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Comment by nerflad | Hacker News Reader

How many Googlers are using Linux for their everyday work? I assumed MacOS had as strong a hold on Google engineers as those anywhere else. I personally don't like using MacOS and would be thrilled to see more developers using open source systems.

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Most use beefy desktops with Linux, and some laptop like a MacBook, Thinkpad, or Chromebook.

If you're working on a large project like Chrome or Gmail, anything less than 64gb of RAM and a giant SSD is a productivity hit, and most Mac desktops aren't price competitive with a beefy Linux workstation.

What desktop/workstation manufacturer?

HP z620

Thanking you!

http://www8.hp.com/us/en/campaigns/workstations/z620.html

If you're in the market for a new workstation, HP's business workstations really are good machines (I had a nice one at a previous employer). They are nothing like HP's consumer PCs that most are familiar with.

What would be the most optimal Linux distro to install on a z620, Fedora?

Depends what you're optimising for? All rolling releases and recent stable/all testing releases run on roughly the same kernel, generally the same libc, with access to the same (non)free firmware if properly configured...

Gentoo, of course.

Are Google engineers getting Pixelbooks? Then just use Crouton or similar?

Pretty much all software engineers have Linux on their main desktop computer. On their laptops it's mostly MacOS or ChromeOS.

I've been very interested in exploring Chrome OS as a development machine even if the core system runs on a desktop like you said. Is ChromeOS good enough for this already? What about develop tools like editors/IDEs, etc ?

In my experience, Chrome OS is absolutely usable as a development machine for linux environments with crouton[1]. Crouton basically installs Ubuntu within Chrome OS, and can include GUIs and tons of software packages. I've done nearly the entirety of my WGU IT degree using Chrome OS, and if I get a software development degree, I'll use it there too. If Windows interoperability or virtualization is required, then you might look elsewhere, because virtualization is tough to set up in the chroot environment and would run sluggishly anyway if you use an ARM-based laptop like I do.

[1] https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton

Disagree. Use CB for development and with Crouton and so mostly use docker containers. Also set my son's up at University in this manner.

CB are Linux just without GNU or userland. So the driver's already been optimized for the hardware. Plus secure and gets updated.

The only negative is having to leave in developer. Now if Google would finish the work they are doing on the KVM to fix this it will be ideal.

What is nice you are dev on the same as runs the cloud.

I think they are using ssh to reach the desktop, not running a local editor/ide.

My understanding is that the software builds, runs and tests on desktops they SSH into. The sources either live on the Desktops or have a sync system setup. Either way, they need some proper editors or IDEs to work with locally on the CBs. Are there any tools with good enough experience that can do remote code editing available generally on any platform (and not just chromebooks?)

Rather inefficient I would have expected Google devs to run an IDE locally

Unless you’re working on open-source projects like Chrome, Google source code isn’t permitted on laptops for InfoSec reasons.

I would expect most of not all development would be done on desktops for that reason (and also for improved ergonomics and faster computers are always better) and there is no requirement for ide's to store any code locally.

Less efficient but far more secure.

Two ways to use ChromeOS. You can use GNUroot and XSDL and run these Android apps which use a fake Chroot.

But my preference is use Crouton and I use docker containers and how I set up my CS sons at University.

The down side is you have to leave the CB in developer mode. You also have to use rkt but works fine with docker images.

That would not be my experience with software companies at all.

tomaha is talking about Google SWE, and is correct.

As far as I know, most of us use Linux as main dev server, we are not allowed to put any prod code on laptop. So people just pick MBP and ssh to their dev servers.

I'd love to know more about the setups you guys use! As in, what you can choose, how much freedom you have tool wise etc

This is what I would expect your PC or Laptop is should just a host for your X windows or Telnet / ssh sessions and any IDE's you use for code and sql.

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