What advantages does Ubuntu have over Windows as an environment for programming?

This sort of hypothetical might do better on Programmers.SE because it's likely to be pretty one-sided here. That said, I was a .NET developer for a few years and came to depend on Visual Studio. It does a lot for you and yes, I particularly like the integrated debugger... However, I think there are a few reasons people choose Linux:

• Ubuntu is free. Windows and VS can be extremely expensive.

• Ubuntu is free. Windows and VS give you very little control over how you use them.

• Ubuntu is a programming environment straight out of the box. Tools like Bash, grep, sed, awk. Windows is historically a big pain in the bottom to script from. Batch files are awful and even with PowerShell, the command-line experience in Windows pales into insignificance when compared to Bash and the GNU tools. You can port some of that over to Windows but it's not the same experience.

• Complicated setups are easy to automate and replicate through apt-get, tools like Puppet, Chef, Juju, Fabric and simple scripting.

• Some things don't need complicated IDEs. I'm a Python developer these days and I'm perfectly happy with its own built-in tools and debugger. I use a text editor, the command line and fabric... And I'm way more in control than I was under .NET. I can build, test, commit and deploy my webapps with a single Fabric command.

  That's not to say there aren't monolithic IDEs. Eclipse and Netbeans. MonoDevelop. KDevelop4 and QT Creator. They all have their users who swear by them.

Is Ubuntu better for you? Who knows. It's a very capable and very customisable system. If you give it a chance and alter your workflow to allow it to help you, you should be able to make it stick.

I would like to add one more important reason though; Ubuntu is great for experimenting with new libraries, languages, IDEs and compilers. Everything is one apt-get away.

So you've heard about a fancy language called Haskell:

sudo apt-get install ghc
nano hello.hs
<copy-paste hello world example>
ghc -o hello hello.hs
./hello
Hello World!

Oh, you've heard a fancy editor for Haskell:

sudo apt-get install <fancy-editor-for-haskell>

The same with C/C++ libraries, you just apt-get install them and the binaries and the headers go to the right folders, and you can just #include them in your source files without even needing to check where they get placed!

In essence, it's not about how fast you can setup your day-to-day working environment. It's also about how extremely fast you can setup an experimental environment. I believe that's what accelerates the learning experience under Linux.

Here's an opinion from a primarily Microsoft platform developer. If you're not targeting the .NET ecosystem I would argue that your best option is Ubuntu. You will have a much easier time obtaining, configuring, and using tools for almost every other platform/language if you are on Ubuntu instead of Windows.

The value of Microsoft's toolchain is that it is HIGHLY integrated. From the IDE to Source Control, Project Management, Build, Deployment, Database, Cloud Infrastructure, ad nauseum. Microsoft makes it VERY easy if you're going full-bore with their platform.

As some have mentioned, deviating from the Microsoft Way can be a pain. Using .NET for your code and Oracle for your database...d'oh that's gonna be a pain.

Want to create an .NET web application and deploy it to Amazon Web Services...not very straight forward.

But if you stay within the Microsoft Ecosystem...that baby will sing like a mocking bird for you. In the hands of a competent software developer, the Microsoft Platform is like PEDs for a talented athlete. It's not going to enable an amateur programmer to create the next Facebook. But it will give an edge to a talented developer who understands how the pieces fit together.

The argument for the free (as in beer) cost of getting started with Ubuntu is out the door, there are a number of programs Microsoft offers that let you get started with their tools for free. Including Bizspark which gives your startup company 3 years of licenses (including production use licenses of their tools). And Dream spark which gives it to students for free.

That being said, if you want to explore and learn new languages and platforms, you'll find better tools to get started on Ubuntu and if you're looking for work outside of the Microsoft ecosystem, you're going to need to be familiar with Ubuntu.