An Open Source Machine for the Pampered Developer

8 years ago, I moved from my tuned Linux desktop to OS X. This closed-source platform has attracted many developers with its BSD underpinnings and excellent user interface. Can a developer pampered by sleek design ever go back? I’m going to show you how to break the closed-source habit and run a true open-source environment without sacrificing usability. The Linux desktop has been stereotyped as having poor design, but I’ll show you how to give it capabilities that other operating systems can’t match. I’ll walk through the applications I use every day under OS X and how I found equivalent (and even better!) options for Linux.

Some things we’ll be talking specifically about:

• Tiling window managers, especially xmonad
• Text editors! Some that aren’t vi and emacs!
• How to listen to your jams without iTunes
• What it’s like to have a real package management system
• How to cheat if you can’t quite break the chains yet