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I was reading the Modern Operating Systems book and it says

Many UNIX users, especially experienced programmers, prefer a command- based interface to a GUI, so nearly all UNIX systems support a windowing system called the X Window System (also known as X11) produced at M.I.T. This sys- tem handles the basic window management, allowing users to create, delete, move, and resize windows using a mouse. Often a complete GUI, such as Gnome or KDE, is available to run on top of X11, giving UNIX a look and feel something like the Macintosh or Microsoft Windows, for those UNIX users who want such a thing.

What operating systems are the most used by experienced programmers and UNIX users?

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Experienced programmers and users have deep knowledge about the specific features of the system(s) they use. Once they have a few ones that serve their (usually specific) purpose, they develop some habits and tools and stay on it just to be efficient. Some like the specific packaging features of X, the stability under heavy load of Y, the community of Z, etc...

Having an objective view on some criterias is not always possible, and discussing such a comparison topic is a good way to turn a boring evening in a flamewar.

As a side note, you have tons of Linux distributions, several *BSD UNIXes, and a whole bunch of other variants (HP-UX, Solaris, etc). Listing them is already non-trivial, without even considering their comparison.

Uriel
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There are many flavors of Linux/Unix (*nix) because of so many different preferences. Experience *nix users develop their own needs/preferences over time and they tend to use the *nix flavor that best meets their needs (or for the really advanced, they build their own if they have time to burn).

I personal side with the Redhat/CentOS flavors because I prefer the yum packager to Debian's apt-get and I don't like GUI's as they tend to slow both my machine and me down. So I just boot straight into terminal and do all my work in it.

I would review one of the hundreds of thousands of webpages like this one to make your own decision on which is best for you.

devnull
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  • I use Debian because it's the distro that has by far the most derivatives (Ubuntu, Mint ...). I use a GUI, but mostly so I can have four terminals open at once :) For command line work, choose zsh! – Ray Andrews Jan 27 '15 at 22:25
  • Just four terminals? You should check out tmux. I have usually have 8 or more open in one window with over 30+ 'tabs' open each contain a minimum of 2 windows in each. As a SysAdmin it is invaluable. – devnull Jan 27 '15 at 22:38
  • I've heard of this tmux, and you don't need a GUI, is that right? Mind, I can open as many as I want in xfce, but four does it for me--two on each monitor. But I'd like to just use a window manager and forget the GUI baloney. – Ray Andrews Jan 28 '15 at 03:19
  • No you don't need a GUI for it, but to start you can use it along side your GUI. For my MAC, I use iTERM + tmux to maximize the potential of my multi-monitor setup. I would check this guide out. It is one of many, but a good one to start with. – devnull Jan 28 '15 at 03:42