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digitalmars.D - OT - Which Linux?

reply Paul D. Anderson <paul.d.removethis.anderson comcast.andthis.net> writes:
I'm going to add Linux to my PC to get a dual-boot configuration. (I'm tired of
sloooow start ups and want to tap into the great tools available.) The tutorial
I'm looking at suggests Ubuntu. Is there a significant difference in Linux
implementations? Is Ubuntu one of the better ones? Does it make a difference
for running D2?

Thanks in advance for your hellp.

Paul
Aug 19 2009
next sibling parent reply Michiel Helvensteijn <m.helvensteijn.remove gmail.com> writes:
Paul D. Anderson wrote:


 I'm going to add Linux to my PC to get a dual-boot configuration. (I'm
 tired of sloooow start ups and want to tap into the great tools
 available.) The tutorial I'm looking at suggests Ubuntu. Is there a
 significant difference in Linux implementations? Is Ubuntu one of the
 better ones? Does it make a difference for running D2?


It depends on what you want and how much experience you have. Ubuntu is
certainly a good one to start with. Or one of its flavors. E.g. if you like
KDE, go for Kubuntu.

I myself have never looked back since I started using Gentoo. A bit more
advanced. But a great way to learn the internals of Linux. It has a lot of
online documentation and a helpful community. It also makes my system
blazing fast, since every package is compiled from source.

There's really no difference between distro's when it comes to running,
well, most any linux application.

-- 
Michiel Helvensteijn
Aug 19 2009
parent JPF <johannespfau gmail.com> writes:
Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "Michiel Helvensteijn" <m.helvensteijn.remove gmail.com> wrote in message 
 news:h6hoeh$2enp$1 digitalmars.com...

 Paul D. Anderson wrote:


 I'm going to add Linux to my PC to get a dual-boot configuration. (I'm
 tired of sloooow start ups and want to tap into the great tools
 available.) The tutorial I'm looking at suggests Ubuntu. Is there a
 significant difference in Linux implementations? Is Ubuntu one of the
 better ones? Does it make a difference for running D2?


 It depends on what you want and how much experience you have. Ubuntu is
 certainly a good one to start with. Or one of its flavors. E.g. if you 
 like
 KDE, go for Kubuntu.

 I myself have never looked back since I started using Gentoo. A bit more
 advanced. But a great way to learn the internals of Linux. It has a lot of
 online documentation and a helpful community. It also makes my system
 blazing fast, since every package is compiled from source.

 There's really no difference between distro's when it comes to running,
 well, most any linux application.


 
 One other difference I've noticed that may or may not matter is package 
 system. Ubuntu, like all other Debian-derived ones, use .deb packages (but 
 usually done indirectly through apt-get, which I've been very happy with). 
 Redhat (and I think Mandrake as well) uses .rpm. And I think some of them 
 have no package system and you have to do everything from source (which can 
 be kind of a pain.


Note that most systems using sources still help you in compiling those.
Compiling a package on Gentoo might be done with just one command, where
compiling completely from source could be much more complicated.
Compiling from source without package management help also makes
software removal much harder (you usually have to keep the source around
then).

 Michiel said it makes the system fast, but although I've 
 never used Gentoo, I've find that most linux apps take absolutely forever to 
 actually compile in the first place, so there may be that tradeoff).


Yes, especially big packages(KDE, Gnome, even scribus on slower systems)
can take some hours to compile.

 There also seem to be differences in how low-level system details are 
 configured, like automatic service starting/stopping and such.


That's different in almost every Linux distribution. There are often
GUIs which abstract such things, though.
Aug 19 2009
prev sibling next sibling parent JPF <johannespfau gmail.com> writes:
Paul D. Anderson wrote:

 I'm going to add Linux to my PC to get a dual-boot configuration. (I'm tired
of sloooow start ups and want to tap into the great tools available.) The
tutorial I'm looking at suggests Ubuntu. Is there a significant difference in
Linux implementations? Is Ubuntu one of the better ones? Does it make a
difference for running D2?
 
 Thanks in advance for your hellp.
 
 Paul
 


One big difference in Linux distributions is the age of
packages(software). There are rolling release distributions like Gentoo,
Archlinux or Fedora Rawhide and release based distributions (Ubuntu,
Fedora, Opensuse, Debian stable). Rolling release distributions publish
new program versions as soon as possible (often just a few days after
release). Release based distributions get big package upgrades only with
new releases (likely every half year, for some distributions even longer.)

There also often is an difference in available packages. Ubuntu has, due
to its popularity, lots of additional software in ppas which smaller
distributions might not have available. Ubuntu also has the best
documentation due to its big community, but most documentation is valid
for other distributions as well. Ubuntu is said to be one of the easiest
        distributions, especially regarding installation.

I personally used Ubuntu a lot, but having compiz (a 3d window manager,
which can draw 'burning' effects when you close windows, and similar
stuff) as default scared me away. I now use Archlinux, which is much
like gentoo in the 'you learn lots of things' sense, but in difference
to gentoo arch uses prebuild binary packages. Especially nice about arch
 is the way you build packages: It's basically the same as building
packages from source, and i think it's the easiest way to create own
packages on linux. Arch has aur, an repository of user supplied
packages, which means you usually find packages for the program you
need. Due to it's rolling release system, it has great support for
svn/mercurial/git/cvs/bzr packages. Compiling the latest svn version of
some software is very easy, if there are PKGBUILDS(a file which tells
arch how to build a package from source) available in AUR.

Arch linux is more complicated as ubuntu thought. You have to do more
stuff by yourself, there are less configuration GUIs, you often have to
edit config files with an text editor. Some things might break after
updates(that happens very rarely) and you might experience more bugs as
you get new packages earlier as people using other distributions.
Probably the worst thing is the first installation. Arch only installs a
minimal subset of programs (No graphical user interface for example).
Knowing what you have to install to get a feature involves searching
wikis, forums and so on. It's easier if someone gives you a package list
for a certain configuration.

Regarding D I can say we have dmd (1, latest) tango(latest) and phobos
(latest) as official packages. LDC (latest, with tango), GDC(0.24 /
svn), phobos2(latest), tango(svn) and dmd(2, latest) are available from
AUR. We have the latest eclipse, latest descent can be installed via
eclipses package manager.
Aug 19 2009
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Jason House <jason.james.house gmail.com> writes:
Paul D. Anderson Wrote:


 I'm going to add Linux to my PC to get a dual-boot configuration. (I'm tired
of sloooow start ups and want to tap into the great tools available.) The
tutorial I'm looking at suggests Ubuntu. Is there a significant difference in
Linux implementations? Is Ubuntu one of the better ones? Does it make a
difference for running D2?
 
 Thanks in advance for your hellp.
 
 Paul



Ubuntu is the most popular Linux distro at the moment. It's easy to install,
keep up to date, and find help. I highly recommend it for newcomers to Linux. I
have not tried the other distro's recommended in this thread but do like Ubuntu
better than others I have tried.
Aug 19 2009
next sibling parent reply Jeremie Pelletier <jeremiep gmail.com> writes:
Jason House Wrote:


 Paul D. Anderson Wrote:
 

 I'm going to add Linux to my PC to get a dual-boot configuration. (I'm tired
of sloooow start ups and want to tap into the great tools available.) The
tutorial I'm looking at suggests Ubuntu. Is there a significant difference in
Linux implementations? Is Ubuntu one of the better ones? Does it make a
difference for running D2?
 
 Thanks in advance for your hellp.
 
 Paul


 
 
 Ubuntu is the most popular Linux distro at the moment. It's easy to install,
keep up to date, and find help. I highly recommend it for newcomers to Linux. I
have not tried the other distro's recommended in this thread but do like Ubuntu
better than others I have tried. 
 


Not only to newcomers, I've been using linux for at least 6 years (mostly
redhat and slackware, also built a few linux from scratchs) and am now using
Ubuntu on my laptop alongside win7. Not because its an easy linux distribution
to work with, because its a convenient one to work with. I know I can do
anything from the shell, but having a popup that says "it seems like you are
missing this to execute that, would you like me to install and configure it for
you while you drink your coffee?" is just plain neat.

Heck even windows isnt as neat as Ubuntu.
Aug 19 2009
parent Jason House <jason.james.house gmail.com> writes:
Jeremie Pelletier Wrote:


 Jason House Wrote:
 

 Paul D. Anderson Wrote:
 

 I'm going to add Linux to my PC to get a dual-boot configuration. (I'm tired
of sloooow start ups and want to tap into the great tools available.) The
tutorial I'm looking at suggests Ubuntu. Is there a significant difference in
Linux implementations? Is Ubuntu one of the better ones? Does it make a
difference for running D2?
 
 Thanks in advance for your hellp.
 
 Paul


 
 
 Ubuntu is the most popular Linux distro at the moment. It's easy to install,
keep up to date, and find help. I highly recommend it for newcomers to Linux. I
have not tried the other distro's recommended in this thread but do like Ubuntu
better than others I have tried. 
 


 
 Not only to newcomers, I've been using linux for at least 6 years (mostly
redhat and slackware, also built a few linux from scratchs) and am now using
Ubuntu on my laptop alongside win7. Not because its an easy linux distribution
to work with, because its a convenient one to work with. I know I can do
anything from the shell, but having a popup that says "it seems like you are
missing this to execute that, would you like me to install and configure it for
you while you drink your coffee?" is just plain neat.
 
 Heck even windows isnt as neat as Ubuntu.


I agree. I use Ubuntu on all my computers at home. I even have my wife close to
switching. I started toting with Linux about 10 years ago. It was miserable
back then. I've been using Linux quite heavily for the last ~5 years... Linux
has come a long way!
Aug 19 2009
prev sibling parent Daniel de Kok <me danieldk.org> writes:
On Aug 20, 2009, at 12:07 AM, Jason House wrote:

 Ubuntu is the most popular Linux distro at the moment. It's easy to  
 install, keep up to date, and find help. I highly recommend it for  
 newcomers to Linux. I have not tried the other distro's recommended  
 in this thread but do like Ubuntu better than others I have tried.


There are a couple of factors that you may want to take into account:

- Number of packages: Ubuntu and OpenSUSE are very comfortable in this  
respect, since they do not only offer many packages in the default  
repositories, but allow users to offer personal package repositories.
- Bleeding edge-ness: Some distributions ride on the edge, the upside  
is up to date software, the downside is that they break more often.  
E.g. Arch, Gentoo, and Fedora are typical bleeding edge distributions,  
while Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)/CentOS are very conservative.
- Support time: some distributions are supported for years with  
security and reliability updates (for instance seven years for RHEL/ 
CentOS), while others are only for a short amount of time.
- User-friendliness: Slackware, Arch, and Gentoo let you configure  
everything by hand Red Hat-ish distributions, Ubuntu, and OpenSUSE  
provide nice graphical configuration tools.
- Hardware support: some distributions include closed-source binary  
drivers or make it easy to install them, some don't. Generally, those  
who do are easier to install.

Ubuntu seems to satisfy in most respects: it provides many packages,  
it is user-friendly, has good hardware support, and the LTS version is  
also supported for a very long time. If you like to get rid of all the  
shiny stuff after some time, you can try Debian, which is the base of  
Ubuntu, but requires more knowledge to configure.

Take care,
Daniel (typing on OS X, which has found the sweetest spot :p)
Aug 20 2009
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Jesse Phillips <jessekphillips+d gmail.com> writes:
Paul D. Anderson Wrote:


 I'm going to add Linux to my PC to get a dual-boot configuration. (I'm tired
of sloooow start ups and want to tap into the great tools available.) The
tutorial I'm looking at suggests Ubuntu. Is there a significant difference in
Linux implementations? Is Ubuntu one of the better ones? Does it make a
difference for running D2?
 
 Thanks in advance for your hellp.
 
 Paul
 



As pointed out, package management and available packages tend to be the only
differences from each distro. Ubuntu, Suse, and Fedora tend to have the most
auto-configuration/GUI.

I personally use Debian but it really doesn't matter if you intend to learn
Linux you can expect to be reinstalling and you may as well try another distro
when you do.

The most important tip, create a separate partition for /home.

As for space requirements. Others may have other input but these are the rules
I find reasonable for minimum space.

Main partition, /, will not likely exceed 10GiB
Swap can be 1GiB
/home depends on if Linux becomes your primary OS. 100MiB is probably the
minimum, but then you'd just get annoyed :) want to share files with Windows
you can make /home 2GiB and mount a Windows partition which you can symbolic
link in /home ($ ln -s /mnt/win /home/user/files)
Aug 19 2009
next sibling parent reply "Adam D. Ruppe" <destructionator gmail.com> writes:
On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 06:26:19PM -0400, Jesse Phillips wrote:

 The most important tip, create a separate partition for /home.


I've gotta disagree with this. One reason why you might is if you want to
do multiple distros, but normally this offers no real benefit and is really
annoying down the line.

Even sharing with Windows, the separate partition doesn't help much. It is
best to mount your Windows partition somewhere on Linux than try to share
/home with it directly.


 Main partition, /, will not likely exceed 10GiB


That's what you think now. Then, 3 or 4 years later, you notice you were
wrong, and stuff starts failing due to having no disk space. (I had a
production server at work barf when its / filled up and there was no room for
tmp files.)

Or, on the other hand, your home partition might fill up while your system
partition has a lot of space left, and that bites you the other way. (This is
what I had on my home computer - 10 GB free on /, but filled /home right up.)

These are huge annoyances that you are fairly likely to see at some point down
the line. Somewhat easy to fix by deleting stuff, but still not fun to deal
with it.


Combined with the very small real benefit of partitioning in the first place,
again with the exception of doing multiple distros on one box, it is just
not generally good advice.


Go with as few partitions as possible so you don't have to arbitrarily slice
up your free space.


-- 
Adam D. Ruppe
http://arsdnet.net
Aug 19 2009
next sibling parent reply Justin <mrjnewt gmail.com> writes:
Adam D. Ruppe Wrote:


 On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 06:26:19PM -0400, Jesse Phillips wrote:

 The most important tip, create a separate partition for /home.


 
 I've gotta disagree with this. One reason why you might is if you want to
 do multiple distros, but normally this offers no real benefit and is really
 annoying down the line.
 
 Even sharing with Windows, the separate partition doesn't help much. It is
 best to mount your Windows partition somewhere on Linux than try to share
 /home with it directly.
 

 Main partition, /, will not likely exceed 10GiB


 
 That's what you think now. Then, 3 or 4 years later, you notice you were
 wrong, and stuff starts failing due to having no disk space. (I had a
 production server at work barf when its / filled up and there was no room for
 tmp files.)
 
 Or, on the other hand, your home partition might fill up while your system
 partition has a lot of space left, and that bites you the other way. (This is
 what I had on my home computer - 10 GB free on /, but filled /home right up.)
 
 These are huge annoyances that you are fairly likely to see at some point down
 the line. Somewhat easy to fix by deleting stuff, but still not fun to deal
 with it.
 
 
 Combined with the very small real benefit of partitioning in the first place,
 again with the exception of doing multiple distros on one box, it is just
 not generally good advice.
 
 
 Go with as few partitions as possible so you don't have to arbitrarily slice
 up your free space.
 
 
 -- 
 Adam D. Ruppe
 http://arsdnet.net


I think that the separate partition for /home is a good idea, generally
speaking. It can be a lifesaver if you enjoy hacking around the system and
manage to royally screw things up. Besides, if you fill it up, you can easily
move it to new, larger partition (hopefully on a shiny new hdd).
Aug 19 2009
parent reply "Adam D. Ruppe" <destructionator gmail.com> writes:
On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 07:34:19PM -0400, Justin wrote:

 I think that the separate partition for /home is a good idea, generally 
 speaking. It can be a lifesaver if you enjoy hacking around the system and 
 manage to royally screw things up. 


Why would a separate partition help with this? With one partition, you can
still or kill broken system files. Just overwrite the system without
formatting the whole thing.



 Besides, if you fill it up, you can easily move it to new, larger partition 


Not really easily. If you want to resize partitions, you sometimes can, but
you run the risk of breaking the files (depends on what filesystem you use
mainly), and even then, you still have the hassle down the line again.


 (hopefully on a shiny new hdd).


Sure, that can be a pretty good deal. Separating the system and your files
on separate hard drives can give you a nice boost. (And what I'd do is
keep a copy of some of your important files on both drives, so you have an
easy backup.)

Of course, the big downside there is the cost. But, yeah, if you have the
spare cash, two hard drives is a nice deal.

-- 
Adam D. Ruppe
http://arsdnet.net
Aug 19 2009
next sibling parent Justin <mrjnewt gmail.com> writes:
Adam D. Ruppe Wrote:


 On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 07:34:19PM -0400, Justin wrote:

 I think that the separate partition for /home is a good idea, generally 
 speaking. It can be a lifesaver if you enjoy hacking around the system and 
 manage to royally screw things up. 


 
 Why would a separate partition help with this? With one partition, you can
 still or kill broken system files. Just overwrite the system without
 formatting the whole thing.
 


Because you can reformat and reinstall on your system partition while leaving
the home partition alone.

Generally, moving your /home to a new partition is as simple as doing a cp -R
(perhaps with a few other flags to make sure that things like links get handled
properly).
Aug 19 2009
prev sibling parent language_fan <foo bar.com.invalid> writes:
Wed, 19 Aug 2009 19:46:21 -0400, Adam D. Ruppe thusly wrote:


 On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 07:34:19PM -0400, Justin wrote:

 I think that the separate partition for /home is a good idea, generally
 speaking. It can be a lifesaver if you enjoy hacking around the system
 and manage to royally screw things up.


 
 Why would a separate partition help with this? With one partition, you
 can still or kill broken system files. Just overwrite the system without
 formatting the whole thing.



 ...



 Of course, the big downside there is the cost. But, yeah, if you have
 the spare cash, two hard drives is a nice deal.


Disk space is cheap these days. A shiny new 1 TB drive costs less than 
$100. I've used a 25 GB root partition at least the last 5 years and 
according to the disk space calculators it still seems half empty. It 
makes sense to separate root from important files, because file system 
corruption isn't that uncommon. Another thing is, reinstallation is much 
easier since you don't need to move *anything*.
Aug 26 2009
prev sibling parent Jesse Phillips <jessekphillips gmail.com> writes:
On Wed, 19 Aug 2009 19:09:02 -0400, Adam D. Ruppe wrote:


 On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 06:26:19PM -0400, Jesse Phillips wrote:

 The most important tip, create a separate partition for /home.


 
 I've gotta disagree with this. One reason why you might is if you want
 to do multiple distros, but normally this offers no real benefit and is
 really annoying down the line.
 
 Even sharing with Windows, the separate partition doesn't help much. It
 is best to mount your Windows partition somewhere on Linux than try to
 share /home with it directly.


This is recommended because if you are getting to know Linux, you will be 
reinstalling and a separate partition for /home is... nice. I do not 
suggest sharing /home with Windows, and in fact believe you can't due to 
permission issues.


 

 Main partition, /, will not likely exceed 10GiB


 
 That's what you think now. Then, 3 or 4 years later, you notice you were
 wrong, and stuff starts failing due to having no disk space. (I had a
 production server at work barf when its / filled up and there was no
 room for tmp files.)


I had an issue because of all the old cache files left around by 
aptitude, I've been running Linux for 4 years and 10GiB is doable for 
most things. Since he is just switching it is likely he will have to 
decide for himself in a year or two how best to setup his computer.


 Or, on the other hand, your home partition might fill up while your
 system partition has a lot of space left, and that bites you the other
 way. (This is what I had on my home computer - 10 GB free on /, but
 filled /home right up.)


He will run into this issue anyway because he has to share with Windows, 
he is not to the point where he can decide who gets what space and will 
likely not want Windows running out of space while Linux still has 50GiB 
free. (Linux lives happily in small places, Windows does not)


 These are huge annoyances that you are fairly likely to see at some
 point down the line. Somewhat easy to fix by deleting stuff, but still
 not fun to deal with it.
 
 
 Combined with the very small real benefit of partitioning in the first
 place, again with the exception of doing multiple distros on one box, it
 is just not generally good advice.
 
 
 Go with as few partitions as possible so you don't have to arbitrarily
 slice up your free space.


I'm currently working with 9 partitions on a 350GiB harddrive. It is all 
personal taste and I'm giving very reasonable numbers.
Aug 19 2009
prev sibling parent JPF <johannespfau gmail.com> writes:
Jesse Phillips wrote:

 Paul D. Anderson Wrote:
 

 I'm going to add Linux to my PC to get a dual-boot configuration. (I'm tired
of sloooow start ups and want to tap into the great tools available.) The
tutorial I'm looking at suggests Ubuntu. Is there a significant difference in
Linux implementations? Is Ubuntu one of the better ones? Does it make a
difference for running D2?

 Thanks in advance for your hellp.

 Paul


 
 
 As pointed out, package management and available packages tend to be the only
differences from each distro. Ubuntu, Suse, and Fedora tend to have the most
auto-configuration/GUI.
 
 I personally use Debian but it really doesn't matter if you intend to learn
Linux you can expect to be reinstalling and you may as well try another distro
when you do.
 
 The most important tip, create a separate partition for /home.
 
 As for space requirements. Others may have other input but these are the rules
I find reasonable for minimum space.
 
 Main partition, /, will not likely exceed 10GiB
 Swap can be 1GiB


Note that swap might be used for suspend to disk, it's therefore often
advised to make swap at least as big as your available ram.

 /home depends on if Linux becomes your primary OS. 100MiB is probably the
minimum, but then you'd just get annoyed :) want to share files with Windows
you can make /home 2GiB and mount a Windows partition which you can symbolic
link in /home ($ ln -s /mnt/win /home/user/files)


I'd also use an seperate /boot with a simple file system, for example
ext2, because Grub might have problems with your root filesystem if you
use ext4/xfs. 100mb should be enough (depends on how many kernels you
want to keep, 15mb per kernel is common)

However too many partitions can get complicated as well..
Aug 19 2009
prev sibling next sibling parent Justin <mrjnewt gmail.com> writes:
Paul D. Anderson Wrote:


 I'm going to add Linux to my PC to get a dual-boot configuration. (I'm tired
of sloooow start ups and want to tap into the great tools available.) The
tutorial I'm looking at suggests Ubuntu. Is there a significant difference in
Linux implementations? Is Ubuntu one of the better ones? Does it make a
difference for running D2?
 
 Thanks in advance for your hellp.
 
 Paul
 


I use Ubuntu exclusively on my computers and my wife dual-boots Ubuntu and XP
on her laptop. She vastly prefers Ubuntu and I am responsible for most of the
boots to XP (playing Total War on her laptop). Ubuntu has a lot going for it:
both the GNOME and KDE flavors can easily be configured for gorgeous eye-candy
and productivity that I haven't seen matched in Windows or Mac yet. The biggest
draws for me are the package system (1 command to instantly install, without
annoying dialogs, a program and all its dependencies) and the reliability.
Because Ubuntu releases every six months, instead as the components are
updated, things generally work well together out of the "box"--which can be
important, particularly for folks new to Linux.
Get an Ubuntu LiveCD (just download and burn) and try running it with your
existing setup. You can run Ubuntu without making any changes to your system.
Aug 19 2009
prev sibling next sibling parent Robert Clipsham <robert octarineparrot.com> writes:
Paul D. Anderson wrote:

 I'm going to add Linux to my PC to get a dual-boot configuration.
 (I'm tired of sloooow start ups and want to tap into the great tools
 available.) The tutorial I'm looking at suggests Ubuntu. Is there a
 significant difference in Linux implementations? Is Ubuntu one of the
 better ones? Does it make a difference for running D2?
 
 Thanks in advance for your hellp.
 
 Paul
 


If you're new to linux I highly recommend Ubuntu. It's the most widely 
used linux distribution and one of the easiest to use, so it will be 
easy to get support should you need it. There are repositories for ldc 
and several major projects (qtd, tango etc) too which should save you 
some effort setting up. As for running D2, it makes no difference what 
distro you choose.

Of course you're free to choose any distro you like, I personally favor 
Arch Linux due to its flexibility and constantly updated packages, it 
isn't really aimed at beginners and the "bleeding edge" packages could 
cause breakages, which will be annoying if you're new to Linux and don't 
know how to fix the issues.

Robert
Aug 19 2009
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "Lars T. Kyllingstad" <public kyllingen.NOSPAMnet> writes:
Paul D. Anderson wrote:

 I'm going to add Linux to my PC to get a dual-boot configuration. (I'm tired
of sloooow start ups and want to tap into the great tools available.) The
tutorial I'm looking at suggests Ubuntu. Is there a significant difference in
Linux implementations? Is Ubuntu one of the better ones? Does it make a
difference for running D2?
 
 Thanks in advance for your hellp.
 
 Paul



I use and recommend Ubuntu.

There are many reasons to use Ubuntu: ease of use, large user base (i.e. 
easy to google for help with any problem), and many others. But for me, 
one reason overshadows them all:

Ubuntu has, without a doubt, the largest package repository of any Linux 
distribution (yes, bigger than Debian, even). Add to that the number of 
PPAs (Personal Package Archives) and other repositories that are 
available, and you'll never need to compile anything yourself again.

Whatever application I need, it's just a "sudo apt-get install foo" 
away. I haven't built a third-party app from source in years, and good 
riddance! Modern computers are fast enough that the performance boost 
gained by compiling applications yourself in my opinion just isn't worth 
the hassle.


Tip: If you have a 64-bit processor I would still recommend you install 
the 32-bit version of Ubuntu if you intend to use it mainly for coding. 
DMD is strictly a 32-bit compiler, and any library you want to use must 
also be 32-bit. Keeping a separate tree of 32-bit libraries in a 64-bit 
Ubuntu installation is possible (or should be, using the ia32-* 
packages), but I hear it's a pain.

-Lars
Aug 20 2009
next sibling parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
Lars T. Kyllingstad wrote:

 Tip: If you have a 64-bit processor I would still recommend you install 
 the 32-bit version of Ubuntu if you intend to use it mainly for coding. 
 DMD is strictly a 32-bit compiler, and any library you want to use must 
 also be 32-bit. Keeping a separate tree of 32-bit libraries in a 64-bit 
 Ubuntu installation is possible (or should be, using the ia32-* 
 packages), but I hear it's a pain.


I have 64 bit Ubuntu, use it to develop 32 bit apps, and haven't had 
much problems.
Aug 20 2009
next sibling parent "Lars T. Kyllingstad" <public kyllingen.NOSPAMnet> writes:
Walter Bright wrote:

 Lars T. Kyllingstad wrote:

 Tip: If you have a 64-bit processor I would still recommend you 
 install the 32-bit version of Ubuntu if you intend to use it mainly 
 for coding. DMD is strictly a 32-bit compiler, and any library you 
 want to use must also be 32-bit. Keeping a separate tree of 32-bit 
 libraries in a 64-bit Ubuntu installation is possible (or should be, 
 using the ia32-* packages), but I hear it's a pain.


 
 I have 64 bit Ubuntu, use it to develop 32 bit apps, and haven't had 
 much problems.



Yeah, I do too, and I haven't had that much problems either. But my 
needs are simple. :)

For me, at first, it was enough to install the ia32-libs package plus 
some of the GCC multilib packages. But then, after a while, I found 
myself needing other libraries (BLAS and LAPACK) of which 32-bit 
versions weren't present in the package repository of my 64-bit Ubuntu. 
So I had to manually install them in a separate location from the 64-bit 
ones.

For two rather simple libraries that isn't really much of a hassle, but 
if you are, say, a game developer, and need a sound library, a 2D 
graphics library, a 3D graphics library, a networking library, etc. etc. 
etc. it all adds up.

I hate installing things manually, and if possible I *always* use the 
package manager. But maybe that's just me. :)

-Lars
Aug 21 2009
prev sibling parent "Lars T. Kyllingstad" <public kyllingen.NOSPAMnet> writes:
Walter Bright wrote:

 Lars T. Kyllingstad wrote:

 Tip: If you have a 64-bit processor I would still recommend you 
 install the 32-bit version of Ubuntu if you intend to use it mainly 
 for coding. DMD is strictly a 32-bit compiler, and any library you 
 want to use must also be 32-bit. Keeping a separate tree of 32-bit 
 libraries in a 64-bit Ubuntu installation is possible (or should be, 
 using the ia32-* packages), but I hear it's a pain.


 
 I have 64 bit Ubuntu, use it to develop 32 bit apps, and haven't had 
 much problems.



Good times ahead:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MultiarchSpec

-Lars
Aug 21 2009
prev sibling parent Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
Lars T. Kyllingstad wrote:

 Tip: If you have a 64-bit processor I would still recommend you install 
 the 32-bit version of Ubuntu if you intend to use it mainly for coding. 
 DMD is strictly a 32-bit compiler, and any library you want to use must 
 also be 32-bit. Keeping a separate tree of 32-bit libraries in a 64-bit 
 Ubuntu installation is possible (or should be, using the ia32-* 
 packages), but I hear it's a pain.


I have 64 bit Ubuntu, use it to develop 32 bit apps, and haven't had 
much problems.
Aug 20 2009
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Lutger <lutger.blijdestijn gmail.com> writes:
Paul D.  Anderson wrote:


 I'm going to add Linux to my PC to get a dual-boot configuration. (I'm
 tired of sloooow start ups and want to tap into the great tools
 available.) The tutorial I'm looking at suggests Ubuntu. Is there a
 significant difference in Linux implementations? Is Ubuntu one of the
 better ones? Does it make a difference for running D2?
 
 Thanks in advance for your hellp.
 
 Paul


The gnome and kde desktops are quite different, and some distros focus more 
on one of these. There is also fluxbox window manager for example if you 
want a lightweight desktop.  

Some more differences are:
- how the distro deals with patented and closed source software. (mp3, dvd, 
flash, video drivers, etc)
- relation with upstream: whether the distro does a lot of modification or 
not to the software, more focus on stability or up to date packages 
- polish (gui tools for example) and how user friendly the distro is
- the community and documentation
- method of packaging and selection of packages available. Also: updates and 
security.

A great way to see for yourself what's available is to burn a couple of live 
cd's and take them for a spin. 

Here are some of my observations for what it's worth:

- Mandriva: hands down the most user friendly distro I have seen (more so 
than Ubuntu). Mandriva One comes with binary video drivers and media codecs 
out of the box and has a lot of tools to assist migration from windows. 
Sometimes buggy though.

- OpenSuse: very solid, lot's of polish and gui tools. The best installer 
ever. Does a lot of modification; don't step to far out of the box.

- Fedora: bleeding edge, focused on free software and innovation.   

- Ubuntu: I have tried this one but never cared much for gnome and at the 
time a lot of packages were buggy. Kubuntu is not as good for a kde distro 
as one of the above imho. I want to balance this thread a little ;)

- Linux Mint: this is based on ubuntu but more polished. For example: codecs  
out of the box, a nice start menu and a bunch of configuration tools. Almost 
as friendly as mandriva.

In conclusion: if you want, you can spend a lot of time finding something 
that suits your need and preferences...
Aug 20 2009
next sibling parent reply "Steven Schveighoffer" <schveiguy yahoo.com> writes:
On Thu, 20 Aug 2009 16:11:14 -0400, Nick Sabalausky <a a.a> wrote:


 "Lutger" <lutger.blijdestijn gmail.com> wrote in message
 news:h6j06p$24vr$1 digitalmars.com...

 - how the distro deals with patented and closed source software. (mp3,
 dvd,
 flash, video drivers, etc)


 That's a good point. Ubuntu doesn't have mp3, dvd, and (I think) flash
 out-of-the-box, and I found them to be a royal pain in the ass to get
 working. I've heared of "SuperOS" that is apperently just Ubuntu
 pre-packaged with all that stuff and some other things people have found  
 to
 be surprisingly missing from a default Ubuntu. I haven't actually tried  
 it
 though.


I had the same experience with Fedora as well.

What I've found is that there is a site called rpmfusion which supplies  
rpms for software that Fedora won't touch.  All you have to do is point  
your OS' update urls at rpmfusion and you get all those capabilities  
through the standard yum update tools.  They separate them into two  
categories -- nonfree and free (nonfree and free corresponding to  
licenses, not cost).

There's probably an equivalent Ubuntu site, but I haven't used Ubuntu yet,  
so I'm not sure.

-Steve
Aug 20 2009
parent KlausO <oberhofer users.sf.net> writes:
Steven Schveighoffer schrieb:

 
 I had the same experience with Fedora as well.
 
 What I've found is that there is a site called rpmfusion which supplies 
 rpms for software that Fedora won't touch.  All you have to do is point 
 your OS' update urls at rpmfusion and you get all those capabilities 
 through the standard yum update tools.  They separate them into two 
 categories -- nonfree and free (nonfree and free corresponding to 
 licenses, not cost).
 
 There's probably an equivalent Ubuntu site, but I haven't used Ubuntu 
 yet, so I'm not sure.
 
 -Steve


Yes, it's called Medibuntu

http://www.medibuntu.org/

KlausO
Aug 21 2009
prev sibling parent language_fan <foo bar.com.invalid> writes:
Thu, 20 Aug 2009 16:11:14 -0400, Nick Sabalausky thusly wrote:


 "Lutger" <lutger.blijdestijn gmail.com> wrote in message
 news:h6j06p$24vr$1 digitalmars.com...

 - how the distro deals with patented and closed source software. (mp3,
 dvd,
 flash, video drivers, etc)


 
 That's a good point. Ubuntu doesn't have mp3, dvd, and (I think) flash
 out-of-the-box, and I found them to be a royal pain in the ass to get
 working. I've heared of "SuperOS" that is apperently just Ubuntu
 pre-packaged with all that stuff and some other things people have found
 to be surprisingly missing from a default Ubuntu. I haven't actually
 tried it though.


You should know that watching DVDs [1] in america (and today in many 
other countries, too) is a copyright crime (via css) unless you pay the 
license fees (included in the price of a legal discrete dvd player). 
Using a MP3 decoder isn't a crime on in private use, but the distributor 
most likely didn't pay the patent fees and is distributing it illegally.

[1] without a license, copying DVDs in private use is legal, but watching 
them isn't
Aug 26 2009
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Paul D. Anderson <paul.d.removethis.anderson comcast.andthis.net> writes:
Paul D. Anderson Wrote:


 I'm going to add Linux to my PC to get a dual-boot configuration. (I'm tired
of sloooow start ups and want to tap into the great tools available.) The
tutorial I'm looking at suggests Ubuntu. Is there a significant difference in
Linux implementations? Is Ubuntu one of the better ones? Does it make a
difference for running D2?
 
 Thanks in advance for your hellp.
 
 Paul
 


Thanks for all the good advice. I'll even listen to some of it!

Lots of votes for Ubuntu, so I'll probably go with that. (I'm encouraged that I
don't have to make a decision "once and for all time".)

Hopefully, I'll get a chance to do an install and run with it a little bit this
weekend. The hardest part looks to be to clean up my system. My plan is to
install Linux on my D: drive and leave the C: drive for Windows. I've been
using D mainly for backups, but I just got a USB hard drive specifically for
backups, so I can dedicate the D: drive.

Again, thanks for all the good advice. You can now all go back to thinking
about D.

Paul
Aug 20 2009
next sibling parent "Steven Schveighoffer" <schveiguy yahoo.com> writes:
On Thu, 20 Aug 2009 12:49:55 -0400, Paul D. Anderson  
<paul.d.removethis.anderson comcast.andthis.net> wrote:


 Paul D. Anderson Wrote:


 I'm going to add Linux to my PC to get a dual-boot configuration. (I'm  
 tired of sloooow start ups and want to tap into the great tools  
 available.) The tutorial I'm looking at suggests Ubuntu. Is there a  
 significant difference in Linux implementations? Is Ubuntu one of the  
 better ones? Does it make a difference for running D2?

 Thanks in advance for your hellp.

 Paul


 Thanks for all the good advice. I'll even listen to some of it!

 Lots of votes for Ubuntu, so I'll probably go with that. (I'm encouraged  
 that I don't have to make a decision "once and for all time".)

 Hopefully, I'll get a chance to do an install and run with it a little  
 bit this weekend. The hardest part looks to be to clean up my system. My  
 plan is to install Linux on my D: drive and leave the C: drive for  
 Windows. I've been using D mainly for backups, but I just got a USB hard  
 drive specifically for backups, so I can dedicate the D: drive.


Of course you should choose the D drive!  Linux can't run on a C drive, it  
lacks templates, object orientation, and a whole boatload of other  
advanced features that Windows is "just fine" without having.

-Steve
Aug 20 2009
prev sibling parent Vincenzo Ampolo <vincenzo.ampolo gmail.com> writes:
Paul D.  Anderson wrote:


 Lots of votes for Ubuntu, so I'll probably go with that. (I'm 


encouraged

 that I don't have to make a decision "once and for all time".)


Hi,

With Ubuntu you can also have ldc daily builds packages... 
http://www.dsource.org/projects/ldc/wiki/BuildInstructionsUbuntu ;)

See you.
Aug 20 2009
prev sibling parent reply Paul D. Anderson <paul.d.removethis.anderson comcast.andthis.net> writes:
Paul D. Anderson Wrote:


 I'm going to add Linux to my PC to get a dual-boot configuration. (I'm tired
of sloooow start ups and want to tap into the great tools available.) The
tutorial I'm looking at suggests Ubuntu. Is there a significant difference in
Linux implementations? Is Ubuntu one of the better ones? Does it make a
difference for running D2?
 
 Thanks in advance for your hellp.
 
 Paul
 


Thanks to everyone who contributed to my off-topic question. I installed Ubuntu
over the weekend. It took me a couple of tries to get it right (mostly because
I couldn't decide how to partition the disk) but the installation process was
so painless that it wasn't hard to redo it. Now I'm getting acquainted with the
OS. :-)

Thanks again!

Paul
Aug 27 2009
parent reply "Lars T. Kyllingstad" <public kyllingen.NOSPAMnet> writes:
Paul D. Anderson wrote:

 Paul D. Anderson Wrote:
 

 I'm going to add Linux to my PC to get a dual-boot configuration. (I'm tired
of sloooow start ups and want to tap into the great tools available.) The
tutorial I'm looking at suggests Ubuntu. Is there a significant difference in
Linux implementations? Is Ubuntu one of the better ones? Does it make a
difference for running D2?

 Thanks in advance for your hellp.

 Paul


 
 Thanks to everyone who contributed to my off-topic question. I installed
Ubuntu over the weekend. It took me a couple of tries to get it right (mostly
because I couldn't decide how to partition the disk) but the installation
process was so painless that it wasn't hard to redo it. Now I'm getting
acquainted with the OS. :-)
 
 Thanks again!
 
 Paul



Good luck! Always afraid of unfamilar territory, I first tried Linux in 
a dual-boot setup too, several years ago. I think it took about a week 
before I deleted the Windows partition, and I've been using Linux 
exclusively ever since. :)

-Lars
Aug 27 2009
parent reply Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
Lars T. Kyllingstad wrote:

 Paul D. Anderson wrote:

 Paul D. Anderson Wrote:


 I'm going to add Linux to my PC to get a dual-boot configuration. 
 (I'm tired of sloooow start ups and want to tap into the great tools 
 available.) The tutorial I'm looking at suggests Ubuntu. Is there a 
 significant difference in Linux implementations? Is Ubuntu one of the 
 better ones? Does it make a difference for running D2?

 Thanks in advance for your hellp.

 Paul


 Thanks to everyone who contributed to my off-topic question. I 
 installed Ubuntu over the weekend. It took me a couple of tries to get 
 it right (mostly because I couldn't decide how to partition the disk) 
 but the installation process was so painless that it wasn't hard to 
 redo it. Now I'm getting acquainted with the OS. :-)

 Thanks again!

 Paul


 
 
 Good luck! Always afraid of unfamilar territory, I first tried Linux in 
 a dual-boot setup too, several years ago. I think it took about a week 
 before I deleted the Windows partition, and I've been using Linux 
 exclusively ever since. :)
 
 -Lars


Same here! And the step looked unconceivable just a couple months 
earlier. I remember how a friend who was in the beginning stages of 
Linux asked me several times and very incredulously: "What do you mean 
you don't have Windows at all on your laptop?"


Andrei
Aug 28 2009
next sibling parent language_fan <foo bar.com.invalid> writes:
Fri, 28 Aug 2009 08:18:57 -0500, Andrei Alexandrescu thusly wrote:


 Same here! And the step looked unconceivable just a couple months
 earlier. I remember how a friend who was in the beginning stages of
 Linux asked me several times and very incredulously: "What do you mean
 you don't have Windows at all on your laptop?"


Linux has matured a lot since the early days. When I first tried it, it 
took me 4 years and 2 PC upgrades to get a compatible graphics card which 
was able to display anything other than the 80x25 text mode and 
320x200x4b on xfree86. No, I don't want to manually type some weird bit 
counts and internal clock frequencies ever again!

I bought my first nvidia card in 1999 and everything has worked almost 
flawlessly since then. And that's not even the worst part, 10 years ago 
there was no ntfs write support, many sound drivers sucked, hotplug 
sucked, 56k internal modem drivers sucked, even the mouse drivers acted 
randomly, fscking ext2 (ext3 didn't exist yet!) was dreadfully slow, and 
the distro cds came with broken compiler packages. The fresh new 
installation was mostly useful for learning bash and perl, but not much 
more, a graphical desktop would have been something awesome.
Aug 28 2009
prev sibling parent Jarrett Billingsley <jarrett.billingsley gmail.com> writes:
On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 1:49 AM, Nick Sabalausky<a a.a> wrote:

 And if anyone knows how to edit a system-settings text file without
 dropping to the command-line and doing "sudo gedit blahfile &" (and without
 having to start out with "sudo pwd" or "sudo echo" just so the "sudo gedit
 &" does something useful instead of creating a background process that sits
 and waits for input that'll never come from a prompt that I'll never see),
 then *please*, let me know.


That's what gksu - or on KDE, kdesu - is for. ;)
Sep 02 2009