Complete Development environment with Windows 10 and Linux

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER

Please note that some of the modifications could potentially brick your machine or necessitate a new install of Windows if done without precautions. Proceed at your own risk. The information in this post is true and complete to the best of my knowledge. All recommendations are made without any guarantee, implied or express, on the part of the author. The author disclaim any liability in connection with the use of this information.

The seminal consideration came from a deep discomfort with an MacBook Pro mid-2015 15” used for the Junior phase at Fullstack Academy where I’m happy to be a student. It means a lot of time on a screen, a lot of coding and typing and a even longer time debugging, staring at a screen trying to figure out what the hell is going on… The two main aspects of my MacBook Pro, keyboard and screen, felt really lacking in comfort at the end of each day. On the other hand, the SurfaceBook2 felt much more comfortable for typing and spending long hours on code. This is my personal taste and opinion, and I don’t pretend to speak for any one else’s taste or preferences. In other terms, feel free to stop reading if your inclination, heart and soul is toward Cuppertino instead of Redmond. I am sure you are a great person nevertheless… Just jokin’!

These guides cover the installation of Linux Ubuntu 18.04 LTS alongside Windows 10, a.k.a. a dual boot PC, and in part 2 the installation of the same Linux distro using Windows Subsystem for Linux, a.k.a. WSL. When researching the materials and information for installing Linux on a PC, I found rather little on the subject. WSL is a rather young Win10 feature and still being worked upon by Microsoft. The most recent Windows update (1809 at the time of writing) added a lot to WSL and the way consoles are handled in Windows. The 2 guides can be found with the following links:

1. Complete Development environment with Windows 10 and Linux - Part 1 - Dual Boot
2. Complete Development environment with Windows 10 and Linux - Part 2 - WSL

I personally don’t own any interest, share or sponsorship from any of the corporations mentioned in this article. These articles published in Medium intend to install and configure a viable, useful and professional development environment on a PC/Win10 desktop or laptop. The main components are:

• Ubuntu 18.04LTS
• Chrome or Chromium
• Git
• Visual Studio Code
  • EsLint
  • Prettier
• Node JS
  • NVM, NPM
  • Nodemon, Testem
• PostgreSQL
• DBeaver
• Postman

Microsoft, Windows, Windows 10 are trademarks of Microsoft Corp. MacBook Pro is a trademark of Apple Inc. Ubuntu is a trademark of Canonical Inc. UK.

Thanks to Dakota Blair and the whole team at Fullstack Academy for their precious help.