Brief: Linux distribution exclusively for programmers and web developers? Why not? In the world of Linux, there is a distribution for everyone.
Important Announcement
SemiCode OS has been discontinued. If you come across some other project running in the name of SemiCode OS, avoid it.
The battle of the best OS is long and forever lasting and the Linux army has a new armor at their disposal. Meet SemiCode OS, a new Linux distribution based on Ubuntu and with a focus on programmers and web developers.
Before you go, oh no! not another Linux distro, that too based on Ubuntu, let me tool you that in our Linux group on Facebook, one of the frequently asked questions is: which Linux distribution is best for programmers? People do
Installing bunch of tools and IDEs might not be a big deal, but at times it is good to have them installed by default to make it a plug and play for more serious work of programming.
SemiCode OS aims for the same. It is highly customized for programmers so you won’t have to spend your valuable time in compilers, editors or even IDEs of the most popular languages as they are already pre-installed for you.
Sounds cool, isn’t? So let’s dive deeper into this new Linux distribution for developers and see whether it has the potential to be a game-changer.
SemiCode OS Features
The SemiCode OS uses Ubuntu 14.04 repositories. On top of Ubuntu 14.04, it uses GNOME as its default desktop environment.
The use of one of the most user-friendly Linux distro and desktop environment is a safe choice to gain more userbase.
In the developer specific programs, SemiCode OS offers packages Eclipse, MonoDevelop, Ninja IDE, Bluefish, Atom, Brackets, Sublime Text (my personal favorite), Emacs.
In compilers, OpenJDK for java, Ruby compiler, .NET with Mono Runtime are the notable ones. LAMP stack comes preinstalled and pre-configured.
In addition to that, it also includes Git and Slack desktop client. Many of the Python packages are included too like beautiful soup.
These are few of the long list of developer tools. SemiCode OS has also tried to get brownie points for privacy with DuckDuckGo as the default search engine.
Sarah: Siri for Linux terminal
One of the few original packages in SemiCode OS is Sarah. It is Siri for Linux terminal.
Basically, it’s a command line tool that you can use to fire up a few questions and it will reply you with the best possible answers.
For example, if you try this command:
sarah watch titanic
The output will be:
Name : Titanic
Year of Releasing : 1997
Movie or Series : movie
Genre : Drama, Romance
Cast : Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Billy Zane, Kathy Bates
Ok I will watch it because it got 7.7 on imdb
It’s an open source tool and you can find its source code on GitHub.
Worth a try?
For long we developers have waited for a dedicated operating System for programming and development and SemiCode OS might just be the answer to it or at least it promises so.
With all the customization and integration plus a Siri/Cortana like bot in terminal, a programming enthusiast like me just can’t resist the idea of trying this OS. But SemiCode OS is still in beta for now.
Kudos to the Sudanese developer team for coming up with such a project. If executed right, I feel SemiCode OS might just be the same to the programmers what Kali Linux is to the hackers.
