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Which Linux Distro?

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Started by caldiar July 12, 2007 12:15 PM

26 comments, last by Captain_Thunder 16 years, 8 months ago

Shinkage

595

July 22, 2007 09:00 PM

Quote:What is your favorite linux distro?

While I've futzed around with a number of distros (predominantly Ubuntu and Gentoo, some others as well), I find that Arch provides the best middle ground between ease of use and configurability. It has a very well maintained package repository (where you get all your pre-build programs from) that in my experience is much more up to date than other distros and optimized for newer processors. And if you want to go the Gentoo way and build all the software, that's easily automated too. Setup is a little more involved than Ubuntu though, since its installation leaves you with a very bare bones system (the way I like it) that you'll have to configure to taste.

If you're totally new to Linux, I'd probably recommend Ubuntu until you get your feet wet and understand the system to be able to manually configure things the way many other distros require.

Quote:What kernel is it based off of?

Currently 2.6.21.

Quote:What do you use your distro for?
Which linux distro do you use to program C/C++ programs?

It's the only unemulated OS installed on my system.

Quote:Which distro provides the most development tools?

All development tools are be build on all major distros. That's the thing about most linux tools--if there isn't a package already made for your distro, just download the source and compile it yourself.

Nathan Baum

1,027

July 22, 2007 09:20 PM

Quote:Original post by caldiar
What is your favorite linux distro?

Gentoo.

Quote:
What kernel is it based off of?

Uh... Linux.

I'm using version 2.6.20 with Gentoo-specific tweaks but, much like any distro, Gentoo has a bunch of different kernels for different purposes.

Quote:
What do you use your distro for?

Everything I use a computer for. Playing games, web browsing, email, watching movies, playing music, programming, drawing...

Quote:
Which linux distro do you use to program C/C++ programs?

Gentoo.

Quote:
Which distro provides the most development tools?

I suppose this depends what a development tool is, but possibly Debian, since (I think) it has the most packages. The other contender is probably Gentoo.

deadimp

310

July 23, 2007 08:54 PM

I use Ubuntu Feisty (7.04), though I haven't gotten around to using it very often, since I'm mainly used to Windows.
I haven't done much with it yet, since I haven't found a comfortable IDE for myself (I'd be using Code::Blocks, but for some reason Scintilla is really slow on Ubuntu/Debian/Linux). Also, nVidia and Ubuntu (or maybe just Linux for that matter) don't cooperate enough, at least not with the two graphics cards I've had. The only main problem was and still is that it's limiting my resolution to 1024x768, whereas my monitor/gfx card is capable of more.

I would suggest that before you jump straight into Linux that you try and verse yourself with bash. I had done so by installing cygwin, because I hated the Windows shell, and I had needed it to run Poderosa, a nice, compact Terminal application for Windows. This is a more practical solution for computers that can't handle OS emulators (my new one can, but the old one I had before was kind of low-end).

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T1Oracle

100

July 23, 2007 09:04 PM

Quote:Original post by deadimp
I use Ubuntu Feisty (7.04), though I haven't gotten around to using it very often, since I'm mainly used to Windows.
I haven't done much with it yet, since I haven't found a comfortable IDE for myself (I'd be using Code::Blocks, but for some reason Scintilla is really slow on Ubuntu/Debian/Linux). Also, nVidia and Ubuntu (or maybe just Linux for that matter) don't cooperate enough, at least not with the two graphics cards I've had. The only main problem was and still is that it's limiting my resolution to 1024x768, whereas my monitor/gfx card is capable of more.

I would suggest that before you jump straight into Linux that you try and verse yourself with bash. I had done so by installing cygwin, because I hated the Windows shell, and I had needed it to run Poderosa, a nice, compact Terminal application for Windows. This is a more practical solution for computers that can't handle OS emulators (my new one can, but the old one I had before was kind of low-end).

What card do you have? What does your xorg.conf file look like? I have GeForce 8800 GTX and I use the nVidia 9755 driver. I went through a lot to get it to work, but now I know the install procedure well.

Programming since 1995.

Khaos Dragon

196

July 28, 2007 07:30 AM

Ubuntu Feisty is good, but something that is far underrated is DreamLinux GL Edition.

Laz Roc

138

August 02, 2007 10:04 AM

I did like Ubuntu very much as desktop distro. It so easy to use, and cause no big problems if you just want to use Linux with all it's freedom. The downside with Ubuntu is, you don't get the latest packages. This is important if you want to use the latest features. So you have two options: either you compile the package yourself and may end in a broken system (it's not so bad as it sounds), or you decide in the first place to use a distro which needs to compile every single package, what could be very time consuming and difficult for beginners, but gives you a clean and always up-to-date system - then go for Gentoo or Slackware. This is a good choice for programmers, who intrinsically should know the system.

I don't use Linux anymore to program, only Ubuntu as desktop distro on my Thinkpad. I gave FreeBSD a try, and to my mind it's even better than Linux. While every Linux distro should generally offer you the same programs & tools, you may find some don't work with FreeBSD, but this hasn't been a big problem to me yet. Don't forget, Unix is a family of operating systems, and try to support or test your code on different systems.

eedok

982

August 02, 2007 03:09 PM

Quote:What is your favorite linux distro?

Arch Linux

Quote:What kernel is it based off of?

Your choice, I choose the latest of the 2.6 releases though

Quote:What do you use your distro for?

Web browsing, spriting, sound effect editing, music ripping, office work, chatting, coding, some gaming.

Quote:Which linux distro do you use to program C/C++ programs?

see the answer to the first question

Quote:Which distro provides the most development tools?

Not 100% sure but most likely Debian

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Captain_Thunder

174

August 02, 2007 03:19 PM

Quote:Original post by caldiar
What is your favorite linux distro?

Ubuntu.

Quote:Original post by caldiar
What kernel is it based off of?

I'm not sure. I think it's 2.6.

Quote:Original post by caldiar
What do you use your distro for?

Programming, IRC. For some reason, I find it impossible to browse the web unless I'm on Windows (which means all I have to do to be productive is jump on Linux [grin])

Quote:Original post by caldiar
Which linux distro do you use to program C/C++ programs?

Ubuntu.

Quote:Original post by caldiar
Which distro provides the most development tools?

Probably Debian; it has the most packages overall.

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