getting used to CTRL (on Ubuntu) vs. CMD (on Mac) is a pain.
6. I was surprised that I need to have a monitor attached to the desktop in order to Remote Desktop to it (by default).

In any case, I set up Tailscale, so using this new desktop remotely from my Mac is easy when I want to work outside of my office.

My next big change was to go back to Django for web application development (away from node/express). I’ll discuss why tomorrow.