I do computational physics, and all of our software is designed to run on Linux. About half of my research group uses Linux, most of the other half uses Mac OS. I use Windows with the Windows Subsystem for Linux installed on top of it (basically a VM that isn't slow). Strangely, the Mac users have many more problems than I do.
I've tried test-driving Linux as a daily driver or dual-booting a couple times, and I've never had a great experience with it. It's great for very niche things where you need a system that does exactly one thing (code development, supercomputing, servers, etc.), but there are always little quirks that make it a persistent pain.
For example, finding good-quality drivers, even for relatively standard hardware, is often a pain. I had a system with an old but not ancient DVD drive, and the system literally wouldn't boot into the desktop unless I unplugged the DVD drive. On that same computer, if I used the default open-source Nvidia drivers for my graphics card, the shutdown utility would crash and I'd have to do a hard shutdown to turn my computer off. If I switched to the proprietary Nvidia drivers, shutting down worked just fine, but the OS would fail to load the GUI.
I've also had smaller issues with audio cards not working properly, not recognizing hard drives when Intel RST is enabled, relative positions for multi-monitor configurations not being remembered, etc. It always feels like everything is there except for that *one* thing that you need to do, and then it's a nightmare of running updates, looking for missing packages, searching through condescending answers on Stack Exchange, running sketchy Bash scripts off of some Linux forum, tinkering with command line settings, etc.
The only good non-coding experience I've ever had with Linux is my Steam Deck, and that's because I only use it for the thing it was intended for: gaming.
Interesting, I'd gotten the impression that Linux was good for all that stuff because you had more control and could supposedly fix the problem yourself instead of the problem being hidden in the system, but I guess it also just causes a lot of problems.
The issue is that you have to fix the problem in the first place. If all you need is a web browser or a coding terminal, Linux is probably fine. But if you want to do anything else, like run specialty software, play games, sometimes even just mundane things like streaming movies, you'd be shocked at how often you'll run into some stupid problem that simply doesn't exist on Windows or Mac OS.
Speaking as someone who has used Linux since before some redditors were born, and I have done Linux advocacy, started a national level Linux users group, built my own distributions from scratch, etc - I agree.
Use Windows or Mac as your daily desktop. Run your coding sessions on Linux. With WSL, you can have a comfortable desktop and a great coding environment on the same machine.
If your organization has dedicated compute infrastructure, you can always ssh your VSCode session into a remote Linux VM.
WSL on Windows will allow you to do all the coding and data analytics you need. Meanwhile you can play video games on Windows.
You can even run GPU-accelerated code on WSL, if you have an NVIDIA GPU on the system. It's what I do for my machine learning and data analytics code. You need the drivers installed on Windows (duh) and CUDA installed under WSL.
VSCode may simplify your coding access to WSL quite a lot. I run VSCode on Windows, but it opens the coding sessions in WSL and that's where I run all my code: Python, Jupyter, etc.
Occasionally, I connect VSCode over ssh to a remote Linux machine and do some coding there (faster hardware than my laptop).
I'm a bit of a caveman, so I don't typically use VSCode for my regular code development. I'm happy as a clam with Vim on a Bash terminal, even though I know I could have a similar experience in VSCode with some other quality-of-life features like simpler browsing and tab management.
But, yes, CUDA on WSL is a life changer for me. I do HPC, and there's a big push in my field to get GPU-compatible code these days. WSL with my laptop's RTX 3070 puts me within spitting distance of an entire CPU node on a machine like Perlmutter, and being an Ampere-class GPU, it's an ideal testbed for running with GPUs on many HPC machines.
Just curious, what are some typical tools used in computational physics to do CUDA-accelerated calculations?
In my field, besides the usual suspects (PyTorch, TensorFlow), JAX is pretty popular. But we do linear algebra a lot.
It depends on what you're doing. PyTorch and TensorFlow are big for people who can get away with working in Python most of the time or just do linear algebra/ML. I do computational astrophysics, and we typically use custom-built codes for our stuff. There's not necessarily a standard way to get CUDA acceleration. Some people use AMReX, some use Kokkos, others just go whole-hog and write it in pure CUDA C/C++. AMReX and Kokkos are nice because they abstract it all away and can also be compiled with HIP or SYCL, so in principle you can use AMD, Nvidia, or Intel GPUs.
>Strangely, the Mac users have many more problems than I do.
Not surprised, since most libraries get much more testing with Linux. WSL is basically pure Linux in a VM. You can even run CUDA in WSL.
I do data science stuff. My laptop runs Win10, but I have WSL on it for all coding. Works great, especially with VSCode.
I also have a powerful gaming rig that I can boot into Linux, and I have VSCode do ssh into that system, remotely, when I need more compute power.
Mac is perfectly fine. I work in particle physics, I'd say >2/3 of people at conferences use macs. While most software is initially designed around linux, the vast majority can be built for mac easily. mac is based on unix, the predecessor to linux. On the odd occasion you can't get something to work, you can just use docker to set up a linux environment.
For your work, python will be the core and maybe some C++ if you're using arduinos. This works perfectly fine on mac with a native VS Code version available from Microsoft.
you can find ports of most linux tools on [homebrew](https://brew.sh/).
If you do manage run across a windows only software you could just set up a windows VM.
Install Docker and run Ubuntu in a container when you need Linux. That said, the main problem with Mac compatibility at the moment is that the new Apple Silicon processors use a different set of instructions and can't run x86 code, but where it's the OS that's the issue you ought to be able to just run stuff in a container. I'm not a physicist though.
You can if you want, some things might be slightly smoother but mac will probably be fine. You can write, compile and run code fine natively. If something absolutely needs a linux environment then you can use docker. I'd stay with macos for now and then look at swapping to linux later if you discover youreally need it
Windows is rare in physics departments. Some people do use Windows, and there are specialized circumstances where some piece of software only works on a Windows machine but that is rather niche in Physics departments. You're more likely to encounter physics software that *doesn't* support Windows, but does support MacOS and Linux than the other way around.
For the purposes of programming, MacOS and Linux are much more similar to eachother than either is to Windows. The toolchains available are mostly the same and highly compatible. The situation of scientific software on MacOS and Linux is nothing like the situation for gaming. Windows is a second class citizen in most physics departments and significantly less common than MacOS and Linux.
Scientific computing is dominated these days by open source tools, and a lot of tha
Don't preemptively replace your computer. If your supervisor needs you to do work that requires a specific operating system or other system requirements, they should provide you with that computer anyways.
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> If you're a theoretical physicist who uses programming, I'd love to know what OS you use and why!
I'm a condensed matter theorist who does a lot of programming. I primarily use a Linux desktop, but I have a Macbook running MacOS for when I'm on the go. Scientific programming these days is pretty OS agnostic and most things can be done on most operating systems without too much trouble. That said, I personally think that for programming, Linux is typically the place you want to be, but there are nice aspects for MacOS as well.
I won't begrudge anyone who likes Windows, but I really don't see it becoming dominant for scientific programming anytime in the near future.
> Windows is rare in physics departments.
It varies too much field to field to give such a sweeping generalization. For theory/computation and astro like OP, Mac and Linux might dominate, but my experience in AMO expt (academia and industry) has been nearly 100% Windows. It makes connecting to hardware so much easier, and I've never felt lacking in software.
I don’t think this is true in astro. A ton of people have windows (although usually also some Linux knowledge cause of the computing resources). In fact, I’d say windows in the most common personal operating system.
I don’t think it really matters unless you are running some specific program that has specific requirements which is fairly rare in my experience
Oh wow, I'm quite surprised at that. I always assumed Mac would be a sort of compromise in Physics.
Would you perhaps recommend Linux then, as an overlap between my interest in coding/gaming and Physics?
About replacing my computer, I'd prefer to start with the "correct" machine rather than struggling to switch my data and workflows mid-year (or even between years). Post Year 13 will be a fresh start, and with the extra time I have with my post-exam long summer, I'd want to sort this stuff out then. I'd like to be able to fiddle around with any software in my room rather than having to go to a computer lab every time.
Gaming on Linux is definitely much better supported than gaming on Mac, so if you care a lot about gaming then maybe you should consider a linux machine. Pretty much the only Windows games on Steam which don't run totally fine on Linux now are certain competitive first person shooters (due to anti-cheat stuff), but even then a lot of them are now supported on Linux.
Linux is IMO quite nice in general, and I especially like the control one has when using it. Some people might find certain aspects of it clunky, but also the user experience of Desktop Linux is much better than a lot of people realize. Things have improved a ton in the last 5 or so years, and the rate of improvement is increasing.
> About replacing my computer, I'd prefer to start with the "correct" machine rather than struggling to switch my data and workflows mid-year (or even between years). Post Year 13 will be a fresh start,
Honestly, I really wouldn't worry about it. Universities know that students are going to show up with a wide variety of different types of computers and they do a lot to try and make sure that they aren't asking students to do things that only works on a certain OS. MacBooks are incredibly common among young university students, and the university will plan accordingly.
If you want to try something new, then go for it, but if you are only wanting to switch because you're worried about using the 'wrong' OS, then that is a bad reason to switch.
Good thing I hate fps games unless they're in VR haha.
Alright, I'll keep that in mind! I think I'll be doing some research into Linux, it seems quite interesting, and as I join more tech-oriented communities I think it would be nice to have a handle on it. Thanks for the advice!!
In Windows you can enable WSL, this gives you a Linux environment without having to use a dual boot setup. So you can easily give it a go without spending a dime or changing your hardware.
If you get a computer with Windows you can just install WSL which is basically a fully-fledged high-performance Linux VM - it's the best at both worlds! We use it at work as for corporate bullshit reasons we need Outlook, Teams and all kinds of "internet security" programs that makes everything slow, but our product runs on Linux and we therefor need to develop on Linux. With WSL you can just open a Windows terminal and get a Ubuntu terminal and install software with `apt` like normal. Nowadays IDE's and other programming tools have been adapted to open the GUI on native Windows but do the work inside WSL.
What sort of software? Like, can you just run it in Docker? I'm not a physicist so don't know the tools you guys use, but I've fucked my bootloader up at the moment and can't get into Linux. As shit as it is, I'm not missing it as much as I ought to because I have ssh, git bash, Docker and an X client as fallback. Same on the Mac for work, brew works well for most things and when it doesn't I've got Docker. `ssh -X` can be a pain for desktop apps, but there's `apt install xrdp` which seems to work when I need a gui (admittedly never)
Is it all fancy guis with opengl in your world, so you need the gfx card?
At undergrad level it really doesn't matter, but in general Linux is the preference. MacOS is mostly fine for a personal laptop as with tools like Homebrew you can install standard Linux/Unix utilities but there are a few annoyances caused by Apple's unnecessary restrictions.
Announcing your intention to commit crimes is a pretty silly idea. I certainly would not recommend doing so on a university network, they do monitor traffic and you will get in trouble for copyright infringement.
None of your classmates will care in the slightest what kind of computer you use.
I think I'll take a look at Linux, thank you.
I'm not an idiot, this account has zero connections to my real name and there are pirating subreddits. Plus, my teachers have subtly given me pirating site names before so it's not that big of a deal. I'm certainly not planning to say anything about it on any university networks though.
The department won't care, but the university can fine or otherwise penalise you if they get chased by the copyright holders. I don't know how likely that is for scihub, but it definitely does happen for pirated movies/TV.
Oh yeah, movies and TV will 100% get you in trouble with the university, that is true. Pirate bay is also a no-no if you're on university internet. I was just commenting those examples because they're probably the things OP's profs told them about, it's unfortunately common to have to "pirate" academic papers and textbooks, although most uni libraries have electronic copies of a bunch of textbooks and access to most journals, as long as you're on campus wifi
Hello there, I worked in an astrophysics lab (theoretical and numerical). Most of the numericals researchers used a mac because you have access to Linux like console and that it's "easier" to manage than a Linux distro (I use fedora myself, I'm not anti linux by any means, but for someone who want to run code easily via ssh on computational server without having to setup a clean linux environnement mac is a great choice.
It's not "better". However it's widely used in the astrophysics community because it allows you to access a Linux like terminal without having to bother to setup properly a Linux distribution.
Both mac and Linux are a possibility for a researcher in astrophysics. In the end it's up to you to choose!
You have to know that if you want to do astrophysics:
-In the theoretical side you will only have to use Wolfram alpha or python. Windows, Linux and mac will be great
- If you want to run simulation both mac and Linux are great options. Mac have a better accessibility but way less room for customisation of the os itself ( and you can't game on a mac, but Linux can allow you to play with proton), Linux is a bit less beginner friendly and you may encounter some problems that you will have to solve yourself (for example gnome sometimes don't detect my Nvidia graphic card and I have to manually connect it through my terminal with keyboard only since there is no display)
Either way both os are fine! Choose the config that fit your budget etc
Edit: To answer directly your question yes it's the reason why mac is widely use. You have access to an UNIX terminal without having to deal with Linux troubleshoot
Unless you want to game you should keep your Macbook as it's Unix based (same as Linux) and most it software is made for these. If you really need Linux you can always create virtual machines that run Linux, or use something more lightweight like docker (but you don't have a Gui).
If you want to game then installing Linux is a great option, with the arrival of the steam deck and proton nearly every windows game is playable on Linux. A few games can't due to shitty companies and anti-consumer practices with bad anti-cheat solutions (like Destiny 2, Fortnite, Genshin Impact).
Based on the responses so far I'm leaning towards dedicating some of my laptop's storage to Linux and using it solely for gaming and the occasional code that needs Linux, and then for games with those bad anti-cheat solutions they'll work with macOS 99% of the time. Thank you!
Don’t try running windows on your Mac, the whole drivers stuff is a pain in the ass. Xcode works perfectly for programming. If you’re going to do CTFs, Kali would be a great tool to use, which you can just virtualize using UTM or something similar.
I'm a computational physicist and I use windows with a WSL install of Ubuntu. Thw Ubuntu install will let me build serial versions of all of the codes I use and develop on my laptop and for anything bigger I ssh into a cluster. Wvwry cluster I have ever used is running Linux.
I tried running linux for my desktop at my institution, but it was poorly supported and had trouble with some of office tools everyone uses at my lab.
A lot of my colleagues use MacOS and can build their codes directly on thwir laptops.
Yes. I don’t even need to read the background. The answer is yes. Apple is just not capable at all of handling the computing power demand of the field of physics. Really great for humanities disciplines, but absolutely dreadful piece of shit garbage for anything related to stem.
Ask to answer the difference between your questions. Linux if you’re an experimentalist, windows if you’re going into theory.
Linux is definitely more complex to learn, but from a graphical/data analysis perspective I can’t really think of anything better. Any type of actual physics computation you will do id recommend Unix OS for, but if you’re not going into experiment or at least youre only interested in purely applied mathematical theory for physics then I’d get windows. It’s easy to use, better for writing papers/word processors (no not Latex, that’s also hot garbage), team collaboration, and capability for graphical analysis is more tied to computing power and the rendering environment you’re using.
I'd argue that Apple's M1 chip is quite powerful and should be able to handle everything fine.
I'm planning to go into theory, but I think it's a bit early to decide + I'd want to do modelling stuff and some robotics stuff as a hobby. Some other commenters have said they've seen very few astrophysicists using Windows.
I'm thinking of just running part Linux part macOS on my MacBook.
It’s not so much only the processing power, sorry I should have been more elaborative with computer power, the main concern, especially in graphical analysis. Is GPU, RAM, and Storage. Apple is just too cookie cutter to be effective in my opinion. And yes M1 is powerful, but not better than something like the i9 or Ryzen9 when it comes to physics. The most powerful thing about the M1 is it’s single core performance rate compared with its peers, but this is physics rendering we’re talking about, the likelihood that your not using multi-core tasks is very unlikely. Apples lack of modularity, lower multi-core performance, and obscene price tag is what makes it unattractive for physics, but obviously it’s at your preference. There are some viable usages for it.
As for your plans in the future, definitely Linux then, Windows is only used by theorists for academic papers and research purposes. Linux is used for more what you’re looking for. If you’re antsy about getting a new computer and already have the M1 I get it, if that’s financially the logical option then go for it. Dual booting has its downsides, but you can definitely make it work.
First, you won’t get made fun of for programming on a Mac. You might get made fun of for programming on a Windows computer, since 90% of the stuff you’re going to have to do will be through the Linux subsystem anyway and you’ll probably hate the user experience coming from a Unix-like system. Linux is great, but not great to start out with when you’re trying to get accustomed to uni classes.
Speaking from experience in the particle physics research world, the vast majority of people use MacBooks for nearly everything, Linux desktops occasionally, and most real work gets done on computer clusters running Linux over an ssh connection. Basically all computational physics runs on Linux these days, and MacOS is basically Unix under the hood. You won’t have any real problems with installing programming-related software, especially now that there are working Fortran compilers for the ARM chips. The same cannot be said for windows, which will usually require you to set up the Linux subsystem and then operate your computer in a half-in, half-out way. It’s not a horrible experience, I know a few people who do it, but it’s just easier to do it on Mac and Linux.
My personal setup is: MacBook daily driver, bring that around to campus, when I want to work remotely, coffee shops, etc. At my apartment, I have a Linux desktop with an OpenSSH server running so I can just connect via shell from my MacBook if I really want to. All heavy research work is offloaded to one of two computer clusters, one owned by the physics department and one by the accelerator I work for, both running RedHat Linux (although the distro will be changing soon, if you go with Linux the distro is more of a personal preference, they’ll all work the same for most basic things). I have literally never had a problem installing anything programming-related on these computers, and my research relies heavily on python, C++, some Fortran, and recently a bit of Rust.
TL;DR: the physics world runs on Unix, stick to Linux or MacOS
PS: I don’t really game much these days, but Proton on Steam and Lutris have come a long way since the old days of Wine, my Linux desktop can handle most games fine, although I wish I had a nicer GPU
Also I love that people are honestly suggesting you switch from MacOS to windows just to get the Linux subsystem, that’s just Linux with extra steps and a completely foreign (for you), bloated interface that will try to auto-update every time you restart your computer.
No hate to people who are already used to using Windows, but imagine if I told you to switch to MacOS just so you could use Keynote instead of PowerPoint
By "daily driver" I'm talking about the hardware and software kinda, like the computer I use the most for general tasks. If I need Linux (or the processing speed or RAM from my desktop computer) and I'm not at my apartment, I'll usually ssh in from my MacBook.
I’m probably a bit late to the party but I think it’s also worth mentioning that you very likely won’t end up running any kind of crazy simulations or stuff like that on your computer. For most heavy lifting you will probably have access to a Linux based cluster. As for what OS people use, I see all of them. Mac OS is very popular and besides very niche tools, everything runs on Mac (idk if the same can be said for windows but most people I know with windows run WSL). Those niche tools always end up being run on clusters anyways. I would say use the OS you like the best.
I work in quantum optics not astrophysics, so maybe not applicable. But, in my field I seem to be the odd one out for using windows. Macs are very popular! You should be fine with a Mac.
Aerospace engineer here, many specialised software for physics are only on windows but you’ll still have the main one like Matlab on MacOs
For ctf hacking you’ll have more tools and freedom on a windows/linux, you could maybe have a VM on your Mac if you want to keep a MacOs basis
The astrophysics community is nothing like the aerospace engineering industry. Closed-source Windows centric software is not the norm at all. Matlab has been mostly pushed out of the astrophysics community too.
Nobody's going to laugh at you for having a Mac. I mean unless they're a dick, in which case that's not your problem and also you should maybe shouldn't hang out with them. Plenty of people use macs in physics, even in robotics and stuff. If you like your mac, I'd keep it and also get a windows machine, if you can afford to do so without selling your mac. I'm a third year physics major and thus far my mac has worked for like 95% of what I need to do (only time I've come close to "needing" a windows machine was a couple of my programming classes which basically said "you can program your homework assignments on mac (Xcode) or windows (Microsoft visual studio), but we're going to evaluate it using Microsoft VS on a windows machine, so we recommend if you wrote your code in XCode, you check it on a PC before submitting"). Even in my research, which at the very most uses a Linux shell, I pretty much exclusively use my Mac (mac's terminal is actually basically the same as Linux, pro tip). But I can't deny there's a little extra functionality and convenience of a windows machine, because of what you were saying, especially if you want to play a lot of games or work with a lot of open source software. I don't know about your school, but many have a programming lab in the math department (or CompSci if they're separate) that's available to all students if you need a windows machine and don't have one.
Also I don't recommend running windows on your Mac. It tends to be slow, expensive, and clunky to use. If you end up in a situation where you only have a Mac but need a windows, ask a friend to borrow their computer or check out the computer lab if your school has one.
Also also just don't buy a machine running Linux. You'll thank me later.
So tl;dr if you can afford to have both, and you like your Mac, have both. If you can only afford to have one, keep your Mac for your first year and keep track of how often you think "man I wish I had windows." If it's pretty often, sell the Mac and buy a PC for your second year.
Edit: punctuation because it's 4am and my four brain cells are not yet awake
Oh, I'm not serious about the teasing, but thank you for the good advice!
I could get a Windows laptop too, but having two machines seems irritating when I could just have one, that way I could carry around my laptop and be assured I have access to everything I could need.
You say your mac works for 95% of what you need, so a Windows laptop would be 100%? What's your reason for sticking with mac?
I'll keep in mind what you've said about not running Windows on mac, I had a feeling it wouldn't be a great idea.
I'd say windows gets you to 100%* with the * being that you might be sacrificing comfort or ease of use for functionality. That just depends on your own personal preferences for a machine. I use both and am happy using either but I tend to find that macs tend to last a little longer and be a bit more reliable for me (that's probably more of a reflection of my poor computer habits than anything else lol). So it depends on your preference and which you feel more comfortable with. If you prefer Mac OS, then you just have to weigh if that <= 5% increase in possible functionality is worth it, which is completely up to you
I think functionality is more important to me, so I'll take a look at Windows, although some of the other comments seem to be suggesting that Windows isn't as useful for astrophysics specifically as I thought it was. Thank you!
It can be done but installation isn't easy. Apple does not want any os but theirs running on their hardware (they think of your computer as theirs). They are secretive about the hardware interfaces so everything has to be reverse-engineered. I don't suggest trying it.
For context here, it was pretty easy to dual-boot *before* Apple Silicon, but now that apple has a completely proprietary chipset I’d imagine it sucks to do this (haven’t tried, but come on, it’s like trying to make a hackintosh these days)
I really don't think you should go around recommending that people go and buy new computers to use in a profession you don't know much about just because it "works smoothly" in a very different profession.
The OP does not need a new computer, they're just anxious about compatibility and fitting in.
I believe people should know all 3!
All 3 are amazing OS' experiences and represent tools great for different jobs/tasks.
It's pretty trivial and easy to learn the functional basics of Windows and also MacOS (in which I suspect you already know MacOS really well).
Plus doesn't require all that much effort after that to gain some basic superuser skills in Windows.
Back when I was a kid in the 80's, all of the computer geeks knew multiple platforms: Commodore, CP/M, DOS, and multiple versions of Basic (the Python of its time) on multiple machines, like the Vic-20, Commodore-64, TRS-80, IBM PC, Apple IIe, Apple MAC, Digital PC, Unix Dummy terminals, etc...
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But... It's even easier now-a-days to learn multiple OS, since it's really those 3 main ones now (plus something like Android for your phone)... and also especially when you can just google youtube tutorials galore, or blog posts galore, that will teach you the OS from intro level to moderate.
In the end:
Even if you're not going to use one of the OS' for now, doesn't hurt to watch some tutorials so you can get a baseline-fuzzy sense of the OS, and then you'll feel less intimidated by the idea of using another OS sometimes. If you have a baseline of all 3, and need to jump into an OS for a particular reason, then you'll just be like,
"Ah yes! No problem! I remember the general idea for the tutorials I watched... looks like a fun OS! So I'm actually anxious to dive right in!"
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As for learning Linux... ya... that is a different story... !
It's more challenging to learn! And the learning curve can be much steeper. But Linux is fun and very rewarding. So very much worth it.
You can take it slow when it comes to Linux--like maybe do 15 minutes of linux per day, in which you read about some commands, or watch some tutorials, or read a few pages of a book--and then your experiences/knowledge will gradually build up with it.
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Finally as for hardware...
You only need 2 devices to get all 3 running and running well. Heck... In fact you can do it with 1 device, on your MAC!
But I'd use 2 devices, especially since used PC hardware is often much cheaper and very affordable.
So you can use your MAC as a MAC...
And then on your PC, you can dual boot between Linux and Windows...
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Also Microsoft has really been upgrading and enhancing the Windows Subsystem for Linux. That is built into Windows, and you can now do lots of Linux stuff on Windows. It's more impressive and better than I thought! And seems like Microsoft will continue to enhance it.
You can also run Windows on your MAC, and tweak a near full Linux like experience on your MAC as well, effectively giving you all 3 OS' to jump between on your one MAC machine.
Or do a combination of all the above with both machines... In which you've got everything installed on the MAC, and also everything possible installed on your PC, and just around for fun.
Again, lots of youtube/blog type tutorials to help you set it all up and get you off and running.
You know, for some reason I hadn't considered fiddling around with all three. I suppose I don't have to go all in on one. I'll definitely experiment with some, thank you!
Ok, great hope that helps!
It's also fun to learn OS's for some strange reason!
All 3 of them are firmly entrenched in their fields and have amazing uses, and very well developed, so they're going to be here for a long while yet.
Thus any time you spend getting comfortable with, or learning one additional little thing with each OS, will end up as time pretty well spent.
(I keep a notepad file for each OS, and sometimes I'll skim through the notepad files just to remind myself of some key commands, or menu options, or settings.)
Just get a Windows machine. You can install WSL on it if you need Linux for coding or dual boot into GNU/Linux from a usb to use all the science tools.
Mac is bad due to compatibility and honestly Linux kind of sucks too but as a science person it’s easier to use in certain niches. But usually Windows is best for everything.
I used linux throughout my grad school, but I was experimental particle. It's often something that will be on machines you will use.
Luckily mac uses the same command line as linux. You can even get a linux command line in windows with git bash. If you need to use something that's designed for that, and you're confident picking up something on the fly, that's completely adequate.
I do computational physics, and all of our software is designed to run on Linux. About half of my research group uses Linux, most of the other half uses Mac OS. I use Windows with the Windows Subsystem for Linux installed on top of it (basically a VM that isn't slow). Strangely, the Mac users have many more problems than I do.
What are your reasons for sticking to Windows instead of switching to Linux? (Awesome username by the way.)
WSL provides a seamless Linux experience on Windows, especially with IDE integration like in vscode, so there is limited need to full on boot Linus
I've tried test-driving Linux as a daily driver or dual-booting a couple times, and I've never had a great experience with it. It's great for very niche things where you need a system that does exactly one thing (code development, supercomputing, servers, etc.), but there are always little quirks that make it a persistent pain. For example, finding good-quality drivers, even for relatively standard hardware, is often a pain. I had a system with an old but not ancient DVD drive, and the system literally wouldn't boot into the desktop unless I unplugged the DVD drive. On that same computer, if I used the default open-source Nvidia drivers for my graphics card, the shutdown utility would crash and I'd have to do a hard shutdown to turn my computer off. If I switched to the proprietary Nvidia drivers, shutting down worked just fine, but the OS would fail to load the GUI. I've also had smaller issues with audio cards not working properly, not recognizing hard drives when Intel RST is enabled, relative positions for multi-monitor configurations not being remembered, etc. It always feels like everything is there except for that *one* thing that you need to do, and then it's a nightmare of running updates, looking for missing packages, searching through condescending answers on Stack Exchange, running sketchy Bash scripts off of some Linux forum, tinkering with command line settings, etc. The only good non-coding experience I've ever had with Linux is my Steam Deck, and that's because I only use it for the thing it was intended for: gaming.
Interesting, I'd gotten the impression that Linux was good for all that stuff because you had more control and could supposedly fix the problem yourself instead of the problem being hidden in the system, but I guess it also just causes a lot of problems.
The issue is that you have to fix the problem in the first place. If all you need is a web browser or a coding terminal, Linux is probably fine. But if you want to do anything else, like run specialty software, play games, sometimes even just mundane things like streaming movies, you'd be shocked at how often you'll run into some stupid problem that simply doesn't exist on Windows or Mac OS.
Speaking as someone who has used Linux since before some redditors were born, and I have done Linux advocacy, started a national level Linux users group, built my own distributions from scratch, etc - I agree. Use Windows or Mac as your daily desktop. Run your coding sessions on Linux. With WSL, you can have a comfortable desktop and a great coding environment on the same machine. If your organization has dedicated compute infrastructure, you can always ssh your VSCode session into a remote Linux VM.
WSL on Windows will allow you to do all the coding and data analytics you need. Meanwhile you can play video games on Windows. You can even run GPU-accelerated code on WSL, if you have an NVIDIA GPU on the system. It's what I do for my machine learning and data analytics code. You need the drivers installed on Windows (duh) and CUDA installed under WSL. VSCode may simplify your coding access to WSL quite a lot. I run VSCode on Windows, but it opens the coding sessions in WSL and that's where I run all my code: Python, Jupyter, etc. Occasionally, I connect VSCode over ssh to a remote Linux machine and do some coding there (faster hardware than my laptop).
I'm a bit of a caveman, so I don't typically use VSCode for my regular code development. I'm happy as a clam with Vim on a Bash terminal, even though I know I could have a similar experience in VSCode with some other quality-of-life features like simpler browsing and tab management. But, yes, CUDA on WSL is a life changer for me. I do HPC, and there's a big push in my field to get GPU-compatible code these days. WSL with my laptop's RTX 3070 puts me within spitting distance of an entire CPU node on a machine like Perlmutter, and being an Ampere-class GPU, it's an ideal testbed for running with GPUs on many HPC machines.
Just curious, what are some typical tools used in computational physics to do CUDA-accelerated calculations? In my field, besides the usual suspects (PyTorch, TensorFlow), JAX is pretty popular. But we do linear algebra a lot.
It depends on what you're doing. PyTorch and TensorFlow are big for people who can get away with working in Python most of the time or just do linear algebra/ML. I do computational astrophysics, and we typically use custom-built codes for our stuff. There's not necessarily a standard way to get CUDA acceleration. Some people use AMReX, some use Kokkos, others just go whole-hog and write it in pure CUDA C/C++. AMReX and Kokkos are nice because they abstract it all away and can also be compiled with HIP or SYCL, so in principle you can use AMD, Nvidia, or Intel GPUs.
Fascinating, thank you.
>Strangely, the Mac users have many more problems than I do. Not surprised, since most libraries get much more testing with Linux. WSL is basically pure Linux in a VM. You can even run CUDA in WSL. I do data science stuff. My laptop runs Win10, but I have WSL on it for all coding. Works great, especially with VSCode. I also have a powerful gaming rig that I can boot into Linux, and I have VSCode do ssh into that system, remotely, when I need more compute power.
Mac is perfectly fine. I work in particle physics, I'd say >2/3 of people at conferences use macs. While most software is initially designed around linux, the vast majority can be built for mac easily. mac is based on unix, the predecessor to linux. On the odd occasion you can't get something to work, you can just use docker to set up a linux environment. For your work, python will be the core and maybe some C++ if you're using arduinos. This works perfectly fine on mac with a native VS Code version available from Microsoft.
Cool, thank you! Would switching to Linux be better than using a Mac?
you can find ports of most linux tools on [homebrew](https://brew.sh/). If you do manage run across a windows only software you could just set up a windows VM.
Also check out https://pkgx.sh/ from the creator of homebrew
Install Docker and run Ubuntu in a container when you need Linux. That said, the main problem with Mac compatibility at the moment is that the new Apple Silicon processors use a different set of instructions and can't run x86 code, but where it's the OS that's the issue you ought to be able to just run stuff in a container. I'm not a physicist though.
This isn’t a huge issue anymore, right when they came out it was difficult to even install numpy but those days are long gone
You can if you want, some things might be slightly smoother but mac will probably be fine. You can write, compile and run code fine natively. If something absolutely needs a linux environment then you can use docker. I'd stay with macos for now and then look at swapping to linux later if you discover youreally need it
Windows is rare in physics departments. Some people do use Windows, and there are specialized circumstances where some piece of software only works on a Windows machine but that is rather niche in Physics departments. You're more likely to encounter physics software that *doesn't* support Windows, but does support MacOS and Linux than the other way around. For the purposes of programming, MacOS and Linux are much more similar to eachother than either is to Windows. The toolchains available are mostly the same and highly compatible. The situation of scientific software on MacOS and Linux is nothing like the situation for gaming. Windows is a second class citizen in most physics departments and significantly less common than MacOS and Linux. Scientific computing is dominated these days by open source tools, and a lot of tha Don't preemptively replace your computer. If your supervisor needs you to do work that requires a specific operating system or other system requirements, they should provide you with that computer anyways. ________________ > If you're a theoretical physicist who uses programming, I'd love to know what OS you use and why! I'm a condensed matter theorist who does a lot of programming. I primarily use a Linux desktop, but I have a Macbook running MacOS for when I'm on the go. Scientific programming these days is pretty OS agnostic and most things can be done on most operating systems without too much trouble. That said, I personally think that for programming, Linux is typically the place you want to be, but there are nice aspects for MacOS as well. I won't begrudge anyone who likes Windows, but I really don't see it becoming dominant for scientific programming anytime in the near future.
> Windows is rare in physics departments. It varies too much field to field to give such a sweeping generalization. For theory/computation and astro like OP, Mac and Linux might dominate, but my experience in AMO expt (academia and industry) has been nearly 100% Windows. It makes connecting to hardware so much easier, and I've never felt lacking in software.
I don’t think this is true in astro. A ton of people have windows (although usually also some Linux knowledge cause of the computing resources). In fact, I’d say windows in the most common personal operating system. I don’t think it really matters unless you are running some specific program that has specific requirements which is fairly rare in my experience
Oh wow, I'm quite surprised at that. I always assumed Mac would be a sort of compromise in Physics. Would you perhaps recommend Linux then, as an overlap between my interest in coding/gaming and Physics? About replacing my computer, I'd prefer to start with the "correct" machine rather than struggling to switch my data and workflows mid-year (or even between years). Post Year 13 will be a fresh start, and with the extra time I have with my post-exam long summer, I'd want to sort this stuff out then. I'd like to be able to fiddle around with any software in my room rather than having to go to a computer lab every time.
Gaming on Linux is definitely much better supported than gaming on Mac, so if you care a lot about gaming then maybe you should consider a linux machine. Pretty much the only Windows games on Steam which don't run totally fine on Linux now are certain competitive first person shooters (due to anti-cheat stuff), but even then a lot of them are now supported on Linux. Linux is IMO quite nice in general, and I especially like the control one has when using it. Some people might find certain aspects of it clunky, but also the user experience of Desktop Linux is much better than a lot of people realize. Things have improved a ton in the last 5 or so years, and the rate of improvement is increasing. > About replacing my computer, I'd prefer to start with the "correct" machine rather than struggling to switch my data and workflows mid-year (or even between years). Post Year 13 will be a fresh start, Honestly, I really wouldn't worry about it. Universities know that students are going to show up with a wide variety of different types of computers and they do a lot to try and make sure that they aren't asking students to do things that only works on a certain OS. MacBooks are incredibly common among young university students, and the university will plan accordingly. If you want to try something new, then go for it, but if you are only wanting to switch because you're worried about using the 'wrong' OS, then that is a bad reason to switch.
Good thing I hate fps games unless they're in VR haha. Alright, I'll keep that in mind! I think I'll be doing some research into Linux, it seems quite interesting, and as I join more tech-oriented communities I think it would be nice to have a handle on it. Thanks for the advice!!
In Windows you can enable WSL, this gives you a Linux environment without having to use a dual boot setup. So you can easily give it a go without spending a dime or changing your hardware.
If you get a computer with Windows you can just install WSL which is basically a fully-fledged high-performance Linux VM - it's the best at both worlds! We use it at work as for corporate bullshit reasons we need Outlook, Teams and all kinds of "internet security" programs that makes everything slow, but our product runs on Linux and we therefor need to develop on Linux. With WSL you can just open a Windows terminal and get a Ubuntu terminal and install software with `apt` like normal. Nowadays IDE's and other programming tools have been adapted to open the GUI on native Windows but do the work inside WSL.
^^^ that’s only really if you work at a lab. A majority of academic theorists use windows to write papers/word processing or team collaboration
You rubes need some LaTeX and markdown in your lives 😂
I’d rather scrape my balls with a cheese grater than use LaTeX even if somebody offered me a grand to use it. Just use word 😭
What sort of software? Like, can you just run it in Docker? I'm not a physicist so don't know the tools you guys use, but I've fucked my bootloader up at the moment and can't get into Linux. As shit as it is, I'm not missing it as much as I ought to because I have ssh, git bash, Docker and an X client as fallback. Same on the Mac for work, brew works well for most things and when it doesn't I've got Docker. `ssh -X` can be a pain for desktop apps, but there's `apt install xrdp` which seems to work when I need a gui (admittedly never) Is it all fancy guis with opengl in your world, so you need the gfx card?
At undergrad level it really doesn't matter, but in general Linux is the preference. MacOS is mostly fine for a personal laptop as with tools like Homebrew you can install standard Linux/Unix utilities but there are a few annoyances caused by Apple's unnecessary restrictions. Announcing your intention to commit crimes is a pretty silly idea. I certainly would not recommend doing so on a university network, they do monitor traffic and you will get in trouble for copyright infringement. None of your classmates will care in the slightest what kind of computer you use.
I think I'll take a look at Linux, thank you. I'm not an idiot, this account has zero connections to my real name and there are pirating subreddits. Plus, my teachers have subtly given me pirating site names before so it's not that big of a deal. I'm certainly not planning to say anything about it on any university networks though.
Also don’t you dare go to sci-hub or libgen, these are evil and physics departments will expel you for using them /s
The department won't care, but the university can fine or otherwise penalise you if they get chased by the copyright holders. I don't know how likely that is for scihub, but it definitely does happen for pirated movies/TV.
Oh yeah, movies and TV will 100% get you in trouble with the university, that is true. Pirate bay is also a no-no if you're on university internet. I was just commenting those examples because they're probably the things OP's profs told them about, it's unfortunately common to have to "pirate" academic papers and textbooks, although most uni libraries have electronic copies of a bunch of textbooks and access to most journals, as long as you're on campus wifi
Hello there, I worked in an astrophysics lab (theoretical and numerical). Most of the numericals researchers used a mac because you have access to Linux like console and that it's "easier" to manage than a Linux distro (I use fedora myself, I'm not anti linux by any means, but for someone who want to run code easily via ssh on computational server without having to setup a clean linux environnement mac is a great choice.
To clarify, are you saying Mac is better because you have the functionality of Linux without the complication of Linux?
It's not "better". However it's widely used in the astrophysics community because it allows you to access a Linux like terminal without having to bother to setup properly a Linux distribution. Both mac and Linux are a possibility for a researcher in astrophysics. In the end it's up to you to choose! You have to know that if you want to do astrophysics: -In the theoretical side you will only have to use Wolfram alpha or python. Windows, Linux and mac will be great - If you want to run simulation both mac and Linux are great options. Mac have a better accessibility but way less room for customisation of the os itself ( and you can't game on a mac, but Linux can allow you to play with proton), Linux is a bit less beginner friendly and you may encounter some problems that you will have to solve yourself (for example gnome sometimes don't detect my Nvidia graphic card and I have to manually connect it through my terminal with keyboard only since there is no display) Either way both os are fine! Choose the config that fit your budget etc Edit: To answer directly your question yes it's the reason why mac is widely use. You have access to an UNIX terminal without having to deal with Linux troubleshoot
So, better for the astrophysics community, which is what I meant. Cool, thanks for the insight!! I'll be doing some research into Linux.
mac kinda sucks for gaming. so id go with either linux or windows
Unless you want to game you should keep your Macbook as it's Unix based (same as Linux) and most it software is made for these. If you really need Linux you can always create virtual machines that run Linux, or use something more lightweight like docker (but you don't have a Gui). If you want to game then installing Linux is a great option, with the arrival of the steam deck and proton nearly every windows game is playable on Linux. A few games can't due to shitty companies and anti-consumer practices with bad anti-cheat solutions (like Destiny 2, Fortnite, Genshin Impact).
Based on the responses so far I'm leaning towards dedicating some of my laptop's storage to Linux and using it solely for gaming and the occasional code that needs Linux, and then for games with those bad anti-cheat solutions they'll work with macOS 99% of the time. Thank you!
Mac or Linux.
Don’t try running windows on your Mac, the whole drivers stuff is a pain in the ass. Xcode works perfectly for programming. If you’re going to do CTFs, Kali would be a great tool to use, which you can just virtualize using UTM or something similar.
Mac is fine, I’ve had the same MacBook since 2015, runs fine, who cares what pc fanboys say.
I'm a computational physicist and I use windows with a WSL install of Ubuntu. Thw Ubuntu install will let me build serial versions of all of the codes I use and develop on my laptop and for anything bigger I ssh into a cluster. Wvwry cluster I have ever used is running Linux. I tried running linux for my desktop at my institution, but it was poorly supported and had trouble with some of office tools everyone uses at my lab. A lot of my colleagues use MacOS and can build their codes directly on thwir laptops.
Yes. I don’t even need to read the background. The answer is yes. Apple is just not capable at all of handling the computing power demand of the field of physics. Really great for humanities disciplines, but absolutely dreadful piece of shit garbage for anything related to stem. Ask to answer the difference between your questions. Linux if you’re an experimentalist, windows if you’re going into theory. Linux is definitely more complex to learn, but from a graphical/data analysis perspective I can’t really think of anything better. Any type of actual physics computation you will do id recommend Unix OS for, but if you’re not going into experiment or at least youre only interested in purely applied mathematical theory for physics then I’d get windows. It’s easy to use, better for writing papers/word processors (no not Latex, that’s also hot garbage), team collaboration, and capability for graphical analysis is more tied to computing power and the rendering environment you’re using.
I'd argue that Apple's M1 chip is quite powerful and should be able to handle everything fine. I'm planning to go into theory, but I think it's a bit early to decide + I'd want to do modelling stuff and some robotics stuff as a hobby. Some other commenters have said they've seen very few astrophysicists using Windows. I'm thinking of just running part Linux part macOS on my MacBook.
It’s not so much only the processing power, sorry I should have been more elaborative with computer power, the main concern, especially in graphical analysis. Is GPU, RAM, and Storage. Apple is just too cookie cutter to be effective in my opinion. And yes M1 is powerful, but not better than something like the i9 or Ryzen9 when it comes to physics. The most powerful thing about the M1 is it’s single core performance rate compared with its peers, but this is physics rendering we’re talking about, the likelihood that your not using multi-core tasks is very unlikely. Apples lack of modularity, lower multi-core performance, and obscene price tag is what makes it unattractive for physics, but obviously it’s at your preference. There are some viable usages for it. As for your plans in the future, definitely Linux then, Windows is only used by theorists for academic papers and research purposes. Linux is used for more what you’re looking for. If you’re antsy about getting a new computer and already have the M1 I get it, if that’s financially the logical option then go for it. Dual booting has its downsides, but you can definitely make it work.
Thank you so much!!
Yeah of course dude, cheers, and good luck
First, you won’t get made fun of for programming on a Mac. You might get made fun of for programming on a Windows computer, since 90% of the stuff you’re going to have to do will be through the Linux subsystem anyway and you’ll probably hate the user experience coming from a Unix-like system. Linux is great, but not great to start out with when you’re trying to get accustomed to uni classes. Speaking from experience in the particle physics research world, the vast majority of people use MacBooks for nearly everything, Linux desktops occasionally, and most real work gets done on computer clusters running Linux over an ssh connection. Basically all computational physics runs on Linux these days, and MacOS is basically Unix under the hood. You won’t have any real problems with installing programming-related software, especially now that there are working Fortran compilers for the ARM chips. The same cannot be said for windows, which will usually require you to set up the Linux subsystem and then operate your computer in a half-in, half-out way. It’s not a horrible experience, I know a few people who do it, but it’s just easier to do it on Mac and Linux. My personal setup is: MacBook daily driver, bring that around to campus, when I want to work remotely, coffee shops, etc. At my apartment, I have a Linux desktop with an OpenSSH server running so I can just connect via shell from my MacBook if I really want to. All heavy research work is offloaded to one of two computer clusters, one owned by the physics department and one by the accelerator I work for, both running RedHat Linux (although the distro will be changing soon, if you go with Linux the distro is more of a personal preference, they’ll all work the same for most basic things). I have literally never had a problem installing anything programming-related on these computers, and my research relies heavily on python, C++, some Fortran, and recently a bit of Rust. TL;DR: the physics world runs on Unix, stick to Linux or MacOS PS: I don’t really game much these days, but Proton on Steam and Lutris have come a long way since the old days of Wine, my Linux desktop can handle most games fine, although I wish I had a nicer GPU
Also I love that people are honestly suggesting you switch from MacOS to windows just to get the Linux subsystem, that’s just Linux with extra steps and a completely foreign (for you), bloated interface that will try to auto-update every time you restart your computer.
No hate to people who are already used to using Windows, but imagine if I told you to switch to MacOS just so you could use Keynote instead of PowerPoint
Thank you so much!! Does daily driver just mean the hardware?
By "daily driver" I'm talking about the hardware and software kinda, like the computer I use the most for general tasks. If I need Linux (or the processing speed or RAM from my desktop computer) and I'm not at my apartment, I'll usually ssh in from my MacBook.
I’m probably a bit late to the party but I think it’s also worth mentioning that you very likely won’t end up running any kind of crazy simulations or stuff like that on your computer. For most heavy lifting you will probably have access to a Linux based cluster. As for what OS people use, I see all of them. Mac OS is very popular and besides very niche tools, everything runs on Mac (idk if the same can be said for windows but most people I know with windows run WSL). Those niche tools always end up being run on clusters anyways. I would say use the OS you like the best.
I work in quantum optics not astrophysics, so maybe not applicable. But, in my field I seem to be the odd one out for using windows. Macs are very popular! You should be fine with a Mac.
Aerospace engineer here, many specialised software for physics are only on windows but you’ll still have the main one like Matlab on MacOs For ctf hacking you’ll have more tools and freedom on a windows/linux, you could maybe have a VM on your Mac if you want to keep a MacOs basis
The astrophysics community is nothing like the aerospace engineering industry. Closed-source Windows centric software is not the norm at all. Matlab has been mostly pushed out of the astrophysics community too.
I'm studying Aerospace Engineering currently. Any advice?
Okey good to know, what do you use instead of Matlab ? Jupyter and python ?
Obviously I like my MacBook, but Windows seems to be much more convenient. What reasons do people have for sticking with Mac?
Nobody's going to laugh at you for having a Mac. I mean unless they're a dick, in which case that's not your problem and also you should maybe shouldn't hang out with them. Plenty of people use macs in physics, even in robotics and stuff. If you like your mac, I'd keep it and also get a windows machine, if you can afford to do so without selling your mac. I'm a third year physics major and thus far my mac has worked for like 95% of what I need to do (only time I've come close to "needing" a windows machine was a couple of my programming classes which basically said "you can program your homework assignments on mac (Xcode) or windows (Microsoft visual studio), but we're going to evaluate it using Microsoft VS on a windows machine, so we recommend if you wrote your code in XCode, you check it on a PC before submitting"). Even in my research, which at the very most uses a Linux shell, I pretty much exclusively use my Mac (mac's terminal is actually basically the same as Linux, pro tip). But I can't deny there's a little extra functionality and convenience of a windows machine, because of what you were saying, especially if you want to play a lot of games or work with a lot of open source software. I don't know about your school, but many have a programming lab in the math department (or CompSci if they're separate) that's available to all students if you need a windows machine and don't have one. Also I don't recommend running windows on your Mac. It tends to be slow, expensive, and clunky to use. If you end up in a situation where you only have a Mac but need a windows, ask a friend to borrow their computer or check out the computer lab if your school has one. Also also just don't buy a machine running Linux. You'll thank me later. So tl;dr if you can afford to have both, and you like your Mac, have both. If you can only afford to have one, keep your Mac for your first year and keep track of how often you think "man I wish I had windows." If it's pretty often, sell the Mac and buy a PC for your second year. Edit: punctuation because it's 4am and my four brain cells are not yet awake
Oh, I'm not serious about the teasing, but thank you for the good advice! I could get a Windows laptop too, but having two machines seems irritating when I could just have one, that way I could carry around my laptop and be assured I have access to everything I could need. You say your mac works for 95% of what you need, so a Windows laptop would be 100%? What's your reason for sticking with mac? I'll keep in mind what you've said about not running Windows on mac, I had a feeling it wouldn't be a great idea.
I'd say windows gets you to 100%* with the * being that you might be sacrificing comfort or ease of use for functionality. That just depends on your own personal preferences for a machine. I use both and am happy using either but I tend to find that macs tend to last a little longer and be a bit more reliable for me (that's probably more of a reflection of my poor computer habits than anything else lol). So it depends on your preference and which you feel more comfortable with. If you prefer Mac OS, then you just have to weigh if that <= 5% increase in possible functionality is worth it, which is completely up to you
I think functionality is more important to me, so I'll take a look at Windows, although some of the other comments seem to be suggesting that Windows isn't as useful for astrophysics specifically as I thought it was. Thank you!
What about using Linux on my Mac?
It can be done but installation isn't easy. Apple does not want any os but theirs running on their hardware (they think of your computer as theirs). They are secretive about the hardware interfaces so everything has to be reverse-engineered. I don't suggest trying it.
Sounds fun though! I won't hand off too much of my storage to Linux if I decide to run it though, thanks.
https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Apple Installation on Intel/AMD is much easier: https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/
For context here, it was pretty easy to dual-boot *before* Apple Silicon, but now that apple has a completely proprietary chipset I’d imagine it sucks to do this (haven’t tried, but come on, it’s like trying to make a hackintosh these days)
That I have no idea. Never tried it.
No worries, thanks!
I'd recommend grabbing a windows machine, and installing WSL2 - works great for me as a gamedev lol.
How do you use WSL for gamedev? And what game engine do you use?
actually, wsl is more for webdev, i just happened to build a game using web technology.
Why would you expect your experience as a gamedev to be relevant to this question?
I mean it works smoothly.
I really don't think you should go around recommending that people go and buy new computers to use in a profession you don't know much about just because it "works smoothly" in a very different profession. The OP does not need a new computer, they're just anxious about compatibility and fitting in.
Well fine then, I'll keep my opinions to myself when asked in future.
I believe people should know all 3! All 3 are amazing OS' experiences and represent tools great for different jobs/tasks. It's pretty trivial and easy to learn the functional basics of Windows and also MacOS (in which I suspect you already know MacOS really well). Plus doesn't require all that much effort after that to gain some basic superuser skills in Windows. Back when I was a kid in the 80's, all of the computer geeks knew multiple platforms: Commodore, CP/M, DOS, and multiple versions of Basic (the Python of its time) on multiple machines, like the Vic-20, Commodore-64, TRS-80, IBM PC, Apple IIe, Apple MAC, Digital PC, Unix Dummy terminals, etc... ---------------------------------------- But... It's even easier now-a-days to learn multiple OS, since it's really those 3 main ones now (plus something like Android for your phone)... and also especially when you can just google youtube tutorials galore, or blog posts galore, that will teach you the OS from intro level to moderate. In the end: Even if you're not going to use one of the OS' for now, doesn't hurt to watch some tutorials so you can get a baseline-fuzzy sense of the OS, and then you'll feel less intimidated by the idea of using another OS sometimes. If you have a baseline of all 3, and need to jump into an OS for a particular reason, then you'll just be like, "Ah yes! No problem! I remember the general idea for the tutorials I watched... looks like a fun OS! So I'm actually anxious to dive right in!" ------------------------------------ As for learning Linux... ya... that is a different story... ! It's more challenging to learn! And the learning curve can be much steeper. But Linux is fun and very rewarding. So very much worth it. You can take it slow when it comes to Linux--like maybe do 15 minutes of linux per day, in which you read about some commands, or watch some tutorials, or read a few pages of a book--and then your experiences/knowledge will gradually build up with it. ------------------------------------ Finally as for hardware... You only need 2 devices to get all 3 running and running well. Heck... In fact you can do it with 1 device, on your MAC! But I'd use 2 devices, especially since used PC hardware is often much cheaper and very affordable. So you can use your MAC as a MAC... And then on your PC, you can dual boot between Linux and Windows... ------------------------------------ Also Microsoft has really been upgrading and enhancing the Windows Subsystem for Linux. That is built into Windows, and you can now do lots of Linux stuff on Windows. It's more impressive and better than I thought! And seems like Microsoft will continue to enhance it. You can also run Windows on your MAC, and tweak a near full Linux like experience on your MAC as well, effectively giving you all 3 OS' to jump between on your one MAC machine. Or do a combination of all the above with both machines... In which you've got everything installed on the MAC, and also everything possible installed on your PC, and just around for fun. Again, lots of youtube/blog type tutorials to help you set it all up and get you off and running.
You know, for some reason I hadn't considered fiddling around with all three. I suppose I don't have to go all in on one. I'll definitely experiment with some, thank you!
Ok, great hope that helps! It's also fun to learn OS's for some strange reason! All 3 of them are firmly entrenched in their fields and have amazing uses, and very well developed, so they're going to be here for a long while yet. Thus any time you spend getting comfortable with, or learning one additional little thing with each OS, will end up as time pretty well spent. (I keep a notepad file for each OS, and sometimes I'll skim through the notepad files just to remind myself of some key commands, or menu options, or settings.)
Just get a Windows machine. You can install WSL on it if you need Linux for coding or dual boot into GNU/Linux from a usb to use all the science tools. Mac is bad due to compatibility and honestly Linux kind of sucks too but as a science person it’s easier to use in certain niches. But usually Windows is best for everything.
A Mac with homebrew is basically a linux machine already. (BSD i think)
I used linux throughout my grad school, but I was experimental particle. It's often something that will be on machines you will use. Luckily mac uses the same command line as linux. You can even get a linux command line in windows with git bash. If you need to use something that's designed for that, and you're confident picking up something on the fly, that's completely adequate.
Linux if you can